And the tour begins...........

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Hi everyone......we're struggling to find good internet access on this trip so will be loading blogs by country from now on.

28th August - Nomad Tour Day 1 Victoria Falls to Lusaka
Kath and I woke early as we had to be at our tour start point by 7.45….a short walk away although laden down with our heavy packs, bottle of gin and other things it took us a while to get there….. but we made it and sat down for a coffee to wait for the rest of the tour group to arrive……2 hours later we actually left the lodge and picked up people along the way. So we finally made it to the border after 9am and walked across the bridge to Zambia and tried to avoid being accosted by the huge baboons that were staking out the Zambian immigration building……US$50 and a stamp later we were in Zambia….another wait of about an hour for the truck to get it’s visa and we were on the road to Livingstone to change money into Zambian Kwacha, buy provisions, get diesel for the truck and pick up another couple of people. We finally made it out of Livingstone after 12pm….already feeling like we had been on the road for hours and facing an 8 hour drive to Lusaka.

It’s probably a good time to describe our truck…..it’s definitely not built for comfort! His name is
Freddy…yes even the trucks get names here…apparently named after Freddy Mercury who’s home town of Zanzibar is on our tour. There are 22 people on our trip plus our 2 crew; Bernie our driver and Cassidy our tour guide/cook, they’re both from Zim and very cool guys with lots of overlanding experience which is good. The group is made up of 11 different nationalities mainly from Europe, I’m the only Kiwi and there’s only 2 Australians which is a change from last year. And yes there’s a very different feel about the group than last year…..no partying every night and copious amounts of alcohol…..Kate we need you on this tour to pour your mammoth G &T’s :-)

So anyway we got to Lusaka at 8.30pm after having lunch on the side of the road and battling our way along very bumpy roads, through bustling villages and lots of dry landscape. It was dark when we got there so Kath and I donned our head torches and attempted to set up our tent…luckily it was the same as our tents last year so we knew what to do and had ourselves sorted quickly….dinner was a slap up spag bol and we pretty much went straight to bed as we had an early 5.30am start in the morning.
29th July Day 2 Lusaka to Chipata

I awoke early to the sounds of the cows being moved through our camp and the dogs barking at them, it was tents down again and load up the truck ready for another big drive across some more pretty bumpy roads. Lunch was once again on the side of the road in a layby beside a small village. The children came out to watch us and ask for pens etc…we took photos instead and played.
We arrived at camp at a much better time of 5pm after a trip to the local Shoprite for more food, snacks and beer. 2 other trucks were already in camp, one very similar to our old mule and the other a brand new truck that looked more like a luxury coach….we were all green with envy. We later found out that the new truck seated 34 people and there were only 5 people on the tour….meanwhile we were packing 22 people and all our packs (all the luggage storage is inside the cabin above our seats and when we go over bumps packs, sleeping bags and other things fall on your head!) into a truck built for 25!
30th July Day 3 Chipata to South Luangwa National Park

We had a bit of a sleep in this morning, up at 6.30 for a 7.30 departure, we had only 150 kms to travel but most of the trip was on dirt roads so it took us over 4 hours to get to our camp. Kath and I had made it clear the night before that we wanted to change seats as we’d been sitting at the back of the bus for the last 2 days and had had enough of being thrown all over the place everytime we went over another pothole so we ended up with the very front seats and had a lovely trip  We stopped along the way for toilet stops in the bushes and bought bananas and coal along the road. A tar seal road is under construction but like most things in Africa is taking a very long time to be completed. We arrived at camp around 12pm and had a free afternoon to enjoy the warm weather (yes finally it was warming up), the pool, bar and amazing view of the Luangwa River complete with hippos lounging around and crocodiles on the shore.

South Luangwa National Park is huge…over 9000 square km’s, there’s a huge population of crocodiles, hippos, giraffe and leopards in the park and we were lucky enough on our game drive that evening to come across a leopard sitting out in the open. We also saw a few hyena on the scavenge amongst the many impala and had a herd of zebra crossing the track in front of our jeep but unfortunately no other cats were seen. We arrived back at camp for a late dinner of barbequed chicken and coleslaw…yum! Another early night as we had to be up for our morning game drive.

31st July Day 4 South Luangwa National Park
This was our first morning where we didn’t have to pack up so we could just get up and eat a snack before we were picked up for our game drive, we had a choice to either go for a walking safari through the park or on a jeep….Kath and I had decided to do the jeep drive as there was a greater chance of seeing cats but unfortunately it didn’t happen. We saw a large herd of elephants, a few zebra , giraffe, buffalo, heaps of impala and puku (very similar to impala but all brown in colour), kudu, waterback and of course lots of hippos wallowing in the water. We arrived back at camp for 11am and a huge brunch then in the afternoon a village tour and textile market visit had been organized but Kath and I decided that we needed a bit of time out so stayed back at camp and chilled out by the pool, did a spot of laundry, chatted with Bernie and Cassidy and explored the rest of the lodge. The rest of the group came back about 5pm with stories of a disappointing afternoon so we were glad that we’d done our own thing.
A few of us sat in the bar and watched the sun go down over the river, one of the best things about being back in Africa is the amazing sunsets and sunrises I’ll hopefully be able to load one of my photos to show you.

Dinner was a bit pork casserole with spuds, then early to bed as we had to be up at 4.45am….these starts seem to be getting earlier and earlier.

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