Andrew Griffiths & Katherine Norton
Well, we are in the final days of our UK visas and are about to embark on a three month trip through Southern Africa, returning to UK for a wedding, and then home to NZ via SE Asia for our own wedding. Andrew and Katherine
It'll be fantastic to be back in NZ after almost four years abroad, but first we are both looking forward to loading up our backpacks once more, getting behind the wheel of a 4x4 and dodging any charging elephants in our path!
Travel Blog Posts
I Left my Appendix in Windhoek and I didn't even get a Lousy T-Shirt
Published: August 23rd 2006Africa » Namibia
August 23rd 2006
At the outset of this blog I have to say how proud I am of Katherine and her recovery from surgery. Despite a bit of snivelling before and after the operation (from both of us), she was out of the hospital in under 48 hours proudly displaying a dozen or so stitches in three holes in her belly. We stayed in Windhoek for the next day and treated ourselves to a night at the “Roof of Africa” - the most expensive place in the budget section of our Lonely Planet (nothing is too good for my gal). We had a fantastic little room with a lovely bougainvillea covered balcony where I lounged for most of the day while K slept. Too stingy for the restaurant, we smuggled our cooking gear into the room and cooked up ... read more
August 12th 2006
Critters in Botswana Chobe National Park didn’t disappoint - within an hour of entering we had spotted our first real lions (we’ve decided the sleeping one we saw in Kruger, which looked small and vague even through binoculars, doesn’t count). A pride of six mature lionesses and one young lion walking alongside the river occasionally drinking and completely ignoring the half a dozen vehicles jostling for views meters away from them. I must say that in real life lions are a lot bigger than I thought they would be. Later that same day on an evening game drive we also saw a sleeping lioness with three healthy and playful young cubs. The cubs clambered and fought over a dead tree, all energy and curiosity, while mum languished behind them having a well earned rest. Chobe is ... read more
July 26th 2006
Blocked by Bill Back in possession of the Beast in the afternoon (after we had had the good people at Toyota Lilongwe replace anything and everything that looked worn or tired) we decided to make our dash deep into Zambia in an attempt to get to South Luangwa National Park before dark. We knew that this would be ambitious, but we’d already spent a day more than we had wanted in Lilongwe and (despite finding a very agreeable Italian restaurant and some good shops) were desperate to get back to the bush. Frustratingly Bill Clinton conspired against our escape from Lilongwe as we were caught up in a large traffic jam caused by the temporary closure of the main (only) airport/city road so as to better provide his travelcade with smooth transit. Grrr. No doubt all ... read more
July 12th 2006
It took us a day or two to slip into Malawi’s renowned relaxed vibe, but a couple of days in Blantyre were a slightly weird start to the country. It is a very sleepy city in which the only industry seems to be banks, aid agencies and mission stations. It made us conscious right from the start of a side to Malawi (and probably other African countries as well, but very obvious here) that is probably worth an entire blog in itself. That is the impact that continuous good-willed foreign interventions of aid and religion missionary has had on the country. It seems to us that all this “help” is doing very little good and worryingly is creating very obvious dependencies and distortion in the local economy. Perhaps most disturbing is an ingrained “gimme” mentality we ... read more
June 29th 2006
The news from Jannie at White River Toyota was not what we wanted to hear. Our 4x4 (or “bakkie” as they are called here) was suffering from not one but three separate issues that were culminating in some very rough running. First, and most obvious, there was a fair sized oil leak somewhere in the engine. Second, there were a number of corroded wires and points that apparently meant that of the 12 volts being provided by the battery, only 6 were getting anywhere useful. Third, dirty fuel had clogged the petrol pump (in just 500mls of petrol drained from the tank there were three clumps of stuff that looked suspiciously like the “carrots” that always surface in vomit). Since we’d arrived at 4pm on the Thursday and Friday was a public holiday we were looking ... read more
June 15th 2006
Capetown We arrived in South Africa after a fairly uneventful flight - food was slightly better than average but half the movie channels unwatchable due to poor sound. Slightly perplexed by S.A. customs - apparently anyone can only bring 3000 rand worth of new or used goods not bought in S.A. into the country. Given the exchange rate, any tourist wearing pants, a watch and sunglasses would exceed this?!? Anyway, walked through with big tourist smiles on faces so no probs. Went straight from the airport to Drive Africa to get the car - it’s an absolute beast, looks shinier and newer than either of us expected and also comes with CD player and air-con (two critical questions we forgot to ask). It’s got oodles of lockers for all our gear and a tent that folds ... read more
June 3rd 2006
Love of London Well, that’s it for London. We’ve packed the last two years of our lives into assorted boxes for freighting back to NZ and into our own bulging backpacks. It’s Africa or broke (or more accurately, Africa then broke)! Our time in England has been wonderful. It’s clichéd to say, but I just don’t know where our last two years have gone. We’ve had a lot of good times and have been lucky enough to share them with some great friends. We have perhaps been guilty of neglecting London and England a little in favour of more exotic destinations during our time here. In our defence though, the whole short break to Europe thing is just heaven for New Zealanders - so many countries so easily reached. Real kid in candy store stuff. ... read more
May 15th 2006
Venice Hi all, we’ve just come back from a thoroughly enjoyable and self-indulgent weekend in Venice. It was our last planned short-break in Europe. God, we are so going to miss being able to nip away from London into mainland Europe on the weekends. It is such a fantastic thing to be able to head away from work on a Friday afternoon and arrive in plenty of time for dinner in your pick of European cities. Soggy tuna and sweetcorn roll with a can of coke at your desk for lunch - fresh pasta with pesto and bottle of wine seated in a lovely little town square for dinner….sighhhh…... It’s hard to know what to write about Venice given that so much has been written about it in the past and so many of you have ... read more
May 9th 2006
Getting from A to B As you know, the plan is for us to head off to Southern Africa to cruise around and look at critters from early June to the end of August this year. We both feel that we are a bit too old/unsociable/judgemental/unwashed for the whole “group in the back of a truck trip” thing so decided to go independent. Don’t get me wrong, travel friends have turned into some of our best friends and K and I are all for singing kumbaya around the camp fire with new acquaintances (here’s hoping there will be a few) - but pretty much only when it is at the mutual choice of all kumbaya’ers and after a little bit of time has been spent sussing each other out. So, what we are going to do ... read more
May 4th 2006
Hi there... OK, so the whole point of this blog was to chart our travels through Southern Africa and beyond, but the thing is we haven't quite left London yet. So we'll just use our last couple of short breaks in Europe to practice using the site and to re-establish mailing lists etc...Recently we've both been a little bit complacent about the whole communication thing I am afraid. I'd like to blame it on our self-absorbing London lives, but there is no real excuse. These first couple of entries will also give Katherine plenty of incentive to get to grips with her whopper digital SLR camera she's just bought because she now knows her pics will be on display for the world to see! It's a beast I tell you, with more functions than a ... read more
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