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Published: March 29th 2009
Day 297 (1/2/09)
After a very restless nights sleep between the heat, the mozzies and the massive storm.. sleep just wasn't on the cards. We bid farewell to the boat of joy and reunited with Barbara who despite the down pour of rain made it back to the main road without getting bogged.
DRIVE DAY... the rain continued on and off and we eventually arrived at 'Grubby's Grotto' Livingstone (Zambia's capital). We watched a promo DVD outlining all the available activity for the next few days and quickly recalculated the budget to allow us to do just about .... everything. Signed up, Carly set to whipping up some form of beef and fried rice with the little available ingredients from the supermarket. Naturally, the meal turned out delicious and we called it a night it lue of our early start walking with the lions the following morning!
Day 298
Struggling to sleep with excitement we caught our transfer to the Lion reserve passing a huge bull elephant on the way. As we pulled into the carpark we were greeted by three five month old cubs, Luigi, Losi and Lini bounding with energy we followed the cubs to the office. Here
we were given a safety briefing and coffee. We began the 'Lion walk'... with two beautiful 22mth old lion and lioness named Muchi meaning King and Masaka meaning Queen. They led the way with Jez sidling up for the first pat. Our lion guides soon got them to sit down briefly but long enough for us to sneak in for a pat and a couple photo's. We each took in turns getting in for a pat and firing off thousands of priceless photo's, but equally quickly getting out of the way then they decided enough patting was enough! We watched the lions, play, wrestle and climb a tree, then take off, quickly disappearing out of sight as we jogged behind catching up for some final pic's and pat's. On our way back to the office we came across the cubs again, still bounding with energy, chasing each other, and wrestling a boot on string from the tree and falling to the ground! Leaving us all in fits of giggles.
Regretfully our time was up and we dragged ourselves away from the cubs to watch our DVD, suitably impressed we bought a copy and said goodbye to our fantastic guides.
We
got our transfer to drop us off a Victoria falls on the way back, first we took the photo route getting a magnificent view of the bungee bridge, then we went back to the front route hired some jackets and tried to keep the camera's dry. The view was AMAZING! Leaving us all speechless and saturated! Being wet season the falls are billowing with water with spray (more closely resembling a downpour) covering most of the walk.
On the way back we decided to head down to the 'Boiling Pot', through a couple streams, over rocks to find us a the bottom of the spectacular Nile looking up at the bridge.
Back through the front gates we successfully avoided the roaming baboons but couldn't find a taxi to take us into town (not knowing at this time there was a taxi strike taking place in town). Twelve km's out of town we eventually found a guy who agreed to take all 7 of us, providing we walk past the police and round the corner and out of sight(Should have known then it was probably a bad idea). We did as he said and he met us round the corner, just
a we were getting in, a taxi traveling on the other side of the road makes at B line for us, 6 blokes jump out and ask us to get out and start hassling our driver. Hearts starting to race a Owen's door was still open, the driver helps pull the door shut and throws his foot to the floor, the guy hassling the driver attempts to grab the wheel but soon lets go as the others jump clear of the car. We continue racing at 120 clicks all looking back to see whether they were following us! Not sure what would happen if they did. Once in the clear and with no signs of being followed the driver agreed to slow down a bit and we made it safely back to Grubby's, we tipped him and encouraged him to take the rest of the day off!
We grabbed some lunch from the leftovers and checked the net before gearing up for our Microlight flight over Vic falls. A microlight resembles a lawnmower with wings, fortunately it fly's a lot better. The dark clouds started rolling in and we were worried it too would be canceled. Fortunately it
cleared over quickly and our transfer arrived to take us out to the airfield.
After the briefest of safety briefings we signed our lives away and took off. The views were simply amazing and we got a true appreciation of the monstrous size of the falls, flying over the Zimbabwean side (this time by air) and over the Zambezi river busy with sunset cruises, hippo's and elephants bathing.
We landed safely, still brimming with adrenalin and ore of the beautiful falls.
Back at camp we headed into town for a civilized dinner with Vicky, Owen, Jono and Tom.
Day 299- ADRENALIN DAY
Another excited sleep, we headed off for an action packed day of adrenalin sports. We arrived at Abseil Zambia a loud bunch of excitement, nerves and energy. Another safety briefing and we split into two groups, with the gorge swing left til last, we had fairly low expectations of the other activities, but we had abseil first up. Stupidly Carly admitted she had abseiled before (some time in the 90's at the age of 12) So she was first, after a couple unplanned twists and spins she made it down unscathed but feeling the grind on the
climb back up from the gorge. Jez's cruised his way down and like our entire group enjoyed a couple spins before landing his two feet to the bottom.
Next up was the flying fox, where you ran off a platform and horizontally cruise off the edge rather slowly. However, your whole adrenalin day fee would be refunded (FREE!!) if you made it all the way across the gorge to the other side and apparently it had been done before. With the stakes high we all had a crack! With a distinct lack of speed none of us got close despite an array of tactic's Carly tried swimming, Owen launched himself and Mike's action somewhat resembled superman.
Finally the time had come for the mighty gorge swing a 54m meter drop, catching speeds of up 120km/ hour, this wasn't for the faint hearted. (As seen by Matt Osbourne). The double's were first up, keen to get it over and done with before the nerves got too great or someone else sacred us out of it we were first up. As a double you must go backwards known as the 'Death Roll'... comforting name! Harnessed up we made our way to the
edge of the platform, legs shaking at a rate of knots and 3, 2, .... don't think we made it to 1, we were off screaming and laughing all the way to the bottom. Adrenalin rushing through our limbs, Carly didn't even realise she'd taken a chunk out of the inside of here mouth somehow on the way down. We watched the Nuts and Nita, Mike and Giselle from the bottom before making the step climb back to the top for another go. This time singularly. Having done it once it was supposed to get easier, but when you've got no-one else to hang on to its much scarier. Jez lept.. wooohooing all the way. Then it started to rain... forcing a short break. Carly followed in a broken screaming fashion and made the trek back to the top for lunch. With another rain and lightning interruption we were more then content and headed back to meet up with the others for our sunset/booze cruise.
With the others waiting for us we set off immediately. Everyone brimming with excitement we shared stories of gorge swings and white water rafting before coming across a number of pods of hippo's wallowing in
the shallows. Once the sun set our cruise's focus quickly turned to booze, before we knew it we arrived back to shore where we were joined in with some song, dance and drumming at the bar.
Day 300
Too hot to sleep in the tent we set to a growing list of boring jobs to do in town, laundry, DVD's to burn, jobs and houses to find for the dreaded return to reality and the never ending blog to catch up on.
With a most things ticked off the list we settled in for our last night at Livingstone at the Grubby's Bar.
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Justin
non-member comment
wow it looks like a top tour! love your rainbow photo's jez! good to hear bush gym took off and your maintaining that huge body of yours!!!! which mite i add was accentuatedin those hot blue pants!!