roamingfox

5 -12 July 2010 Continued from previous blog Day 5 – Half day mokoro trip or fishing for tiger fish. On day five at the delta there was a good chance that we could get very close to hippos, even though we hadn’t seen the one that had wandered around our camp the previous night. The morning was taken up by our mokoro trip, a dugout canoe. We were quite excited, because we have always wanted to experience this age old tradition of travelling on the waters of the delta. We’d heard many stories from mom and dad about their time in a mokoro and the fun they had. A slight disappointment that the mokoros weren’t made out of wood anymore, now more likely fibreglass, but it stands to reason that they want to preserve as ... read more

Friday – 16/9/2016 Picking up from my last blog, in Bristol we picked up our dispersed travellers and returned to Bath, where we’d moored before on the river. The last time we were there we were wondering if we could continue with our trip. Thankfully, Paul’s back was considerably better. He was still in some pain but there was improvement. While chugging up the river, Susan tried her hand at the locks and did very well. Dale was a pro and a great help. One of the deeper locks was interesting to watch. Jill ducked inside, so that she didn’t get wet, but was like a coiled spring, jumping up and peeking at everything, wanting to see what was going on. The lock took ages to fill; such a great force of water. Another interesting sight ... read more

Going on a canal trip had been on our bucket list for ages. The time had finally arrived and it was difficult to curb our enthusiasm. Three days into the trip, it was another story. Having your husband collapse in agony, not certain if we could continue and a possibility of him spending some time in hospital was a sure way to put a dampener on that excitement. Having flown with Virgin Atlantic, which was a pleasant experience, we arrived at Heathrow. We needed to get to Paddington station then Bradford on Avon, which meant a few change overs of trains. Our first mistake was being ‘assisted’ by a lady selling tickets from Heathrow to Paddington. Very helpful, she sold us the most expensive 15 minute train ride – the Heathrow express. Be warned; ask if ... read more

AKA Looked around, saw lots & depleted the budget. We hit the ground running when we landed in Sydney. Just enough time to have a shower and dinner then we headed to Canberra for the weekend. As we flew in it was raining and we thought this was going to be the norm for our holiday, but we were pleasantly surprised. Most of the time it was sunny except for the odd cloudy day and shower. Can’t complain about that in the middle of winter. We had some cold weather, though and some pleasantly warm days too. Unfortunately our drive to Canberra was in the dark so we couldn't see any of the scenery but we had a good tour guide colouring in the dark expanse. Did I forget to mention that it was great to ... read more

Mapungubwe has been on my bucket list for a while. Why? For a combination of reasons: it’s a World Heritage site where the Golden rhino was found so the significance of its history plays a part, heard the scenery is really beautiful and if you are camping you may hear some animals at night. So off we went on a short safari, camping for 8 days at Mazhou camp. We didn’t plan to go to a Heritage site when it is Heritage month in SA, that was quite coincidental but appropriate. Mapungubwe is a strange conglomerate of conservation area, farmland & mining. We camped on the wild side, only 10 stands with limited ablution facilities that were kept clean and always had hot water, except for one night when we had NO water, but I’ll get ... read more