Rachel Grindlay

From Botswana we travelled to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe where we spent 3 nights. On our first night I found this little intruder in our accommodation.

The restaurant which was located at our lodge was also a major tourist destination. Boma is known for serving up local African meats (warthog, eland, crocodile, guinea fowl etc) and traditional dancing. We all got ‘dressed’ as we entered as well. We just booked in because it was about 2 minutes walk from our lodge!

After white-water rafting the Zambezi 19 years ago I was really keen to do again. After much cajoling I convinced Tom… View of the gorge from the cafe where we had the safety briefing.

 

 

Our group (Tom & I on the left) about to get into the rafts.

Tom and I got chosen to sit at the front of our raft for most of the day – which is good cause we’re in more photos!

Rafting video action can be seen at https://youtu.be/vK8iWvso5cI

The following day we signed up for a helicopter trip above the falls. We were lucky to be upgraded to the 26 minute trip instead of the 12 minute one, as the other couple we were going with had paid for the 26 minute trip. (Though we were strictly informed to not mention our upgrade to them)

This was our first view of the falls as we’d been rafting the previous day. It was the dry season but it was way drier than I was expecting. Apparently the previous rainy season had been poor.

The almost non-existent flow on the Zambian side.

From Vic Falls we flew to Johannesburg and were hosted magnificently by Zig & Dave. We visited a local reserve and enjoyed a walk.

Then visited the Johannesburg Botanic Gardens for lunch and eagle viewing.