The canoe journey with NatureWays had finished, and I didn't have any clear idea of what to do next. (Doesn't sound like me, eh? :-) So I decided to spend a couple days in Kariba, get my exhaust pipe welded up, update my web pages, check my e-mail, make some plans etc., and then move on. Where to? Maybe to Zambia, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the Kalahari and Skeleton Coast in Namibia, or perhaps scuba diving in Lake Malawi, through the cool, scenic Eastern Highlands in Zimbabwe and then along the beautiful Indian Ocean coastline in Mozambique (but watch out for land-mines!), down through Kruger National Park (Kruger is about the size of Wales!) in South Africa... Too many choices, not enough time and money!
So, here I was in Kariba updating my web site when Hans van der Hyden, the owner of Kushinga resort lodge where I am camping, walked over and asked if I would go up in his plane for an hour or so and take some photos with my digital camera. Would I mind? So we took the doors off the plane (do you know how noisy a plane is with no doors?) and flew over Lake Kariba, over Kushinga lodge, past the dam wall, skimmed low over the Zambezi river with pods of hippo, over the parched hills of the Zambezi escarpment, buzzed Hans' houseboat on the lake, and over the rugged Lake Wilderness in Matusandona N.P. with herds of elephant and buffalo. Many of the photos were blurred, or of water and plane wheels and dashboards (OK, I'm new at aerial photography!), but some of them turned out very well.
Then Hans and Val (a special hello, thankyou for your hospitality!) asked if I would like to take a complimentary three day canoe trip between Kariba and Chirundu? Well, how could I turn down such a kind offer. Whilst some guide books bill this as the least interesting stretch of the Zambezi to canoe, due to the sparsity of game viewing, I don't think this is an entirely fair assessment. The gorges are stunning, there is some game (though it is often difficult to see due to being so well camouflaged in the mountainous terrain), and just being out on the Zambezi with the hippos and crocs is very enjoyable. I went with Toby and his two sisters (Allie and Sophia), mad world travellers from county Carlow, the smallest county in Ireland, Fiona from Scotland (even madder?), and our two local guides, Norman and Manuelle, and we had a ball. This was a participatory canoe trip (i.e. you weren't completely molly-coddled as in the NatureWays journey!), but every bit as enjoyable.
Then I spent three days in Lake Wilderness in Matusadona N.P. (on the shores of Lake Kariba) where I did some more canoeing, game viewing and photography. There are an estimated 300+ lions in this National Park, due to the abundance of game, and walkers are sometimes "mock charged". Unfortunately an English guy was eaten by lions one night in July 1999. Craig, a local professional walking guide, tells a story about how he and a client from NZ had a pride of lions prowling around their tents all night! Needless to say, they didn't get much sleep that night! During the daylight hours, lions generally have a fear of man. However, under cover of the darkness of night that fear disappates, until people become just another source of food! It's amazing - a lion is powerful enough to carry a buffalo carcass that would be heavy for six men to shift, and I heard a story of a lion killing an oxen and leaping over a six foot fence with barbed wire carrying this heavy ox! And yet, the flimsy wrap of a tent or even a mosquito net is generally a sufficient psychological barrier that will protect a man from the King of the Jungle!
Lake Wilderness is a truly beautiful spot - lots of drowned mopani trees from when the lake was flooded, with fish eagles perched high. A herd of wild buffalo spent the night in the relative safety of our island, while a pride of lions feasted on their kill on the lake shore near-by. When we got there, the lions were up at the tree-line, and a flock of vultures were fighting over the impala remains.
A special hello to Gus and Warren at the Cock and Crutch pub. Thanks guys for making me feel truly welcome in Kariba! Gus has converted his home into this local (mostly white) pub with a lot of atmosphere. I went to a local pub where the clientelle is almost all black, but the atmosphere is different... ask me about it sometime, if you're interested. I won't bore you with the details now!
Here is a brief description of the photos:
There were more than twenty hippopotamuses in this pod. It was unusual to see them grazing by the river bank during the heat of the day. However, when they saw us coming, they very considerately got up and trundled to the middle of the river, allowing us a safe distance to navigate the canoes around them. Several times we had competitions to see who could do the best hippo imitations! The herbivorous hippoes are responsible (either directly or indirectly) for more human deaths than any other animal in Africa.
I was particularly happy with the symmetry in this shot. I think the light is well placed. We canoed through some stunning gorges. The Kariba to Chirundu stretch of the Zambezi is the best place to see this scenery.
The people in this canoeing shot, from left to right, are Manuelle (the trainee canoe guide), Norman, Toby, Sophia, Fiona and Allie. If you ever see Fiona, ask her to tell you her embarassing "wild Scottish woman" story! We had a great time running around dunking one another, covering each other with mud, and generally horsing around on the shallow sand banks.
We took the doors of Hans' six seater plane and flew over Lake Kariba, buzzed the houseboat several times, past the Lake Kariba dam wall (where the hydro-electric power station is), skimmed over the Zambezi (that's the wing strut of the plane in the photo - at one point I felt I could almost dangle my feet in the water!) and flew out to Lake Wilderness in Matusadona NP where I will be staying this week.
