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Terry & Sheena - Africa Tour 2015
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These pages record the communication and photos received from member's tours Click on an image to open in a larger window. |
26 April, 2015 Hi you Guys Just to let you know that we are now safely ensconced with the rellies in Perth, Australia (in case you were at all worried....) Have a squeaky new Corolla to ponce about in and may go south towards Albany and the Margaret river for a couple of days. Looking forward to catching up with you again in about a weeks time! Much love to you all. Sherry and Teena April 24, 2015 Hi all you lovely people, Sorry to have been so tardy in keeping up with these emails but lousy access to the Internet and just so many things to do, has left us either unable write or simply too knackered to do so! Such a lot has happened over the last week, but our two day canoe voyage into the Okavango Delta was a real highlight.... 2 hrs in a 4X4 and then a 2 hour sizzle under the blazing sun in a fleet of poled canoes with all our supplies. Gliding up a tributary of the Okavango river has to one of life's real experiences - the enormous silence and calmness, the glass-like clarity of the water, poling along quietly through masses of pink water-lilies and lush green fields of water grasses. Animals to look at on the banks while bird and monkey calls echo about as we passed by - it was just magic. Our local guides poled us into one of the bigger mid-stream islands and then set up camp for us swiftly producing all the amenities - a pit toilet, a tree shower, tents for all, scrounging up a heap of wood for the everlasting fire, unpacked an 8 ft camp table and chairs and even broke out the wine!!! Apparently we didn't even rate as the biggest boozers they'd handled - that honour went to a party of Scots who made them pole in crates of beer and whiskey apparently. Going on "safari" very early the next morning put a whole new meaning on the word.... It's all very well trolling about for miles in a comfy pop-top van and quite another to have to do it on foot let me tell you! Suddenly its all on the animals terms, you have to walk for miles, stalk the bastards trying to creep up on them for that one photo...... This itself is bloody hard at our age but just to make sure you do keep moving, should you stop for more than a few seconds there will be about 47,000 ants marching up the inside of your trousers heading for your cotton-bud places....... I don't know about you, but while my nether regions are largely ornamental these days, I'm still rather attached to them!! Then suddenly, the first big animals loom up out of the early morning mist, two big, black, snorting, surly-looking Cape Buffalo! Ripper! Immediately the realities of the situation become starkly apparent, they are only 50 yards away - a 5 second gallop to you.... so wadderya gonna do if it all turns to custard?? At our age sprinting up a tree, no matter how great the incentive, is a big ask... Diving into the nearest bush sounds good but all sorts of other nice things like scorpions and snakes are already hiding in there.... We decided that a quick sprint to get behind a termite mound, cause they're bloody everywhere and as hard as concrete, was the best option. So there you are, with one eye up the camera viewfinder to get that magic picture, while the other eye is swiveling around 360 degrees like one of those chameleon lizards with the long tongue you see on the telly, looking for the nearest and biggest termite mound to scuttle in behind!! Happily it all turned out well, both then and with the ensuing elephants, giraffes etc - although I will admit to feeling that our strategy had a few holes in it, particularly when watching six bloody big elephants scoffing most of the local veg about 30 feet away while we (and everybody else) was already behind the termite palace! We would sit around the the fire at night ,drinking wine and telling tall tales while dinner cooked in a big three-legged cast iron pot amongst the embers, before creeping early into our igloo tents and simply "dying". So passed two wonderful days. I'll attach some pictures to try and give you some idea of this lovely place. Next stop Victoria falls! Much luv to you all. Terry and Sheena On Wednesday, 15 April 2015
Hi all you lovely people! Judging from the current NZ weather report we aint never coming home! it's about 29 here at moment cause it's evening and the sun has mercifully gone down... Here at the moment is on the edge of the Okavango Delta - we go in tomorrow to be handed over to the local inhabitants for two nights in tents with only minimal clothes and kit. My minimum is what I stand up in and three bottles of wine - I have standards you know!! Spent last night at a Kalahari Bushmen lodge about 7 very sandy and bumpy kilometers off the main road. Rustic but pleasant - candles for the loo, how quaint. We were invited to a Bushman "knees-up" that night round a roaring fire with the locals - sort-of like American Indian pow-wow without the feathers - well, without most clothing actually (them, not us, silly). They collect the cocoons of a bloody big moth, eat the wormy thing, stick a stone on the now empty cocoon and thread heaps of these into a sort-of calf warmer things that rattle like crazy as they jig around the fire in "full" native kit. The Bushmen have been here since before the pyramids so show a little respect - eh? We went for an early morning animal tracking walk with this skinny little guy dressed in a pair of animal skin budgie-smugglers who spoke in clicks - honest! We now know more now about local herbs and berries and trees than I ever wanted to know. Sheena was fascinated by his speech and egged him on by trying to repeat what he was saying. He reckoned that she only needed a few days more to improve her pronuncification and she could be inducted into the tribe! I couldn't quite handle the mental picture of her in beads and a loincloth but we won't go there............ We also found that heaps of the local wildlife are busy at night - jackals, wildebeest, hartebeest, aardvarks and cheetahs seemingly tramp around just beyond where we we were sleeping. I'd better go too - dinner soon and I NEED a shower |
April 13, 2015
Hi All Great to get your email and hear about the BTW lot - well done Warwick, we might just be able to keep up after this holiday..... We're currently sitting in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia with both Wifi and dinner a couple of hours off - such luxury! Tomorrow we cross the border into Botswana on the way to the Okavango delta where we spend two nights camping out with the wildlife - Ye Gods! We're both very well but apparently I'm getting so much sun that I'm starting to be confused with the natives according to Sheena (until they notice my skinny white-boy legs) Journeying to Etosha we missed out on seeing some 5,000 year old San Bushman rock-art as it was persisting down with torrential rain (honestly) and they were worried about flash-floods in the canyon - bugger! We then safaried all over the edges of the vast Etosha park which we know now means"Great place of no water" for the last two days and apart from the mornings it was too bloody hot (35+) as the rains there are late and any sensible animal (except the dumb humans) were snoozing in the shade. But we did manage to score an elephant, a lion, two rhinos, mucho giraffes, birds, springboks, wildebeasts and the odd warthoglet or three! However, compared with East Efrica you had to work very hard for them. Once again there are Oases of great comfort inside the park with man-made and flood-light waterholes where you can score the "Big Five" with a Gin and Tonic in your hand........ Five of us did a flight for a couple of hours from Swarkopmund in a six seater white-knuckle-airlines-thingo inland and then up over Namibias highest mountain and out to the Skeleton coast which was fabulous. The Damaraland Granites are sooo impressive and look like God has concertinaed a vast expanse of rock into toffee=-like ridges out to the horizon... Skimming the waves of the Cape Cross seal colony at 125 ft to see supposedly 250,000 fur seals was great as we got to visit them and the odd shipwreck the next day by land. Apparently the Skeleton coast is just that in the old days - shallow water, persistent fog and once stuck you had an ice cold sea behind you and a ferociously hot desert in front that stretches inland forever....... now there are roads for 4 wheelers and even whole towns where recreational fisherman live. You should see some of their "baches" - wow! The "haves" have definitely got it in Africa Namibia is a place of such utter contrasts it's hard to comprehend without coming here. Our group continues to function well and Chris (welcome to.......here) Collins is a very affable 50 yr old Zimbawean, keeps us all informed and amused. He, and Farai the cook, really go out of their way to make sure we are happy. The lodges where we stay have all been great. It's a very happy truck. I'll try and attach some photos to this email as we will be out of touch for the next week as we enter the Okavango and then the Kalahari desert and the enormous Makadikagdi salt pans before ending up at Victoria Falls for 5 days So far I haven't found a Seth Efican wine I don't like, and have developed a taste for biltong (dried meat) very yummy and available in all sorts of animals and flavours........ Chilli is particularly nice. I'd better go as Sheena is heading for the shower and my chilli chunks are running out. 7 April, 2015 Hi everybody! Yes we are still alive but communications here are scarse and flakey... We have been in Namibia now for three days and what a stupendous country! The scenery is just to die for! The giant orange dunes at Soussavlei are out of this world, and hidden in this spectacular desert and rock country are oases of such comfort and opulence as to beggar the mind. Mind you, simultaneously blowing three tyres on Red Rose our pope-mobile truck and getting into a fishtailing frenzy at 90 kph on dirt road getting here was not for the faint hearted... And the two hour wait for rescue was a worry but it all turned out hugely well with an emegency dinner on the safari company at the flashest lodge in town! We have now almost tasted the big five rather than seen them! I'd better go as we will be soon off to Swapkamund in Red Rose (now repaired) with the the other 7 on the journey - Kiwis rule! 1 April, 2015 Hi everybody We're on the ragged end of Wi-Fi and a mobile phone here in Capetown so I'll keep it short.... We've had a fabulous few days at a "to die for" lodge where wine glasses miraculously refill themselves, and the pool is small but beautifully cool. The table mountain cable car died this morning just as we got there - bugger! So near and yet so far.... We join our tour tomorrow and head off to Namibia. The weather in Capetown is lovely and the waterfront restaurants and shopping much to the ladies liking. We do trust that you are all well. Much love to you all Sherry and Teena |
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