Up up and away

Roger and myself had been on the road for almost half of December!! Crossing from Jo-Burg to Namibia up through Botswana and through to Victoria falls. The KLR650 and the 950 KTM had dealt with the trip across tar roads, desert sands and gravel roads with no real problems. The only real problem came after we crossed the Zambezi river on a little ferry packed with locals carrying sacks of potatoes and other goods on their heads. Because Rogers KTM was a demonstration bike and had not been properly registered yet they wouldn’t let us in to Zambia on that technicality. Even though I had had no number plate on my bike for thousands of miles!! (it got ripped of in the mountain sections) I dare say if we had slipped the customs man a few thousand Zambian kwacha we could have bribed our way through but we had ridden a long way and where in no mood to take risks or get stranded on the wrong side of the river!! After a bit of rushing around we managed to hop on the last ferry back to the Botswana side. Had we missed that ferry we would have had to camp next to the crocodile infested river next to the border!! We rode into the local town Kasane and booked into the Chobe safari lodge in a large tent on raised platform complete with two comfortable beds electric and hot water outside and lots and lots of hungry mossies!!! It was a secure compound with a hotel and restaurant and plenty of organized activities. The electric fence and razor wire where to keep the elephants out amongst other things. The idea of travelling this far was mainly to see Victoria falls and it was looking as if that was not going to be possible. The Zambian border was a No No and the Zimbabwe side wanted more money for a visa for me and after talking to other travelers about the corruption on the other side towards visitors we decided that I should go see the falls on an organized trip on my own as Roger has seen the falls many times before. Unfortunately the next two days where fully booked on the trips and it looked like I was not going to see the falls. Until that was I saw that they had flights in a Cessna 220!! The pilot I found out was down in Mauan and was not returning for a few days. I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to come back another time to see Victoria falls and went on a game drive that afternoon instead into Chobe national park. Awesome just awesome i rode in the back of a safari truck with a group of American and English tourists spotting a huge amount of wildlife along the 4 hour trip. We had elephants less than 15 feet away. Richard our driver spotted wildlife from miles away and drove us to within a few feet of hippo's impalas crocs amongst a few. Richards phone rang while we where watching two young elephants pushing each other around very close to our truck, Richard informed me that the pilot was returning from Maun and would be able to fly us over the falls the next day. Not the cheapest of trips but there was no way I was travelling all that way and not seeing the falls.
The next day we rode to Kasane airport and met Kerry our Kiwi pilot. Just me and Roger the pilot and the open sky!!! It was my first time in a small aircraft but after a few months in Africa sleeping outside on the floor and riding through deserts and up through mountains I is one pretty brave POM Kerry gave us a really smooth flight over to the falls and circled twice over it at the compulsory 6000 feet to get some cool pictures. We landed in Zambia at livingstone airport and paid $20 each for the privilege!! we took off again after a beer and Kerry asked if we wanted to fly low over the Zambezi river!! Silly question huh?? And did we!! Banking round hard a few hundred feet from the river we raced along spotting hippos and crocs and after a bit of searching some locals in a dug out canoe he he!!! They all stood up ready to jump as our pilot expertly skimmed them and flew off along the river. As I looked back they where waving and cheering (well it looked like cheering) another smooth landing saw us back on Botswana soil and a journey I won’t forget. The next day we rode back down to South Africa and home for Christmas :-) 

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