A little distracted

Apologies for not updating the blog with all the wonderful photos from the safari, but I have been a little distracted with the very quick and imminent arrival of my son Noah!!!!!!!!!! More later I promise when I have time to update the blog. For now here is a photo of the little man.

The "All About Me" Safari - Part One - The Drive to Lusaka

First of all let me say one thing - WOOOOO HOOOOOO - it field break time again. This time I am not heading back to Australia but exploring my adopted homeland of Zambia in a 5 star all about me Safari holiday.

The holiday will consist of the following: drive to Lusaka, out to South Luwanwa national park for 4 day safari, 4 days in Livingstone to see the Victoria Falls and another game park with White Rhino's, down to Chobe national park in Botswana for another 4 day safari, then back to Lusaka for 2 days for shopping and stocking up, then drive back home to Lumwana.

So Part One - The Drive to Lusaka. Well what an experience. After leaving at 5.30am in the morning I finally arrived in Lusaka at 4pm, alive and in one piece but a little shaken. All i can say is that these dudes are crazy behind the wheel of a car, bus, or truck!

I have decided that the Zambian driving rules consist of the following 3 only:
1. Giveway is a myth, if you pull out in front of someone they will stop
2. Never under any circumstances use your indicators
3. Drive as fast as humanly possible at all times

There is also one other special rule that would apply to the guys who "maintain" the roads - under no circumstances should potholes be filled in! This would not only be a waste of time because they will just come back, but also it would take away the fun that a driver has in playing "doggem" with the potholes that could rip out the front diff of even the most hardy of 4WD cars.

So watch this space for more updates and photos (hopefully of the Big 5) of my All About Me Safari.

Nsobe Game Camp

The management team of the mine recently spent 3 days away at the Nsobe Game Camp, the plan was to develop the strategic plan for the operation and also do a bit of "bonding". The last few pictures show the management team as a whole on the last evening, also a photo of Brenda the Sustainability manager and one of Colin the Security Manager (aka Chief of Thugery) and Nathan the Corporate Relations Manager.

This was the first time I have had the new camera out and i must say the results are not too bad, mind you it was all done on the auto setting as i have only gotten through the first chapter of the instruction manual (i seriously dislike reading insruction manuals).

Anyway as you can see from the photo's Nsobe is a lovely place with some great scenery and also some of what I call really truely African animals. So my first real African animal sighting was the Girafe, such majestic animals and the baby (which was about 2 meters tall) was just the cutest little thing.

Nsobe is about an hour south of Ndola along the road heading to Lusaka. The accommodation is quite rustic, the cabin i was in was a simple A frame design with a thatched roof, some walls and chicken wire in the other places to keep the monkeys out! No air conditioning or fans but it was not really needed at this time of year as it is getting quite cold at night time. Sleeping under a mosquito net with a tonne of blankets on you to keep warm is just such a different experience but great at the same time.

Apologies for being a slacker

Yes i know i have been very slack over the last few weeks with no updates to the blog. I promise to turn over a new leaf and be a little more consistant with the posting thing. When i figure out how to download photos from the camera in a quicker fashion that will also help.

Stay tuned for the next installment...........

PS I have redisovered Gin and Tonic, or as us locals call it G&T!!!! Also know as mosquito repellant, it is apparently good for keeping the little buggers away, well that is my excuse and I am sticking to it!!!

Nchila Camping Adventure Part 3 - The Camping

After another hours drive past the source of the Zambia, in which we travelled only 17Km, we reached our camping destination for the evening, Nchila Wildlife Reserve and Hunting Lodge. Nchila is a working farm and dairy, wildlife reserve and hunting lodge that has been here for approximately 140 years and is still run by the same family. It was first started by someone who came over from Angola as a missionary and decided to stay. If you look on the map Nchila is located in the most western corner of Zambia, pretty much at the cross roads of Angola, Zambia and the DRC.

The camping grounds are amazing and are setup with open sky toilets and showers with hot and cold running water, a kitchen lappa and a huge eating and entertaining lappa, fire pits and lots of wood already provided. I LIKE camping Zambian style. The farm provides us with lamb chops and t-bone steaks, freshly "made" so to speak and fresh milk straight from the cow.

In the afternoon we went on a game drive with the owner, he has mostly antelope type animals on the farm, not any of the big 5 unfortunatley but exciting just the same. The animal I managed to get a photo of is a Sable, which are not very common in Zambia and are regarded as a royal animal, dont ask me why.

On the way home the next day we stopped in at a nice little lodge on the Zambezi for lunch, the Kwakuwahi Lodge. Kwakuwahi means beautiful in the local language.

The final photo is of William Rogers, one of 10 kids on the camping adventure.

Nchila Camping Adventure Part 2 - The source of the Zambezi

A very early morning start for the camping adventure with the Patterson, Rogers, Caro & Dave and Neil and Kelly families, plus myself of course meeting at 5am to begin the convoy to the source of the Zambezi River.

After 5 hours of driving on the challenging Zambian roads (see previous post), some interesting navigating through bush tracks and a little side adventure into the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) which was such a buzz I had to take a photo with the boarder crossing sign, we finally arrive at the source of the Zambezi.

Before beginning the trek to the source we had lunch at a "Lappa" in the forrest surrounding the national monument. A lappa is an outdoor structure with a thatched roof and no walls found throughout Zambia (like a Gazebo is the best way to describe it). It is generally nice and cool under the thatched roof so it is a nice place to be on a hot day. Thankfully the rest of the ladies on our little adventure were well organised and brought lots of food. Considering we had 10 kids on our little adventure, it was a good thing we had lots of food. A couple of photos are included of fellow adventurers, the Pattersons and Neil and Kelly with Lorna our youngest adventurer and Calem.

After lunch we started out on the long and arduous trek to the source of the mighty Zambezi river - well actually not that long and arduous at a nice board walk through the forrest to the source. Even with this though I was getting LaLa like towards the end, but dont stress family I had the pen with me and lots of willing people eager to jab me with it, there were lots of comments about Pulp Fiction which was getting me worried.

We eventually arrived at the source (only took about 30 minutes in the end) and would you believe it is just a little pool of water oozing out of the bottom of a tree, hard to imagine that is the source of the Zambezi but they tell me it is true. It will be interesting to see the other end of the Zambezi in a few weeks when i head to Livingstone and go white water rafting on the same river!!

Nchila Camping Adventure Part 1 - The Roads

A recent camping adventure to the far north western corner of Zambia has openned my eyes to the "interesting" Zambian roads. The first photo is of "major" highway, interesting. The tall grass grows right up to the side of the road which makes it like driving down a tunnel. Add to this all the people popping out of the grass, it is like dodgem cars.

The second photo is of a country road, this one was even more interesting, it took 3 hours to travel 50kms!!!! My first experience at four wheel driving, great fun i will admit but not something I want to be doing every day! I was very glad to reach the camping spot at the end of this road, find the esky and crack the first cider of teh day!