Last time I left you I think with Tuesday of our holiday with Mum and Dad. So here's the continuation of it :) (It's great writing this and looking at the photos. Like reliving the holiday, I like reliving holidays!!
- Wednesday the warthogs returned this morning,
this time Dad woke us up. We then went
for a walk to try to find some enclosed crocodiles, with success (they have a
cage dive there). One of the keepers
fed the crocs while we were there which was cool. We had a look around another market type
place, this one they didn’t hassle you at, while Dad talked to some guy who had
a museum type thing there.
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| Warthogs doing their morning rounds |
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| Jono with croc, but not as brave as me as I actually touched it! |
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| Dad being attacked by a local :) |
- Cuisine we tried but I’m not really sure when to
attribute it to. Crocodile, Ostrich and
Kudu.
- Ilala lodge was lovely, hotel type place, well
worth staying at. Great location also!
- Later on Wednesday we transferred to Elephant
Valley Lodge (EVL) in Botswana. Before
we had even got to the lodge (about 15 mins drive away) we saw our first
elephants right there on the road in front of us. In contrast to Ilala lodge, EVL was luxury
tent accommodation (camping even Mara could handle J !!!!!) by it’s very own water
hole. Awesome. Equally worth staying at. We did our first safari. Our ranger was amazing. We saw hundreds of elephants, giraffes,
hippos, buffalo, impalas, water bucks, a rare type of antelope,
kudu (more dinner), possibly some other animals, but the definite highlight was
seeing a leopard, up really close, it was gorgeous! We first saw it resting up in a tree, before it walked RIGHT in front of our vehicle down to the water hole.
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| The first elephant we saw |
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| Family group just near our accommodation |
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| I love the colour of this bird! |
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| Hippos on safari |
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| Elephants on safari at the Chobe river |
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| Impala |
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| I guess there's no point labling this you all know what it is |
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| One of my favourite pics of the leopard |
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| Looking down on us |
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| On the move to the water hole |
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| Bit of a river shot |
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| My favourite giraffe photo I think |
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| I quite like the light with these giraffes |
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| Dinner, think we had crocodile again |
- Thursday the morning consisted of a boat safari,
once again led by our awesome ranger. We
saw loads of birds, got up and close to buffalo, crocodiles, saw an elephant
cross the river, but the highlight was seeing hippos, and almost having them
attack the boat, but we took off just at the right time! Exhilarating!! The ranger seemed to know where animals would
be and how to predict their behaviour. Once
again with our fab ranger we set off on another land safari in the afternoon,
this time with the quest to see a lion and zebras. And he delivered! We saw more of the same things we’d seen the
previous day (excluding the leopard), including 4 of the rare antelope. We also
saw a jackal, a bat eared fox (which apparently is also rare) and some
mongoose/mongeese/mongi (not sure what the plural is!). Dinner was set looking down at the watering
hole, which was cool, seeing elephants and stuff coming to drink whilst eating
dinner, pretty awesome.
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| Some sort of a bird |
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| Buffalo (esp for Uncle David Miller) |
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| Monitor lizard |
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| Another bird :) |
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| Hippo charging towards the boat :) |
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| This is apparently a rare bird |
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| Hope you're enjoying all the bird pics Uncle Malcolm! |
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| Just having a drink before . . . |
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| Crossing the river . . . |
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| And walking right towards our boat :) |
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| Antelope type thing, not the rare one though |
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| Skimmer bird? |
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| The biggest baddest croc we saw. . . |
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| Never smile at a crocodile |
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| Luxury tent - camping even Mara can handle :) |
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| The inside |
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| Termite hill |
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| Mum/Dad trying to take a selfie |
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| Us going for our second land game drive |
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| Imagine the next three pictures joined together, like a panoramic, I have not the ability to create it that way yet. |
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| That's right a family herd of about 50 elephants, what can stop this herd on the move? |
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| ONE solitary Giraffe!!! |
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| Beautiful Chobe river, features some wildlife too :) |
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| Pumba |
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| Cute family group, Mum, sister and lil bro |
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| ZEBRAS |
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| The rear of the rare antelope! |
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| Mon (insert suitable plural here) |
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| Jackal |
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| The initial sight of the lion |
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| Lion after we had disturbed it from it's slumber |
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| Gorgeous! |
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| Us with our guide and the safari vehicle |
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| Sunset |
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| Elephants at the watering hole at night |
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| The watering hole by day, plus impala (the view from the lodge) |
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| The lodge itself |
- Friday we left to head back to Zambia. We got to
Zambia fine, it just took our transfer a LONG time to get us back to
Livingstone, so we arrived an hour and a half late, which was after the last
morning bus had left, which we were hoping to catch. Given our late arrival and the airport being
chocka when we dropped other people there, a short notice flight to
Lusaka didn't seem viable. So we had to wait an hour and a
half for the next bus. It was a LONG bus ride back to
Lusaka. It took 8 hours, an hour and a
half longer then the trip there, maybe because of the dark. We went through a weigh station, the bus was
too heavy, so they got some people to hop off, re weighed the bus, then hop
back on – hmmm about those safety regulations!!
By the time we finally made it to Lusaka around 9pm, most of the buses to Kabwe were
gone, plus we were exhausted so we overnighted in Lusaka.
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| The interface between 4 countries, I wonder who the hippos belong to? |
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| I don't know how to rotate this, but this was at the bottom of the form we signed when we stayed at Lusaka, talking about horses and what not, was quite amusing! |
In other news we've booked our flights home, so we'll be back for Christmas.
I think that's about where I'll leave it this time. Seems like a reasonable amount :)
Prayer thanks
- For safety while we've been travelling
- For a couple of days off, they have been welcome as we've felt busy for the past month or so.
Prayer requests
- For my Physio registration. I went there last week to find out what was happening, turns out they don't check their emails. They told me I hadn't sent in my certificate of good standing which I had two months ago! Sigh. To top it off they sent me a letter saying it was due in 7 days, that didn't reach me till over a month later, and after I visited them in person. So it had been put on the shelf, now it's back off the shelf and hopefully in process.
- For continued safety while we travel.
- For minimal culture shock
- That we will connect well with locals and missionaries
- That God will be our highest priority followed by our marriage
- That the car part will be found, or the temporary solution will continue to work well
- For spiritual refreshment
Bethesda prayer requests
- Wheelchair camp which we are hosting is coming up on the 28th so that preparations for that will go well.
- For a printer, computer and car for the ministry
- For the Bethesda team, there continues to be some tension there.
- For the land application
- For increased financial support
- For healing for our patients
- For the Bethesda support groups to grow spiritually and in number
OM prayer requests
- For finances to build dormitories
- For those on holiday to have a good refreshing break, and safe travels.
