Friday 29 December 2017. Photos (Botswana and Zimbabwe)
Highlights: Morning Game Drive (Chobe, Botswana), Sunset Cruise On the Zambezi (Zimbabwe)

The overnight bush camping went well, while a few animals could be heard in the background nothing really came into the camp ground itself. Still hearing lions in the background and only having a thin layer of tent material between us definitely gets the senses working at full stream.

We got up at 5.00 am and immediately commenced taking down our tents in the near dark. For me an urgent toilet stop was in order as I wasn’t get up doing the night! After a quick breakfast we geared up and got on the 4WD for a morning game drive. During the drive we saw many of the same animals from the day before including hyenas, giraffes, elephants and various antelopes but once again the highlight was the lion pride of 15 lions this time with the king surveying his kingdom. Still a young male did manage to sneak into the pride and sleep next to about four lioness.

We got back to our base of operations around 9 am and quickly packed and headed off to Zimbabwe. The border crossing only took around 50 minutes so we managed to get to the campsite around 12.15 pm. From this point onwards in the trip I’m supposed to be upgraded to basic / nice hotel accommodation (when available). I once again offered Tara a free stay in the room given she was leaving the next day. I took advantage of the shower given there was no option in the Chobe National Park 🙂

I selected from the options available for the next 2.5 days; 1) sunset cruise, 2) helicopter over the falls, 3) Night Safari drive, and 4) Victoria Falls guided visit. All up this cost just under $500 AUD. I don’t think I could have experienced more of Victoria Falls other then doing the white water rafting but that looked fairly dangerous to tell the truth.

I went on the sunset cruise on the Zambezi river with Tara. In many ways this is a bronze cruise as you get to drink as much as you can while on the river plus they had some nice finger food. We did manage to see some hippos and crocodiles and the sunset was stunning but the four Zambezi beers definitely played a part in liking the cruise. On the drive back to the town I got to experience some extremely drunk tourists from another On the Go Tour who looked like they had managed to drink at least 6-8 beers each in the allocated time! Looked like they are a party group.

A very big day indeed.