Best wishes for 1997 to you and yours,  and hope you had a restful and SAFE holiday season.  (The Christmas season road toll in South Africa alone exceeded 1,000 dead).   Apologies in advance for any delay responding to some orders from December.   Apart from being overseas from December 14th to January 10th,   I severed a calf muscle/s a few days prior to leaving,  severely restricting my mobility,  and causing obvious chaos to my schedule!  (It is still playing up,  and much painful limping around Africa for a month hasn't helped!)

This African trip was a wonderful adventure,  all superbly organised by Hartley's Safaris - highly recommended if you or anyone you know ever visits Africa.   I somehow managed to use up 62 rolls of 36 exp film or  2232 photos, so there must have been many subjects of interest!  >From Sydney,  a few days with family in Adelaide,  then a meeting with a client in Perth,  then the 13 hour flight to Johannesburg via Harare.   This passed quickly - Qantas First Class literally had an on-demand library of  83   different video movies to view en-route!   We were the ONLY passengers in the First Class nose section of a Qantas 747-400.   And had two dedicated staff to pamper us.    Caught up in Johannesburg with Julian Gecelter,  who owns the largest store there,  Eastgate Stamps.   Then for a few nights at Sun City,  which is in what was once the black 'homeland' of Bophuthatswana.

Stayed at the new hotel 'Palace Of The Lost City',  which is the most amazing hotel I've ever visited,  and that now numbers quite a few hotels.    A MUST!    Nearly all rooms,  furnishings, fixtures and public areas are custom designed and hand built with superb African themes.   It is set on 25 HECTARES of land with waterfalls everywhere,  and 1.6 million plants and trees - it even has a sizable surf beach complete with big waves and sand.   (Remember,  this Hotel is located in a desert!)  Even the hotel car park has been made look like a hill.   They built the carpark,  then added a zillion tons of soil on top and planted grasses and trees.   Clever idea.

From Sun City,  back to JoBurg for a SAA flight to Vic Falls,  and a long road transfer to Botswana, and a few days at the charming  Chobe Game Lodge.   This is located precisely where 4 countries meet:  Zambia,  Botswana,  Zimbabwe and Namibia.   Heaps of wildlife here.   At dawn one morning on a small boat safari I saw 3 lions drinking at the river.   The boat drifted silently downstream as the lions walked in single file along the river  . . .  they walked right past the Lodge,  and exactly past where I'd been sitting 10 minutes earlier.   Lodge owner had not heard of this happening during daylight hours in her 15 years there!   Two people were eaten by lion a few days later in Kruger Park, so there apparently is some real danger in visiting these places,  if in the wrong place,  at the wrong time!

I needed an emergency medical transfer to the next country for ultrasound examination due to suspected thrombosis of my leg,  which was a VERY expensive nuisance,  but en-route a bull elephant charged the Land Rover from only metres away,  which was quite an experience  -  I suspect the camera shook too much with fear or excitement to get a clear photo of it!  From the huge Chobe Park,  a pretty scary 2 hour charter flight on a single engine Cessna to 'Jack's Camp' in the central,  Kalahari Desert area of Botswana.   A  'Five Star tented camp' is what they term themselves.

How any desert tent can claim to be  'Five Star'  bemuses me,  but staying there with the New Age, Luddite,  eco-nutters who run the place certainly did evoke a vague feeling of what a 1930's Safari Camp might have been like.   Lots of gin & tonics,  and cold beer 'sundowners' so it was all fine by me!   One evening we were driven to the largest Boabab tree in Africa . . . where Livingstone had left 'mail' for the next Europeans passing by to take back.   A massive tree and the staff had prepared a full bar,  picnic table and dinner and roaring fire (totally un-necessary!) to watch the glorious sunset.   I had imagined there would be minimal wildlife there in the Kalahari,  mainly sand and salt,  but there was the largest migrating herd of Zebra in all Africa present - some 30,000 of them,  literally blotting the horizon in places.   Most females were heavily pregnant or just foaling.   The foals get up and run with Mum within minutes of birth.

The mass of birdlife in the Kalahari also surprised me,  with 100s of beautiful and unusual species : many are migratory in this 'wet' season.   The 'wet' also brings out the scorpions . . .  found 2 at my tent flap on Boxing Day evening after heavy rains flooded their underground burrows.   One full moon night I was taken for many hours on a high speed 4 wheel 'quad' bike ride deep into the famous Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, which covers literally the area of Switzerland.   To sit there for 30 minutes in total moonlit silence was eerie.   No village for 200 miles.   No cars,  planes,  wind,  animals,  birds or even insects due to the thick salt.   Just TOTAL silence.

Christmas Day was VERY hot in the Kalahari - a scorcher at 45ºc in the open,  where I was all day long in a land cruiser Safari.   The 14 guest 'Jack's Camp' has about 40 staff,  mostly Botswanan,  so Christmas morning was the big gift giving time - very touching  . . . those huge wide toothy grins would put Curtly Ambrose to shame!   The eco-nutter owners made it into a big deal with all the local help being given gifts,  and many were placed high up in a central tree in the common area, which they then climbed up to obtain.    From 'Jack's' it was another single engine charter Cessna to Maun,  main city of the Okavango Delta region.   Botswana looked to be a clean,  well run place, with excellent roads,  airports, and Africa's strongest currency.   (Exactly HALF the entire Botswana Government income comes from a huge diamond mine joint venture,  that provides a constant stream of MEGA bucks.)

Then an Air Botswana flight to Victoria Falls,  followed by an Air Zimbabwe flight to Hwange.   The Air Zimbabwe plane was out of the country on one of Mr.  Mugabe's 30 overseas 'visits' of 1996,  so a beautifully rebuilt & restored (1995) Air Namibia 4 propeller  DC-6 was substituted.   This was the very last DC-6 to roll off the Boeing line in 1958 . . . it had been Marshall Tito of Yugoslavia's VIP plane,  and later given to President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia.   A REAL stylish plane of a bygone era.   Full pull-down bunk beds and all the trimmings!  HWANGE (until recently called WANKIE - true!) is the largest National Park in Zimbabwe and is teeming with game.   Saw so many giraffes in big groups blocking the road it became almost boring!  Masses of Wildebeest (Gnu),  Zebra,  Bat Ear foxes,  Mongoose,  Vervet monkeys and Baboons,  Sable,  Giraffe,  Kudu and Impala were everywhere.   Sitting up in the top floor thatch covered bar sipping beers and watching all the game come to the waterhole is my kind of 'Safari'!

From 'The Hide' camp in Hwange,  it was a few more flights to very sleepy,  run-down Livingstone ZAMBIA,  including a low level light plane 'Flight Of Angels' over Victoria Falls.    Great photos! Then a short transfer to TONGABEZI Lodge on the banks of the Zambesi River for 3 nights.   One night was spent on tiny Sindabezi Island.    It houses three couples maximum.   Staff canoe out to cook dinner and supply all the booze you require to watch the setting sun.   To reach it,  one leisurely paddles a few km down the Zambezi in a 2 man canoe,  crossing a little white water,  and constantly veering clear of hidden rocks and the 100's of very territorial resident hippos, who delight in overturning canoes into the crocodile infested waters.   (Far MORE people are killed in Africa yearly by Hippos than ANY other animal - true!)

At Tongabezi,  a very fun New Year's Eve with most staff and guests ending up (like it or not!) around midnight fully clothed in the swimming pool carved from the rock face.   On New Year's Day  I awoke and looked out my open sided 'Bird House' lodge to see a large herd of about 50 elephant grazing peacefully outside!   What photos.  WHAT AN AFRICA!   For  New Year's Day,   I booked a silver service waitered lunch on Livingstone Island,  which is right on the Zambian edge of Victoria Falls.

After the personally served picnic table lunch,  (and a $160 bottle of Krug Grand Cuvee Champagne,  liberated from a friendly Qantas First Class steward!)  I waded/swam with my heavily bandaged and swollen leg to a safe,  small,  spa sized natural cavity right in the central stream of the Zambezi,  ONE FOOT   (30cm) from where the water then drops 300 feet below.   THE  single most exhilarating tourist experience of my life,  after visiting over 100 different countries.    I have a photo safely sipping bubbly sitting there as the Falls raged around me. 

 From the Zimbabwe side of the Falls which I visited next day,  it appears anyone sitting where i had been was about to be swept over the edge any moment.   An absolute tourist MUST if you or anyone else ever visits Victoria Falls  . . .   to experience it you must  stay at Tongabezi,  Zambia,  and not on the Zimbabwe side,  which is now "tourist tacky".   This Livingstone Island lunch and swim is worth a trip to Africa on its OWN,  take my word on that.

From Zambia,  a transfer to the Zimbabwe side again,  and a lunch at the legendary Victoria Falls Hotel,  sedately sipping an ice-cold Zambezi brand beer and watching a stream of Bungee jumping lunatics ($US90) leap from the centre of the historic rail bridge over the whitewater.   (They initially offered the jump free for those who did it  NUDE,  but very long lines of naked backpackers quickly saw them cancel that clever offer!)

Once again to Victoria Falls airport (a disorganised dump,  as were all Zimbabwe airports) and a Comair flight to JoBurg and a transfer to LESEDI where one stays in a grass hut 'rondavel' with Zulu and Xhosa families,  literally 4 feet from a cattle Kraal,  and the bloody resident rooster who starts up at 4.30am!   The Zulu 'chief' decided to take me to SOWETO en-route to the airport.   From Winnie Mandela's plush 2 story mansion,  to the acres of rusted,  lean-to galvanised iron/cardboard ghettoes,  nothing has changed since my last visit 10 years ago  I'm afraid.

Back on Qantas for the overnight First Class flight to Perth,  thankfully sitting well away from the VERY noisy English 'cricket' team,  heading to NZ,  who'd been soundly thrashed by the part-timer Zimbabwe team of chicken farmers and bus drivers.   Their loud and boorish behaviour in the Business Class lounge in Jo'Burg was disgraceful.    Thank goodness for FIRST Class lounges.  

Then a flight to the Goldfields area of Kalgoorlie/Boulder  in Western Australia and a visit to the world's largest open-cut 'Super Pit' that dominates all else.   The charming 100 year old buildings that line the main streets are a visual treat.   Then back home to the 100's of faxes,  phone  and E-mail messages,  not to mention Four SACKS of PO mail,  magazines and dreaded Visa Card bills that always seem to beat me home!  The joys of being a strictly 'one-man' business.

GLEN