lovetravellingoz

PREFACE

Well my long yearned for African Trip is starting to shape up.
My travel past includes long overland 4WD trips in Australia such as retracing the Burke and Wills Exhibition route (though in reverse order) traversing across Australia from North (Gulf of Carpentaria) to South (Melbourne) - Trekking in Nepal for 23 days from Jiri to Kala Patthar (Altitude 5643m) overlooking Mt Everest Base Camp – and more recently week long cycling trips in Loire Valley, and along the Danube River in Austria.

So one aspect of my travel that I know that I enjoy is the journey, and it is not just the destination that is important. With the Serengeti Plains and other African Vistas long ago imprinted on my imagination my first trip to Africa ( I am ignoring Egypt were I am have been) was always going to include some aspect of an overland journey.

My daughter visited Africa in two phases of her 9 month post-University trip about 2 years ago. 1/ Egypt/Jordan and then down for 3 weeks in and out of JNB which included an overland “truck” safari to Victoria Falls, parks nearby as well as Kruger. And 2/ then after Europe a month in Morocco with 2 weeks trekking in the Atlas Mountains and 3 months volunteering in Togo. In helping her research her African Safari it rekindled my long held yearning to visit Africa and to mainly "go on safari", but to go on a longer overland trip than my daughter did. So it was time to travel in Africa at last.

After various research of which countries to visit and what to do (including this very helpful Africa sub-forum here on Flyertalk, it became clear that I should visit a number, but that I wanted part of it to include the great migration. So Tanzania/Kenya was to be part of it and that meant travelling in July- September.

However South Africa, Namibia and other places all had appeal. Given time and space, some countries will have to be left to later trips.

MY 2015 AFRICA TRIP- Planes, Trains and Automobiles…..and yes wildlife too!!!

How? Well initially I had been thinking of joining some form of overland safari-truck or 4WD type overland tour such as my daughter had completed, but longer.

However:

1/ After some research I soon discovered that "self-drive" as it seems to be called in Africa is both safe and viable, and so this became an interesting option and one requiring more research.

2/ Equally it is not just one answer as road conditions very markedly. In South Africa the roads are good and so for many parks like Kruger one only needs a normal 2WD rental car. Reportedly for many parts of Namibia it is likewise. However for many other countries 4WD is definitely the way to go.

3/ 4WD hire is available, and there are also firms available that offer suggested routes, and 4WD vehicles which have been modified for safari type trips. However it is easier to hire vehicles for use within one country. Crossing borders can be problematic and you need special paperwork for this. Some hire companies will arrange this, but the more countries visited, the more complex this is. I do not think one way rentals is really an option and especially over long distances as unlike car hire companies the firms are specialised as are the vehicles. So you have to come back in the main to where you start.

So to hire a vehicle yourself can be viable depending on exactly where you want to go. South Africa and Namibia it is straight forward.

I have done many 4WD trips throughout Australia. More important than the actual 4WD traction ability is normally the extra ground clearance that such vehicles have, and their extra ruggedness. From my trips I know that if one is going very remote, that one can easily get stuck, and that mechanical breakdowns can and do occur. The longer and more arduous the trip, then it is a matter of WILL occur. That is a major reason why on such longer and remote trips you normally seek to travel with other vehicles. ie if stuck, another vehicle with “snatchem” strap can easily pull you our backwards. Now I have also undertaken a number of 4WD trips in Australia in a sole vehicle ( including retracing the Burke and Wills route, visiting the Simpson Dessert, driving up the Finke River from Ayers Rock to Kings Canyon rather than on formed roads, crossing Cooper Creek near the Dig Tree when the water was windscreen deep)- but with a broad stock of parts, ample spare water and fuel and a Tirfor hand winch (better for solo travel as you can pull in any direction, whereas a power winch just pulls you forward, which is often the opposite of what you need to do), elaborate first aid kit and a number of other measures.

This is all a long winded may of saying, that on long 4WD trips in remote trips on rough trails something will happen...so you need to have the equipment, knowledge and ability to deal with a range of situations...and also be prepared to sit and wait for a passer bye or even to walk out if required (if radio/phone is not operable).

So I think that one need to ask where you want to go....and that can give different answers and how you can travel. There are certainly parts of Southern Africa that I would be comfortable hiring a 4WD and doing my own thing. Particularly if I could organise a group of friends to travel in 2 or 3 vehicles.

However for me, for this trip, I want the long overland experience. I want that extended sense of journey, and all the trials and tribulations that it will no doubt entail, as well as its joys, and moments of sheer grandeur.

I eventually came across a company called African Expedition Support (see HERE ) that ticked all of my boxes (or at least was a compromise that I was content with).

The journey that I have opted for is the 26 day overland trip from Nairobi to Victoria Falls through four countries and driving 4500km. No doubt some will think me mad.

Yes it is a group tour in that there is a small number of vehicles, BUT the big plus for myself, is that:

1/ During the day you are free in the main to drive at your own pace, and see as much of, or as little of, what you come across along the way. So if you find a village fascinating you can stay longer. You might find bird watching fascinating, and others may not and so you can tailor where you spend your time to a large extent. You do not have to drive as a convoy. You can choose to drive with another vehicle or not.

2/While the day is yours, you have some other like-minded travellers to meet up with each night to chat over a campfire and beer with. Having been a keen camper over the years, this is a combination that appeals to me.

3/ There is a support vehicle (see my comments above on remote 4WD travel) with a mechanic and a cook ( I just swapped emails with someone that went last year on the trip that I will be doing, and mid-safari one vehicle broke a CV joint. No problem as the mechanic had a spare. So he just replaced it and away they went again. Now a spare CV joint is not something that I have travelled with before. I have replaced them myself before as I am mechanically handy, but if you do not have the part.... well you might have a long wait! The guy that went last year indicated that the list of spares was most comprehensive. ie under his seat was a spare cylinder).

4/ You do have a fixed itinerary. Which can yes a negative. But then again some game parks you cannot just turn up to without pre-booking anyway. The route that I have signed up for is pretty much what I was looking for anyway, and so for me it is not an issue. Particularly as I will visit some other parks post this part of my trip.

ITENARY

All up I am planning 6 weeks for this trip for my wife and I.

I am still finalising the latter part of the trip. But this overland journey is the “hero” of this trip. Many of my trips revolve around a key reason for the trip and are normally activity based such as my last trip which included 9 days of cycling along the Danube River in Austria.
But in essence the 2015 trip so far is:

15 Jul: Fly in to Nairobi from MEL.

I have redeemed 2 seats in J on Qatar Airways. This will be our first flight on Qatar Airways and its well regarded J cabin. One quirky point was that within a day of redeeming the flights, that the flight was changed with the 2 hour layover in Doha, now unfortunately stretching out to 6 hours. At least the new J QR lounge should be up and running by then, and I am hoping for it to be something spectacular.

18 Jul – 12 Aug: Nairobi to Victoria Falls over 4500km via:
• Masai Mara Game Reserve
• Amboseli National Park
• Lake Chala
• Zanzibar
• Lake Malawi, Chitimba Beach
• Kande Beach
• South Luangwa National Park
• Lusaka
• Livingstone and Victoria Falls
This Nairobi to Victoria Falls Safari is the only "group" part of our trip. The rest will all our own arrangements (though will go on some animal spotting 4WD or boat half day trips and will be independent travel.

13-16 Aug: Spend 3 nights visiting Chobe staying in the one accommodation and doing river trips and games drives from it. Perhaps the Chobe Safari Lodge which has good reports on this forum.
Now the next part I have still not completely settled on the order. We are looking to do the overnight Premier Classe Train from Johannesburg to Cape Town/ or Port Elizabeth, or vice versa. The Man in Seat 51 gives this most positive reports and it is perhaps a largely unknown hidden gem to experience in South Africa. See Premier Classe Train, It will certainly provide a contrast with the rest of our planned trip.

The train trip comes complete with a 5 course dinner and will provide another aspect of that sense of journey that I enjoy on my travels. However the train does not run that often and so scheduling is an issue which greatly affects what and when we do the other aspects of our trip.

One possibility is as follows:

16 Aug: Fly to Cape Town

16 -18 Aug: Cape Town -Everyone seems to rave about Cape Town, and so onto the bucket list it goes!

19-22 Aug: Hire a 2WD and drive the Garden Route. 19th at Hermanus for the whale spotting as the whales often come in extremely close to the shore here. See HERE

23-24 Aug: Premier Classe Train. Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg.

25- 28 Aug: Hire a 2WD and visit Kruger National Park

29 or 30 Aug: Return flight back to MEL

Well that is the planning so far. Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I am sure that the final trip will be tweaked somewhat yet.

lovetravellingoz

Well I just received a reply back from the Chobe Safari Lodge, and they are booked out already unfortunately. So I will need to decide upon another option.

I am afraid we are already fully booked on requested nights and actually moving booking out to other lodges due to overbooking. This is because of delayed opening of our other new hotel Chobe Bush Lodge where about we had to move all CBL booking across to Chobe Safari Lodge.

Mwenenzi

I did almost the same route, but from south to north, ~30 years ago by local transport and some group truck safaris. Took 6 months. At one time my companion and I "hired" a Malawi government truck, until an official from the next county took exception to our hired service in his country (no official border).
I would drop Kruger and go to Etosha. Very different from East Africa & Kruger. You will see the best in the Mara & Amboseli

My username is Swahili for traveller / wanderer

lovetravellingoz

Thanks for your suggestion. Estosha is certainly a location of great appeal.

I have given Estosha and Namibia a great deal of thought in selecting where to go and what to include on this trip. There is certainly way too many places to see, or at least in one 6 week trip anyway!!

Namibia has a fair bit to that I would like to see, but my thoughts at present is that if this my first trip to Africa goes well that a self-drive trip of 2-3 weeks would make a great second trip. From what I have read Namibia is an excellent country to explore by self-drive, and also one can do it independently as well as in groups. Next years trip is 6 weeks. But the one after would probably be capped to only 4 weeks. So a 3 week exploration of Namibia would work in well with that restriction.

So rather than a quick flying visit to Namibia this trip, I will do it in detail next time.

With Kruger we are also go to spend the last two nights of our trip staying in a Sabi Sands Lodge in more luxurious surrounds than the rest of our trip to finish on a high and relaxing note. It will also add to the balance of this trip where we are looking sample Africa in many different ways.

I am still playing around with the itinerary. Originally I was going to drive from Johannesburg, but I have now swapped to flying in from Cape Town, and then flying from Kruger direct JNB not long before our long flight back to Australia.
so this will mean catching the train south rather than north.

naxos

Just returned from a 35 day self drive trip to and around Namibia- ending with a few days in Kasane and Vic Falls (Zim).
We stayed the the Garden Lodge in Kasane and had wonderful guided game drives on the Chobe river and in the park with an excellent guide. Feel free to message me if you want further information. there are other websites with lodge reviews and you can check out the Garden Lodge- a small friendly and peaceful place in Kasane, which has big hotels.

lovetravellingoz

Thanks for the recommendation.

Kasane/Chobe seems to have quite limited accommodation options. I was aware of the Garden Lodge and have its website, but it is great to get a recommendation from someone that stayed there.

Originally we were looking at 3 nights in the Chobe area. But it now looks like it will be only 2 nights in order for us to get the train option to work. The overnight train only has limited departures each week (1 on the route to/from Cape Town, and 3 on the Port Elizabeth route and vice-versa).

So if 2 nights then Kasane rather than further into the actual park would be a better use of the time available. As it seems that the river cruise is a main feature then staying in Kasane itself should work out ok.

On Namibia, we have now decided that this will not form part of our 2015 trip as we want to do the overnight train, visit Cape Town, drive the Garden Route and do some whale spotting. So rather than do a quick trip to Namibia this, we will finish off in Kruger and leave Namibia to another year in a more extensive way.

lovetravellingoz

After doing some more research I think I will inject the Panorama Route, into that last part of our trip to the Kruger Region.

This is a scenic road route along Mpumalanga Escarpment including the Blyde River Canyon.

Our six weeks is all about diversity and the stunning views along the Panorama Route will add to it. It will also be the chance to stretch the legs with a number of short bushwalks.

Will most likely fly in and out of Hoedspruit now rather than Skukuza.

lovetravellingoz

After some more thinking and research I am now thinking of a one way rental flying into Skukuza from Cape Town, and then back to JNB for the flight home to MEL from Hodesprit.

We are looking to stay at several SANPARK Restcamps or Camps.

Currently thinking of:

• Lower Sabie: 1 to 2 nights
• Satara: 0 to 1 night
• Olifants: 1 night

Then off to the Panorama Route and staying one night on the route, before spending our last two nights of our African Odyssey in a bit more luxury in a private camp. Possibly in the Sabi Sand Reserve.

Cape Town and the Garden Route will be cold, but offer something quite different than the rest of our trip both before and after which are more safari and animal focussed.

Tiki

I've been to Kruger 4 times and love the SANPARK restcamps! I don't get why people spend $1000's of dollars to stay at those fancy private lodges when there is plenty of game in the park and even in the restcamps. You can get nice cabins, there are restaurants or you can get a cabin with a kitchen or use the public BBQs (braais).

I'll save you heaps of time since I just did all the research. Avis has the best deals if you want a full package with minimal (Super) liability coverage and unlimited kilometers. You have to book it on the South African site. Super CDW reduces your liability to $440 AUD. Probably cheaper to just pick the car up at JNB and drive yourself there, one-way fees can be ridiculous.

You can get more detailed information on their forum. I would look at the likely game in the areas and what you are hoping to see and choose accordingly.

We will be there in Nov and looking for specific bird species which I have narrowed down to Satara and Pretoriuskop as the most likely camps for sightings.

lovetravellingoz

Thank you. I have done some dummy bookings through AVIS and one-ways between the Kruger air ports are ok, and indeed sometimes state that they are not charged. From JNB it would probably be another story.

Another car hire that looks ok for rentals from Johannesburg is http://www.cabs.co.za/car-hire/car-rates/

They drop off pick up from the train station which can be handy if one is looking to catch the Premier Classe Train.





With SANPARKs Aug 2015 bookings open in Sept and so I have 3 weeks to make up my mind which parks to stay at.

lovetravellingoz

I am just waiting for the Award bookings for my return flight to open up so that I can lock in the arrangements for the last half of my trip.

If I do stay at an upmarket safari lodge near Kruger I will not do it on the last night now. This is because that after a morning safari it would mean getting a late afternoon flight, which would leave no margin for error with respect to my International Flight home which would be on a separate Award ticket.

I may spend our last night staying on the Panorama route.

StartinSanDiego

A girlfriend and I did self drive earlier this year. We took the Panoramic route up... it's gorgeous!

As we cut over to Kruger on the north end, we stopped at a game rehabilitation center (Mahalolo??) that was a highlight, too.

The Panoramic route had some very impressive potholes, especially on the southern section. I wouldn't tackle it at night because you might fall into one of them!

We did Skuzuka (a bit hard to find with just a map), Rhino Post, and several Sanparks rest camps. It was a terrific trip. I'm still talking about it and can't wait to go back!

lovetravellingoz

Well the SANPARKS registrations opened today for August 2015. And WOW, the cabins sure go amazingly quickly!!

I have booked for 2 nights each a perimiter Safari Tent at Lower Sabie, and one of the bunaglows with the best views at Olifants.

Part of the reason for choosing these two rest camps is that they have a good range of activities including night drive, day drive & 4 hour walks. Lower Sabie gets many recommendations for the wildlife and view from the restaurant terrace. And the viw from our Olifant Bungalow is first class.



With that locked in, I have also booked one night at Elephant Plains.

These three Kruger locations should give us a great range of territory combined with driving in-between in our own hire car.

This leaves me to book one night of accommodation on the Panorama Route for our last night. I have booked it this way as I do not want to cut it too fine with our flight back to JNB to meet our Award flight home. Staying on the Panorama Route means that we can get the earlier noon flight.

After this will now look for were to stay in Cape Town and along the Garden route. But being off-season there, there is no need to rush. For Garden Route we might even just decide on the day and get accommodation as we drive for maximum flexibility.

lovetravellingoz

Ok, I have just sorted our Kasane Accommodation for 2 nights, which will also be our base for visiting Chobe.

I have gone for only two nights in order to get the rail option to work, as it only has limited departures.

We after much discussion selected The Old House: http://www.oldhousekasane.com/

* Staying actually in Chobe would have been too rushed given the two days
* The Old House is easy, and economical, to transfer to from Livingstone, and also for the afternoon flight from Kasnae Airport to JNB. This will allow us to make the most of our 3 days/ 2 nights at Kasane/Chobe.
* That for us the main feature of Chobe, and point of difference from the other game areas we will be staying at/near, is the water access and boat cruises for wildlife viewing. The Old House is good for this. Also canoe trips are an option too.
* It has good access for a game drive in Chobe
* It will also for our trip provide the experience of staying in a small African Town.
* It is very economical with good features and reviews. A lot of the Chobe options are very expensive. One we liked in the Chobe Safari Lodge was booked out already (as a sister property is behind schedule for opening, they have placed all bookings from 2 properties there).

lovetravellingoz

Award availability opened today for my return flight JNB-SYD-MEL. Have booked 2 J seats in the upper deck of the Qantas 747.

I have been mainly flying *A in recent years due to better value redemptions, and so will get to sample what Qantas J is currently like.

With the flight home booked, I am now booking the Southern Africa flights. The ones within South Africa were easy, but the Kasane to JNB flight does not present a payment method option, and so the booking cannot be completed. Will have to ring SA tomorrow to see why.

I am largely done and dusted now with the planning phase.