South Africa / Namibia / Botswana 2018

Africa called again

Once again we toured the southern part of Africa.

4 friends, Andrew, James, Louis and Pierre-Frederic landed

in Johannesburg, South Africa mid November 2018.

We rented 2 identical Cessnas 182 in Wonderboom, (FABB), close to Pretoria.

During 2 weeks, we toured South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

In average we flew one day out of 2, to enjoy the local activities on the "no fly" day.

Andrew and Louis flew ZS-IAE, James and Pierre-Frederic XS-IFB.

This was the planned route.......

...... and here is that actual flown route according to our GPS tracker.

Departure was from the Pretoria area, on the right part of the track, just outside of Swaziland.

On our way to Johannesburg, and our first dinner together in Pretoria

We rented the aircrafts from this company

Cockpit of ZS-IFB

Preparation meeting at Wonderboom airport with Markus, the owner of the aircrafts (top of the table)

ZS-IAE and ZS-IFB in the hangar before we take them over

Our first stop at Kimberley, S. Africa (FAKM)

The pool at our first lodge

Augrabies, the 6th highest waterfall in the world

The gang at Augrabies falls

The canyon of the Augrabies waterfalls

Customs and immigration in Keetmanshoop, Namibia

One of the rooms and the pool at Fish River lodge

Sunset over the canyon.....

...... and a drive down to the bottom of the canyon (600 meter elevation difference)

Impressive colours on the way down the canyon

A little stream of water flows at the bottom of the canyon

Climbing up the hill

A video of the view from the rim of the Fish River Canyon.

Click on the small black arrow in case the big arrow does not work.

Next morning we leave Fish River.
Watch the video of ZS-IFB taking off.
Note that ZS-IAE is still on the ground (otherwise I couldn't have filmed....), and Andrew has to stop a white car who was planning to cross the runway from left to right as ZS-IFB was about to take off

One of many sunsets...

refilling and on the way to the next stop

The so called Skeleton coats of Namibia

a boat that lost its way along the coast

Sun dunes at Sosusvlei and another room at the Sosusvlei lodge

another drink at sunset in Sosusvlei

Dune climbing early in the morning to avoid the heat, and the wind

Strong winds start to blow already early in the morning, making it difficult to climb the dunes

The fun part once on top of the dune is to take off your shoes and slide down the dune...
...watch the video

At the bottom, we meet again

The moon rises while the sun sets over Sosusvlei

The "terminal" and the "fire station" at the airport of Sosusvlei

Ready to depart

Sand dunes on the way to Swakopmund, Namibia, on the Atlantic coast

and a nice smiling welcome from the lady at the "C"

We fly inland to our next destination, Doro Nawas

One of the rooms at the lodge, inside and outside, and the pool

One more drink at sunset

We did some formation flying over rugged terrain

ZS-IFB on the way to Etosha

At every lodge, we called ahead to inform of our estimated arrival time, and a jeep was waiting for us at the "Terminal" to take us to the lodge....

.... where we enjoyed lunch

One cabin at the Etosha lodge

Afternoon drive to view animals

We proceed towards Botswana......

.....and stop over in Ondangwa.

Landing in Ondangwa, a long video, but it gives a nice feeling of the terrain, and the space available

The fire brigade takes advantage of our stop over to test their emergency procedures

In Ondangwa, we are greeted by the Police, Airport Security and the Fuel service.

Finding fuel (avgas) is not always very easy, we negotiate with the Etosha park to buy some fuel to be able to reach our next destination....

The fuel comes in drums, we need to clean carefully the pumping devices to transfer the fuel from the drum to our wings

Evenings may be a little cool for local conditions

In Etosha it NEVER, NEVER rains, except.... when I go there

Crisis meeting, we get access to the manager office and start doing phone calls to find an alternative route to reach Botswana. We need to find a fuel station and an immigration office which would process our Namibia exit paper work

All worked out, we move on to Botswana.

On the way to Maun, that major airport in Botswana, where we decided to show off with our uniforms, to speed up the customs and immigration process. It definitely helped.

Maun is an easy entry point to Botswana, we refill and proceed to the Okawango delta area for landing and another couple of days of safaris

We land in Okawango where it is EXTREMELY hot. The jeep driver has ready for us large amounts of ice cold water and .... ice cold St Louis beer. What a welcome !!!!

Botswana is the richest country when it comes to wildlife. The country is very respectful of the nature and does all it can to preserve the nature for future generations

Our lodge and some of the animals we could view during our stay in Okawango

A lion, his 2 wives (lucky man) and 5 babies.

Hippos in the water having a good time

The team ready for another sun downer and drinks in the park.

Our lodge in Okawango

Boat tour in the Okawango to watch a bird sanctuary

On the way back we cross the path of an elephant.

Another sunset and the by now traditional evening drink in the nature

We move on to Fancistown, for more fuel for our birds.
Breakfast on the porch, checking fuel in the morning

and the pilot reader will recognise the NOTAMs texts published at the Francistown airport's office.
"Movement of wild and domestic animals in and around Gweta aerodrome. Pilots to exercice caution on landing and take off".

We proceed to Mashatu, at the Limpopo airfield, on the Botswana side of the Limpopo river, close to the South Africa border

A gold mine

The Limpopo "River", actually a sand bed

The Limpopo "control tower" (there was nobody there....) and the "Terminal".

Our lodge at Mashatu, Limpopo valley

Morning drive in the Mashatu park, where we could see a family of hyenas

A single leopard was to be sen, he had just made a kill, but the antilope was hidden under the bushes, and could barely be seen.

A lion family was resting

Our last sundowner on this trip

Back to the airfield. Notice the security gate.... not connected to power, no screen available for screening, and no-one to man it...

We enter South Africa in Kolopwane, where we are ramp checked for all our aircraft and pilot documents.

Back in the civilisation, we visit the Nelson Mandela statue on the Nelson Mandela square in Standton/Pretoria, enjoy a last common meal and head back home.