Our Great Migration ----- Part III Turning North

On the last part of our Blog we described our route south to The Cape, now we turn north again on the final leg. If we haven’t been to the wine regions of Paarl and Stellenbosch while in Cape Town then this will be the time to visit before heading over The Atlantic coast hoping for more fresh seafood, something I certainly have missed here in Zambia. After a few days we head inland once more to visit The Cedarberg Wilderness Area before moving on and leaving South Africa and crossing into Namibia. This country was Jan and my first experience of self drive in Africa back in 2011 when we spent 5 weeks here. This time we will be revisiting some highlights starting with Fish River Canyon, The second largest canyon on Earth followed by trips to Kolmankop, a ghost town that is being consumed by the Namib Desert. No visit to Namibia would be complete without seeing Sossovlei and the largest sand dunes in the world.

Fish River Canyon

House at Kolmanskop being buried by dunes

Kolmanskop in 2010

After this we get to the coast again for Swakopmund for some fun on the dunes with Quad bikes or sandboarding. Our final sight of the sea will be along The Skeleton coast and the wrecked ships and seal colonies. From the coast we cut across the desert again to Etosha, a vast National Park with salt pans and many animals. On 15^th November we will be back in Windhoek, Namibia’s Capital City to drop Sarah off for her flight back to UK.

Jan riding on the Dunes 

Walking up the largest Dunes in the world

Etosha Salt Pans

From Namibia we aim to head back to Botswana, probably my favourite part of Africa and crossing the Okavango Delta via Moremi and Chobe National Parks. It will be our 5th or 6^th visit to the magnificent wildlife and the sand driving. Sadly I think it may well be our final visit but perhaps we will return someday.

After Botswana it is a very quick trip through Namibia again on the Caprivi Strip and back into Zambia through the border crossing we first brought out car through back in August 2015. This time we are heading up to Liuwa Plains in the far west of Zambia. This will be our first visit to this place and we hope we are getting there at exactly the right time. Again the vast herds of grazing animals congregate just as the rains start and as this will be the end of November we hope we have hit it just right. Liuwa is not accessible once the rains start properly as it is the Zambezi flood plain so timing here is everything. Enough rains already to make the grass grow but not too much to make the river flood. The temperatures by now will be well into the 40s in the day and not a lot cooler at night.

Leaving Liuwa will be hard as that is it for our trip. We have 2 days travel then to get back to Ndola. We really hope the car is still good as we wou8ld like to sell it in the week we have back with our friends in The Copperbelt.

Our final week will be spent saying goodbye to the amazing people we have met through the community, the people we have lived amongst and most of all the staff and children at the schools we have been associated with. More of this in December we hope before we fly back to UK around 10^th of the month.