Getting the heart pumping at Vic Falls

We've had a few days at Vic Falls and it has all been about extreme activities. Woo Hoo!!

Day one was white water rafting on the Zambezi which was intensely scary and full on. WE fell out on the very first rapid and got sucked under for what felt like an eternity...we got much better at paddling as a team after that. We went through

25 major rapids and it was scary and very tiring stuff.

Day two saw Steve bungy jump off the second highest jump in the world - its 111 meters or thereabouts and you do it off the border bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe. He was pretty cool carm and collected and did an awesome swan dive off the top.

LAter that night the booze cruise began on the upper river....although I had to watch it as this morning I was skydiving. It's the first time I have done it decided to do the whole hog and do the biggest jump that you can do here - which is 10,000 feet and has 35 seconds of freefall time. Was amazing, and I could see out over the falls in the plane before falling out the side.

Heading to a game park tomorrow so life might return to slightly less extreme activities...although I am on the hunt for a rhino and lion so we shall see how the heart holds up!!

xxx

Welcome to the truck!

We've just had our first 10 days on the truck and just pulled up to Livingstone in Vic Falls (Zambia). I don't even know where to begin to describe how we are feeling...everything is totally different to our life at home and all our senses have been completely assaulted...in a good, but very dirty grimy way!

So we first joined the truck and our 11 new friends in Cape Town. Everyone was a bit anxious I suppose but that was shortlived as we have been thrown together pretty quickly! We've got five peopel who are about our age and similar to us - Sid an Indian Kiwi, Shin from Japan, Hanne and Maree from Denmark and Scott from California. Then we have Robyn, Fran and Christopher who are a family from Portland in the US and throw in a different dynamic as Chris is 13 (note for the future...very cool parents take their 13 year old kid on a 1 year tour of the world~!!!). Then we have our driver and guide Gav who is a bush based Aussie, and Summer who is his grilfriend and has been travelling with him for 18 months. So we are an international crew and things are working pretty well between us all.

We spent the frist two nights in Stellanbosch in the wine region and that was moderately civilised with a very boozy wine tour. But then the next three nights involved massive drives and bush camping on the side of the road. This was a harder intro to the trip and we had to sleep in the truck and didn't have a shower for the whole drive (welcome top our new world!!). We then headed up to Botswana to the Okavango Delta where we got into little mokoro (canoes) and paddled out into the wilderness to bush camp a few more nights surrounded by hippoes, elephants and giraffes ($140 US for 2 nights) . We did game walks on our island area and it was incredible to be so close to the animals - Chung we kept thinking of your tiger walk in Nepal where you suddenly realise that after paying your money actually NOT seeing the lions whilst on foot would be quite ok!!

We then got to Chobe national park and did a amazing sunset cruise in the game park ($30 US). We took an esky of booze on board and watched hippos yawning on the river banks while the sun set - very nice!!

Have seen SO much wildlife - way more than we expected to see whilst not in the game parks. We've had to stop to avoid giraffes crossing the road, and there has been some very close encounters with hippos (which are fairly scary when you are at waterlevel in a tiny wooden canoe!!). There have also been loads of elephants, wild ostriches, warthogs, impala, birds and smaller animals.

Most notably, we have quickly developed new hygiene standards...our feet are pernamently brown and a quick wipe with a baby wipe reveals some startling black dirt!!! It's kind of hard to first adjust to using camp cookware too - always dirty, dusty and never very clean. But, that is nothing compared to the water. I just assumed we would be using water purification tablets on the truck, but oh no, we drink the tap water. And when in the okavango delta, we had to drink the water straight out of the river. Not so sure about that but we have been feeling ok so it must be good. It's a wierd concept though to see people scooping a beaker of water direct from the water. Hmmm!!!

Food wise we take it in turns to cook and clean...so anyone with any recipes for simple one pot meals then all emails are welcome!!! It's hard though, you think of something and then go to the supermarket and they are always missing the key ingredient. You might have seen it at the one before but by the time we are cooking it isn't there again! We've been eating pretty well though...we are on cooking duty tonight and there is a stroganoff with mum's bacon/mint/cabbage on the side (thank goodness my mum is a good cook and has given me some ideas!!!!)

Tomorrow we are a bit freaked out as we are white water rafting on the zambezi and it is meant to be very intense. Will report back, hopefully with no horror stories!!

Will also upload some photos tomorrow when we have some time....you can check out our truck and camping style!!!

Hope you are all well and keep the news flowing!!!

xxx

Final bit of luxury...

We've arrived in Cape Town and have got 5 days of relative luxury in a guest house before the camping trip begins! We've managed to convince ourselves that we should really enjoy these 5 days and have found a cinema complex that has our names all over it! Saw the Mummy film last night...which was very rubbish but exactly what we expected! (Sorry Ross and Sam...our choice of bad films even extends overseas!!!)

We spent four nights in London with Soph and Andrew before flying out, and LOVED catching up with them. Andrew arranged for us to attend a beloved QPR football match and we went out for a great meal to the Ledbury....and we certainly ate our fair share of cheese!!! I think we will be talking about that for a while. As expected lots of champagne was consumed by Soph and I, and it was great to see them both....I even enjoyed the team "run" we carried out up to Hampstead Heath!!!

We also had four nights in Devon with Anil and Emma and despite the rain it was fantastic to hang out with them again. We had a very civilised Devonshire Cream Tea overlooking the sea, a mega BBQ and steve had 3 surfs with Anil that he loved. As a special surprise day they also arranged for us to go horseriding on the Dartmore Dales which was a great experience. Steve got a whopper horse called Big Ben that was HUGE. It didn't go that fast at first but then he got given a crop and he was soon cantering across the dales..and steve ended up with very sore "bits" to prove it!!!! I forgot that the photos are on a different memory card so I'll have to upload them later on.

For now though we are off to enjoy Cape Town and get ready for the trip to start. Trying to work out what we do and don't need, and resist the urge to buy too many gadgets in the camping shops....but we like our new headtorch!!

End of Europe trip...

Am sitting in Devon at our friend's Anil and Emma's house and we are chilling out (in the rain unfortunately). It's a beautiful part of the world though and its nice to be at a "home" again where we can catch up on all our bits and pieces.

I've just read through all the comments people have left on our blog again...it's so nice to hear from everyone! We think of our family and friends all the time and often wonder what everyone is up to. We've also said heaps of times..."this place is great! If only we could transport all our family and friends here it would be a great place to live!!" The standout places were Bled and Ljubljana in Slovenia, and the Dolomites in Italy.

We've got a week before heading to Africa and are looking forward to having a few days here and seeing Soph and Felsie in London before the camping expedition begins...feeling a bit nervous about the camping part right now!!! Just heard from the organisers that there are 11 of us starting the trip and a few more joining us along the way so that is a great sized group...small enough to not feel like we are travelling in a pack, and enough to have a bit of variety and personalities. Happy with that.

Camping concept is slowly hitting home...umm, did I really say I wanted to camp for 5 months?? haha!!!!! We have already pledged to each other that we are splurging on a quality camp mattress...I can't imagine 5 months on a cheapo bit of old foam! Getting excited though...feel like a new chapter is about to begin!

I so love the Dolomites!

Dad always told me the Dolomites were good...they are GREAT!! Huge craggy rugged mountains with a soft pink hue in the rock. We've been driving all around little tiny roads that have been traversing the ranges on roads that have headed in exces of 2300m above sea level.

Oh I so love mountains. Sea is good, but mountains are the best. mmmm....

We made it to Cortina which is a big ski resort in winter and walking spot in summer. I've always wanted to go so it has been good to see the area, and yes it is stunning. We were lucky and our hotel room had a great view with a wraparound balcony. This is a great way to end our European trip....

We've had a great 24 days...feels like this has really been the honeymoon part and we've loved the journey.

P.S Alex, seems like I may have taken over Steve's crown as scrabble champion. hehe!!

Ready for the next part now!!

Italian Lakes and Mountains

Ok, so we did stay the extra night in Rimini! We woke up in the morning looked at each other and decided that there was another day of scrabble under our beach umbrella to be had. Typically when we spoke to the hotel about staying another night the rate magically went up....something like "oh today is the start of our high season rates so its an extra 20 euros". I don't believe them (it was a wednesday?) but c'est la vie...we stayed!

We then headed up to Salo in the beautiful Lake Garda and wandered around for the afternoon. It was really really hot and after trying to keep walking we ended up on the pebble beach and swimming instead (those pebbles are really uncomfortable by the way!!). The scenery on the Lake is incredible...just wish we had a speed boat and about a million euros and we could set ourselves up there quite well! Ah well, no such luck. The most extravagent thing I had was a meringue flavoured gelato...very nice!

We did however find a very cool way of having dinner....found a small funky wine bar and when we ordered our drinks a plate of canapes and bowl of olives arrived....and with every drink more kept arriving. This is my style of bar! The wine was locally made and delicious...not expensive either so all in all a very cheap night out.

In the morning we drove up the west side of the Lake and wandered around a few spots before heading towards the Dolomites. Stopped in an incredible place on the side of a mountain for lunch with views over the whole valley...steve had mushroom risotto and I had a penne ragu. We then drove on tiny winding roads towards a tiny place in the middle of nowhere where we stopped for a night. We followed signs for a walk to a Lake but got lost and then a thunder storm started so we decided to run back to the hotel up a mega hill of death. It was like one of those runs that Sam, Pernille, Alex and I did in Boot Camp. Agghh!!!

It has to be said that one thing that Italians are really rubbish at is signs. Their road signs are cack, and there walking signs are sometimes there, and then sometimes just disappear. We have been lost quite a few times...and in my role as navigator Stephen has been giving me some grief!! Ah well.

Dinner this night was quite amusing....they actually forgot about us in the restaurant (all the staff disappeared and we were the last there). To compensate I was promised local raspberrries in red wine (at which point I thought this was going to be some delicious new Italian dish of sauteed berries in rich wine sauce). Oh no, literally a bowl of raspberries with normal red wine poured over them. Too funny.