Adventures in Africa

During Covid Lockdown I contemplated where and what, if I was never able to travel again, I would be most disappointed that I had never been able to see. Number one on my list was Africa and its amazing wildlife. Then I got Long Covid, and its lingering and uncertain effects intensified my desire to travel to Africa as soon as I was physically able. My friend Anne (with whom I’d travelled to number two on my list, Antarctica, a couple of years ago) was keen to visit Africa as well.

When we starting investigating small group tours to Africa, the choices were very limited as tourism was slow to recover for many countries. We were struggling to find a tour or combination of tours that would give us the experience we wanted. Then I saw that some friends I had travelled in Nepal and Bhutan with were posting some amazing photos of Africa on social media – and it looked like just the sort of trip we were looking for. I had never even heard of Bunnik Tours that they were travelling with – an Australian company that has in fact been operating for 30 years. We went ahead and booked: Namibia, Botswana and Victoria Falls.

Then came my decision to take early retirement and, with it, the realisation that I no longer had to restrict my travels to the amount of annual leave I had available. Madagascar was on my bucket list too and Bunnik Tours had a 2 week tour that coincided quite well with our other tour. Anne didn’t take a lot of persuading that it would make sense to add this onto our travels.

There were 3 days in between the tours and no direct flights between the countries, so we decided to add another shared bucket list item and visit Cape Town, South Africa to see Table Mountain (one of the Natural Wonders of the World, along with Victoria Falls).

We were able to fly Air New Zealand from Auckland to Perth, Australia (7.5 hours)) and then a code-shared flight with South African Airlines through to Johannesburg (11.5 hours) – although unfortunately with an almost 8 hour transit in Perth. Followed by a 3 hour flight with South African-based Midland Aviation through to Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar. We also flew with Midland Aviation from Antananarivo back to Johannesburg and on to Cape Town; then from Cape Town to Windhoek, Namibia; and at the end from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg for the return trip in reverse via Perth.

Join me over the next few weeks for stories and photos of our Adventures in Africa.