A three week tour with six jet boats shipped from New Zealand to Zambia, Central Africa, was undertaken in July 2005...
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Jeff, Jonny, Lance and David then took Sandy's boat and a truck 145 km's back to Lusaka and the lights, indicators and horn blew fuses, Jonny and Lance got he headlights going, but no trailer lights, horn or indicators, they arrived at the Lusaka hotel at 7pm after some interesting navigation through the busy streets, unpacked and headed off to the airport to try and find their luggage which hadn't turned up (same clothes for two days!!) and also picked up Duncan, luggage wasn't to be seen and no one seemed to know where it was? Also Duncan had his laptop stolen so he had NZ people sort this for him (thank you).
We then went back to the hotel and had a few drinks with the locals with an early finish. Today Wednesday saw David and Duncan off to ?rob? a bank after going to three banks to find one with enough money Duncan walked out with $14 million of the local currency.
Jonny, Jeff and Lance went to the airport to try and sort out the lost luggage issues and were very happy campers when they finally found all their gear and David?s safe and complete, next it was time to find replacement fuses for the broken truck, this in it's self proved to be a bit of a mission, but after 2 hours and K$53,000 for four fuses all was sorted (hey this is Africa).
We all met back at the hotel car park and pulled the engine out of Sandy's boat to replace the unit bearing, all went smoothly with the help of the truck and a tree.
We are just about to head out to airport and pick up the rest of our group (15 more).
Not only has Duncan lost his watch but now also his cell phone, so new phone and number which is Zambia country code plus 97 622454.
Jeff's new number Zambia 97 380707.
The Internet is quite slow so next report will be 2-3 days time.
All having fun in wild Africa.
Duncan Storrier and the worlds slowest two finger typing of Jonny Gray
Twenty eight hours of airports and planes behind us. The six boats and piles of gear in the carpark are safely under guard by Supervisor Annie and her private security team. For New Zealanders the initial impression is building styles and street layout reminiscent of Fiji, but a countryside dusty and brown like Aussie.
We get a speeding ticket heading south out of Lusaka, our adrenaline charged mob is struggling to spot the 60km/hr stretches. Reflector triangles warn regularly of articulated Trucks broken down and blocking the highway, many vehicles are old but still driven vast distances. Through a notorious gorge we gaze at trucks over banks, they loose traction on the torn up tarmac, skid wheels in the dust and wait to be scavenged.
At Chickonya?? the tarmac changes to rutted dust tracks with no rain for many months the trees are dried leaves on sticks. Its 2pm we launch at Gwabi onto the Kabue river, its cleaner and bluer than I expected. We briefly boat upstream and see kids hang in trees like starlings. Everyone pauses in their tasks waves and smiles. The bush huts on the ridges are everything the Movies had prepared us for. Poverty is rife but they all seem so happy. Twenty minutes downsteam we reach the Zambesi the far bank is Zimbabwee, Mozambique is 200km away. It sinks in, six months planning and this really is Africa .
Is that really a hippo? The top of the rich chocolate brown.head is all we see, its ears and eyes are nobbles like octopus suckers. The hippos spend their days submerged. Andrew warns us that because they are standing on sandbanks thy can run through the river at a frightening pace. If we see a bow-wave we need to shift without delay as a typical hippo at 2-3 tonnes is twice as heavy as our boat. But we discover our first uniquely African hazard , Mr Hippo spends significant times totally underwater and surfaces unexpectedly, Duncan was startled when one surfaced 2 meters off his left shoulder. By days end two boats have bumped over hippos
The river moves faster than expected, we drift along the Zimbabwee bank with motor switched off. Within a minute we drift past baboons, a gazeelee, white wading birds and chimps. It is our very own Discovery Channel.
Boating home after dark the expected moon fails us, Sandy out in front misses the Kafue turn and the rest reach home without him. Quick refuel and three rescue boat head back in the dark. Warren takes station and waits at the point where the Kafue and Zambezi meet. Duncan follows the right bank and Jeff the left, searchlights comb the edge.
Boating in the dark is hard, we feel the touches on sandbanks and remember we have a lack of waders in the boat. Its disconcerting to consider a long push.. We find Sandy nearly out of gas, he had stopped, found a phone and had already called back to the lodge. Fueled up we head home, relieved and pumped the three drivers ignore the trailers and “valet park” themselves in a line well out of the water. One day down and more memories than a suburban housewife gets in a month?
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Really fresh fruit salad, bacon, eggs any way you choose, a quick briefing and we head upstream on the Kafue. Graham says there is a set of rapids 35minutes away….of course it doesn’t take us that long to reach them.
The kids are waving, the interest is high, the extreme friendliness of the locals and the hard working women washing clothes or pots are commented on. The white tufts of the local toetoe and a green belt of perhaps 20 meters quickly gives way to dry brown land. The volume of the river is similar to the Wanganui but without the gorges. After twenty minutes we close into a range of hills.
We have bought simple toys to give away, when Sandy’s crew throw a tennis ball there is an initial baffled and uncertain response, but the second is competed for and the crayons produce a happy riot.
Five minutes this side of the rapid the noise of John’s Chevy changes. We pull over to the bank at one of the nine villages in this valley and introduce ourselves to Axon and his group. Our initial hope that the problem is a blown exhaust rubber fades. It’s higher up in the motor. Those knowledgeable about engines collect, and terms like pushrod and rockers fly.
While we wait it’s only fair to offer Axon a ride to the rapids, he grins and grins, Hamilton turns, a trip through four sets of whitewater and he asks to be dropped by his friend to brag!
Jeff plays tow driver for his umpteenth time and back at the lodge Johns boat is trailered and pushed into the shade for some serious checking. By 1.30 we are back in business, fortunately it was only a loose rocker arm.
We again boat down to the Zambezi and turn left downstream on the way to Mvuu. Rafting up and quietly drifting we see Maribu herons, chimpanzees and a small group of water buffalo. As we watch one herd of elephants, Duncan decides to briefly set foot on Zimbabawee soil. The elephants react by circling their young and he retreats.
There are many low islands of thick grasses. One forms an ideal launching ramp and an interlude of sheer hooning results. We search out some channels and let off steam. Lance gets a surprise when a hippo pops up only an arms length away. Close encounters become more and more frequent.
Arriving at Mvuu we are greeted by the proud owner after a quiet conversation they come down to look at how a jetboat works. As dusk falls most boat across to the Mana pools national park Zimbabawee side and drift along the banks watching the animals have their evening drink.
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Tuesday 27th
Special hello to Patrick Leckie rm 17 and Flynn Leckie rm 8 and all the children at Elmwood School Christchurch
Up at 7.0 am a bit fragile from last nights court session ,fuelled up the boats had, breakfast, broke camp on the water by 9.0am,boated up the Luwembo same as yesterday 6 boats all 20 guys plus Leadfoot (Zawa Guide complete with big bad boy AK 47),all boats going well pushed up the Luwembo then turned up the Luseme river. Amazing river mainly single channel sand bars and lots of fish farms which block the whole river but jumpable!!. The river then goes into a Gorge (not dissimilar to the Shot over) with the most amazing rock formations. The river then opened up again with lots of Crocodiles so we then rotated the lead boat so as to get a first view of the crocs before they disappeared into the water (sensitive to noise)
Arrangements were to link up with Chris and the crew on the Sat phone at midday, but he couldn’t be contacted so we weren’t sure if we had pushed up to far or not. Contemplation and lunch saw Duncan go ashore with Leadfoot trying to get a gauge on where we were. They walked for aprox 1 km when they came across some soldiers who were in the area tracking down poachers. (just 2 weeks prior one of Leadfoots friends and colleague had been killed by a poacher in this area so it was significant place for him to be.) Whilst walking in the bush Leadfoot also pointed out Lions foot prints which were no older than 30 minutes which made Duncan put a bit of pace on!!
We all regrouped and although we were technically lost we decided we had enough fuel for another 2 hours boating so punched on to find Chris and crew at 4.00 pm all set up and had just caught a 60lb Bundu fish. About 50% of us were interested in fishing so we set of to give it a go. I caught a good cat fish which unfortunately got away as we were bringing it into the boat. Minor spin on the way back down in Johns boat saw us having to push it off a big island of bamboo shoots – no croc bites !!
Good evening meal (t bones) few beers a bit of a yarn, keener ones went spotlighting for crocs, didn’t see any so got Chris .357 magnum pistol going – bit of fun.
All and all a rewarding days boating of about 7 hours on an amazing river with lots of variation--- bring it on!!
David Leckie
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Heading to Hippo.
We were rudely awakened at 5.30am to the sound of two shots from a 357 magnum (Chris's alarm clock). The call to get up rang thru the line of tents, which had been erected the stipulated 10 meters Crocodile range away from the river. The crackle and rustle of stretchers and tents being dismantled followed shortly after. The early start was due to a big day (soon to get bigger!) on the road heading to Hippo lodge to the east on the Upper Kafue. This is in the Kafue National Park 480 km away from our Lumsemfua River camp.
It was time to get the last two boats out of the water. The bank is 2.5m above the water but a section of bank at 45 degree was an adequate exit up thru the trees. Warren warmed up with a couple of crackling V8 runs, lined up the edge at what seemed like a good pace but ended up just inches from the top. Electric winch and manpower dragged it in to the waiting trailers. John's 152 was next, a couple of warm-up laps and he headed in a little faster. This became very evident when he flew over the brow of the bank scattering the spectators.
Excitement over we hit the road 50 kilometers of very dusty track took us back to Rufunsa and the main sealed road to Lusaka where we planned to refuel. Airforce One with Jeff, Duncan, Feck and Street had left at first light to get more local money for fuel. Feck was also dropped at the CFB clinic to get flash townie treatment for his snapped Achilles tendon. Incidentally they gave the team 10 out of 10 for our improvised splinting (Duct tape and the leg of a stool).
Getting fuel turned into a major, as the local refinery had closed for maintenance and diesel had run out!! Clever thinking meant the team visited three of the fuel companies head offices, armed with the knowledge of last deliveries from their manifestos,
Trucks headed all over town and we actually were the ones to drain three service stations dry. Daniel ODonoghue from BP South Africa also found us another drum of diesel for our return on Friday. 150,000 Kwacha and carrying 20 sacks of fertilizer got us some diesel out of another trucks tank! Although watching the driver suction it was scary. The liter he swallowed seemed a waste.
After spending four hours more in Lusaka than planned, we headed away another 130km of seal across untamed landscape and a beautiful Zambian sunset. Then 120 km of even dustier track in the dark slowed us, as extra long gaps between vehicles were the only way to see. Some trucks took a wrong turn but Duncan (fresh from the previous days tracking skills training with Letford??) used a spotlight to find their tracks in soft sand. One truck and one tandem trailer blew tires as well. Don't ya love Africa?
Bruce and Kate at Hippo Lodge were barely fazed by our last truck arriving at 11pm. Dinner kept on rolling out to a very hungry bunch. The excited chatter centered on the sightings of animals including leopard on the way down the drive. Our hosts have a fabulous concession in the Northern Kafue, which is the third largest National park in the world. Hippo easily lived up to Graham and Shaun’s pre arrival hype. Open ended huts just meters from the Kafue, if the boating is as good as this accommodation and scenery then we may just have found another Paradise.
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Thursday – Hippo Lodge
A mixture of styles of great accommodation – the Chalet I shared with 2 others featured thatched roof, a double and a single bed (go figure) and en-suite. Woke to fully appreciate the naming of “Hippo Lodge” as from our beds we had a clear view of a wide stretch of the Kafue River with a large hippo peacefully wading past.
Everyone was up early to tidy up gear battered and dusty from the long drive in. Boats fuelled up and launched before sitting down to a superb cooked breakfast from our hosts Bruce, Kate and their team.
Bruce and his boat driver joined us to act as guides and experience the thrill of jet boating. We headed up the Kafue deviating off for a side trip up the Lunga and then back and on up the Kafue. Both rivers started as wide shallow slow flowing with huge rocks many with jagged edges ready to catch unwary drivers. 13 kms up the Kafue, where a barge provided locals with a link across the river, the team split with Sandy in his own boat and John Fechney, driving “Loose Metal” opting to return for a run below the Lodge where they were able to concentrate on watching the` wildlife rather than the rocks.
Others “pushed” on as the river split into 8 channels with crystal clear slow moving water, overhead trees, huge boulders and not always a full boat width between them.
Eventually Duncan said time to give up, Geoff then boated the compulsory 10 metres further before also turning back.
A peaceful cruise home stopping to play with the 100s of hippos, crocodiles and to view a variety of animals and birds.
Back to the Lodge, lunch, more maintenance on broken trailers, flat tires, and then fuel up trucks ready for the run out tomorrow. We noted that Fech’s townie cast had broken already…..
Just on dusk we headed out for 3 hours to view another stunning sunset, and to see the wild life from the comfort of seats mounted on the decks of the Lodges trucks. Saw plenty of smaller animals but unfortunately a scarcity of cats and elephants. One truckload had a nervous wait while their driver run back to get help after their truck broke down.
Back to the Lodge for another great meal, the normal lies and a few quiet drinks from a very jaded team.
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The traffic on our return to Lusaka on Friday afternoon was mayhem. Diesel in short supply produced long Queues at the servos and the pumps ran dry. Duncan somehow meets a contact that runs a lodge, who found us 400 liters. (See his link on this site!!). Ironically the boat Jerry cans had to be filled with spare diesel rather than petrol. Dr Ross staged a 3 hour sit-in at South African Airlines, after closing time, eventually retrieving the last of our lost luggage and daily allowance refunds of over $US 600. There was great relief when a British Airways pilot, staying in the hotel, let us know the airline strike was over.
Saturday mornings early 7am start failed after a head count. Eventually we left Lusaka conscious that most of us won’t see it again. The five-hour drive past Sugar cane fields passed beautiful towns like Monza. This oasis with its boa trees reminded some of us of outback Western Australia towns. Few areas were without people; there were two story-thatched huts and roadside stalls invariably selling tomatoes. Alistair found us some nashi oranges that few had tried before. Stretches of road with horrendous potholes had the trucks doing a Mexican wave. We handed pads and crayons out the windows to smiling faces.
Lake Kariba was like Fort Knox with three barriers blocking access. The lake, 280km by 50km, was visible for half an hour before we arrived. Imagine twenty Lake Taupo’s in a row. Kariba’s bays and islands make it appear like the Marlborough Sounds but wider. At the loading area the thirsty team quickly and efficiently sorted what gear needed to stay and which to go and we launched the boats to rendezvous with our houseboat. Owned by a Kiwi and an Aussie the boat is 27m by 6m, has a plunge pool on its middle deck and twin Perkins to push it along at 5-8 knots.
Alistair Rooney
Fifteen minutes boat ride away we tied up to Kohisla 1.Three stories high, white and green, reminiscent of a Murray River steamer- it looked so welcoming. Five of the boats were hooked on behind. The missionary drivers left us for two days keeping one boat to fish from. Exploring the boat and a very late lunch of cold pizza followed.
After the obligatory red orange African sunset, the evenings Fining session was harsh, though one of the million kwatro fines for lateness was clearly deserved. The card sessions started and a few embarked on a midnight visit to some of the 20 Kapentia fishing boats. Kapentia are whitebait sized and caught with a net under a light.
We spent the morning cruising up the lake. Filled in time with fishing and a side excursion to a Village. The tennis balls, pens and paper giveaways were well received. The secretary showed us the village smoker, full of about 50 fish, which apparently keep 3 months in this state. Reaching the top of the lake we headed up the Zambezi initially the river was wide and we feared it would be a tad boring. We noted the flash deserted houses on the Zimbabwe side. Then the first set of rapids appeared, these were through pretty tussock like Mackenzie Country rivers. After a few k’s of these there was another long flat section before we reached the big stuff.
Events on the journey were Duncan loosing his tackle box after hitting a rock in big rapid and Sandy having a wet moment when a wave accidentally pulled the reverse bucket down resulting in the nose burying itself in the next wave. Alistair only landed one of the four Tiger fish he hooked up. There were 18 crocs sunning themselves at one spot. A big troop of monkeys and a 5 mere croc entertained us.
Jeff Horne’s crew of Lance Kerr, John Moody and Andrew Webster won top of river again and were greatly disappointed when expedition leader Duncan with John Gray, Ross Denton and Andrew Leckie were too sensible too follow them through the last “tiny” rapid, now known as Naked Butt rapid. Our wished for goal had been to reach rapid 24, infamous amongst rafters, but a shortage of time and fuel put paid to this. Using the GPS coordinates we recorded, calculations later showed we were only a few k’s from rapid 24, locals believe we are the first jet boats to have made it this far up the Zambezee.
We had 2 plus hours of boating to return down to the houseboat, most boats had minimal fuel or fumes to achieve this. Eventually we found the Houseboat in the dark, as the captain wasn’t in the expected spot.
Sandy got sick of celebrating David Leckie’s birthday and the Early morning start (5.30) took longer than expected as the Houseboat was stuck on a stump. Fortunately Ross played tug with Warrens boat and got us off the bank. It was time to cruise home for the long drive to Livingstone. When it became apparent we were going to be way behind schedule the yellow boat went back to the trailers solo for more fuel. Refuelled the team climbed aboard and deserted the slow boat to Siatwinda.
A group effort.
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When it became apparent how long the houseboat would take to get home, we resorted to a long thump down the lake in the jetboats. A quick side trip to the croc farm was pretty tame, after all we’ve been boating past them for days!! With five hours driving to Livingstone ahead of us the trucks became booze buses.
Tuesday, August 2nd, was our day to raft the Zambezi, but some people particularly David Street and Paul didn’t seemed to fancy rafting and swam half the rapids. John-Jack, the Aussie, reckons it felt like half drowning in a great big washing machine. The rapids seem incredibly big when you are right in them, compared to approaching or from the bank. Realizing what we had done before, the guides showed us the hard way through the rapids, even the grade fours.
Ockert, who is one of our missionaries, (and an ex- Soweto Policeman) reckons it was better out of the boat. In a Grade 5 rapid we reckon Voster purposefully put the second boat sideways and flipped it. Everyone had enjoyed after some pre rafting apprehension.
Jeff, Duncan, Andrew and John Feck, avoided rafting, and started the day with a trip to the local airport. They acquired a helicopter to check out the Zambezi River and amazingly even these nutters agreed that it would be stupid to try to boat some of the grade 6 rapids they saw. However perhaps a will be a great adventure at a later date.
Then we headed for Zimbabwe for lunch leaving Duncan a lot poorer as each of the various custom and border patrol took money of him, we think they used about three trees worth of paper to complete the round trip, we bought tourist stuff for about a fifth of the asking price and other stuff that only could be described as shit, then went to a fabulous hotel for lunch and could only afford a toasted sandwich.
We headed off on the booze cruise. Sharon, a 34 year old from Kendal, Cumbria, UK. reckoned we were the politest, friendliest, chattiest group you could meet. She had been spending the night with a bunch of wooziest, in tents at a lodge but found the kiwis very friendly chaps. Told us all their tales of life jet boating around Zambia – fascinating!! Wish I could have been with them. Alison Shearer from Ashburton!! said it was really nice to meet some faces from home, especially the Donald twins who are related as hubbies cousins and she used to work with David Street when he was 17 years old. Ashley from Perth (the Scottish Perth!!) said we were full of shit but friendly with it and sounds like we have had a good time, though we show sheep like tendencies to her. (Cuddly???)
We then went to Grubbies, the owner of rafting extreme, who had arranged a quiet drinking session for after the booze boat trip. Tomorrow’s another day.
Game drives can be boring!!! We spent this morning on the back of the trucks driving through Zambia’s National Reservation Area. Eventually we saw Elephants, water-buffalo, antelope, baboons monkeys and Puka.deer amongst others. Some saw rhino. However the long time delay between each sighting was noticeable. Obviously we have been spoiled since on the river, animal after animal (and not the semi tame ones), appear for us.
In the afternoon a group of us journeyed down close to the falls, details of this experience will be in the National Magazine. Then we took the new Manager of the Waterfront with us on an up-stream trip of about 30-40km. This quality of the boating here was a pleasant surprise. Somehow our expectation had been deep flat water; instead there were shallows, grass islands, grasses and quite sharp rocks. It definitely kept the drivers awake.
An early start saw us at Grubbies Backpackers to clean the boats and repack them. Grubbie and Dane (the houseboat man) are two ex- pat Nzers who have been incredibly helpful and hospitable. Some excursions were made to town to buy trinkets for family members.
Dinner was at the Boma , a fabulous place that Dane suggested, it featured an African show. The mere detail that this dinner place was across the border at Vic Falls in Zimbabwee didn’t seem much of a hurdle. Neither was it a problem to find a bus at short notice. The entrée was crocodile, followed by mains of ostrich kebabs, beautifully marinated waterbuffalo steaks and Eland deer.
This has been a most amazing adventure. It has exceeded our expectations, even though the sight/plans were set pretty high anyway. It would be fair to say that the pace has had taken its toll, and there are some tired people. Tomorrow it’s off to Capetown. For many of us this will mean about our 5th trip through or onto Mugabee Country.
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The tour party left Zambia (in the nick of time might I add) safe in the knowledge that our equipment had been cleaned and packed properly and headed for Capetown to join the large entourage of kiwi supporters to watch to All Blacks vs Spring Boks test at Newlands Stadium. The most amazing venue with Rocky Mountains in the background. Unfortunately all the kiwi support was not quite enough but we did however stay on in a thinner crowd to support the Legends team playing the 1995 Spring Boks World Cup side where we can claim victory.
The next day most of the group departed for Johannesburg and then a long haul back to Christchurch. On a flight with the full All Black team. We managed to maintain a record of not having had a single flight where all bags have arrived safely.
There is a huge list of people both based here in New Zealand, Australia and Ex pats living in Zambia and Zambia nationals that were very instrumental in many parts of the organisation and logistics of the trip. On behalf of the group we extend our thanks to all those people. For all the support from people that showed interest in the trip we look forward to sharing our memories with you once all our footage is clipped together.
During the month of July and August worldjetboatExpeditions.com had 3605 visits to the website and 185,117 hits, an amazing statistic that backs up an amazing adventure.
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