Exploring Victoria Falls

As I begin to write this chapter, the rainy season has started in Zambia. We sit here in the airport waiting to exit Zambia. Our trip has been perfectly timed. We had a clear day to enjoy a thorough exploration of Victoria Falls and we stayed dry. After we had finished our outdoor activities, a spectacular tropical thunderstorm began in the late afternoon with intense fireworks and a very wet rainstorm.  In the weeks ahead, the Zambezi River will rise making it difficult to see the falls as we saw them yesterday because as the river rises the mist thickens and viewing the falls themselves becomes impossible. Not only is the mist a problem for seeing the falls, visits to Livingstone Island are impossible because the flood waters cover most of that venue. We were lucky to get out to the Island where Dr. Livingstone first viewed the falls in 1855.

The Zambezi River is the fourth largest river system in Africa behind the Nile, the Congo and the Niger river systems. It flows through 6 countries including Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The source is in Zambia and it drains into the Indian Ocean from Mozambique. The most famous portion of the river, Victoria Falls, is situated between the towns of Livingstone, Zambia and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  It is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. On Wednesday, Mrs. Gym and I explored the falls on foot from the Zambian side, flew over the falls in a helicopter and took a boat out to Livingstone Island, which is situated overlooking the gorge between the Horseshoe Section and the Main Section of the falls. It was a very busy day indeed.

We woke up early and decided to hike to the Eastern Cataracts, which are the closest section of the falls to the Royal Livingstone Hotel, where we were staying. After a few hundred meters, we left hotel property and came to a gate leading to a park, that Zambia had built on the cliffs on their side of falls. There was a good pathway built along the gorge that had numerous viewpoints for some excellent pictures of the first two or three sections of the falls.

the first view of the falls on our morning hike

the Eastern Cateract

looking downstream from the falls to the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe

Dr. Gymingstone, I presume

looking down from the Zambian side

looking across the falls toward the Zimbabwe side

We then returned to the hotel for breakfast and dined at our leisure because we still had ample time before our guides, Mel and Joseph were to meet us in the lobby and take us to the Heliport. At 10:30 they arrived and Joseph drove us to helipad where a South African pilot was waiting with his chopper to take us on this excellent photo opportunity. Mrs. Gym was nervous but just like you would expect she boarded the aircraft without whining and off we went. We made two and a half loops over the falls and the pilot gave us running commentary whilst keeping an eye on other helicopters, which were also in the area. He then ran upriver over a group of hippos and looped in over the National Park on the Zambian side of the river looking for other game before heading back to the Baobab tree that marked his home base. I kept an eye on the wife throughout the ride and had noted the placement of the barf-bag in front of us when I entered the machine but we never needed it. Mrs. Gym remarked later that it was a pretty smooth ride. She also got some excellent photos.

our chopper ride

Heli-base is under the Baobab tree

a good shot of the 1.7 km. width of the falls

the Eastern Cataracts from the air

draining through the gorge

Livingstone Island from the air

Zimbabwe golf course designed by Gary Player (no one is playing)

The third probe of Victoria Falls was an amphibious landing, which we executed on Livingstone Island. This landmass of the island at this time of year is all of about 1.5 acres of high basalt bedrock. During the annual rainy season, the area shrinks down to almost nothing and trips to the island are suspended. Mel introduced us to our host Alex at our hotel dock and we jumped into his motorboat for the cruise downstream. I was somewhat anxious about the wisdom of driving downstream to the edge of one of the highest and most powerful waterfalls in the world, but a short time later we landed on the island and Alex proceeded to give us a tour of “his office”. Alex took us right to the edge of the sheer basalt cliffs on both sides of the island and this provided us with more great photo opportunities. After that we stood by the memorial to Dr. Livingstone, where he first viewed the falls in 1855. Alex and his team then sat us down in a tent overlooking the falls and provided us with a three-course lunch. We left the island after checking out the “Loo with a View” and boated back to the hotel dock.

looking back to where we had hiked to in the morning

the intrepid explorers

Alex our guide at the memorial to Livingstone where he first viewed the falls

looking towards Zimbabwe out over the "Main Falls"

Loo with a View

inside the Loo

View from the Loo with a View

I am finishing this submission as I sit in Terminal 3, at Heathrow Airport in London, having enjoyed another great flight on South African Airlines. Sadly, we have left the African continent. We said goodbye to our friend Alex (a different Alex than the Livingstone guide), our final Micato contact in Johannesburg, who did an excellent job guiding through that massive new airport and wishing us a warm farewell. We also said goodbye to Dick and Gail Browne, our travel companions over the past couple of weeks. Dick and Gail would be spending two more nights in South Africa and although they wanted us to stay and enjoy the rest of their adventure with them, we had to get home to get ready for Christmas.  I will try to write one final chapter in the next couple of days to wrap up this particular adventure. We have an Air Canada flight that is calling us.