The Deep South and Interstate 95

Now where did I leave you? Ah yes, the airplane ride! We had an uneventful two-legger down to Miami on United Airlines. The first leg ended in Houston and we caught the second plane on time at George Bush Airport. The only negative that I can report is that the second leg was altered somewhat due to a massive storm over Florida and this resulted in a longer and bumpier ride then we were supposed to have had. Mrs. Gym was shaken but not stirred by the uneven ride and rough landing. I was fascinated by the Florida everglades as we descended into Miami from the west. After we collected our luggage, we took the MIA light rail train to the Car Rental Centre and picked up a late model silver Ford Taurus. It was already past dinner, so we had reserved a room at the Airport Hilton for the evening and we had a great stay there. We retired early because we had a long drive ahead of us in the morning.

Airport Hilton - Chris and I stayed here not too long ago and to you Chris, I can report that the rooms on the other side of the building are much quieter!

Our ride

Our next hotel room was 8.5 hours north of Miami and two states away! Gym's plan was to do plenty of driving on the first full day of the trip; leaving short hops of less than 3 hours for the next week, as we flitted about Georgia and the Carolinas. As I write this entry, we have already spent the second night of our trip  in South Carolina and I am currently sitting in our beautiful room in the Historical District of Savannah, Georgia, where we will be spending our third and fourth nights. I don't want to get ahead of myself though, so let me back-up.

We didn't want to dawdle on the trip which took us through the entire length of the State of Florida, so we  stayed on the I-95 all the way up here and made some pretty good time. We stopped at a couple of rest stops, refuelled the car at a gas station and refuelled ourselves at Church's Chicken (try the corn nuggets). We crossed the Georgia border just past Jacksonville and blasted all the way through Georgia to Exit #8 in South Carolina, which took us to the William Hilton Parkway and Hilton Head Island, which by the way is named after an English adventurer who explored the Cape Fear region during the 1600's and not Paris Hilton. Our room was waiting for us in the famous resort area of Harbour Town, where just last week the PGA played the RBC Heritage Classic (nice to have a Canadian bank take a lead sponsor role in such a storied annual golf event).

Room at The Inn at Harbour Town

It was a long drive and again, we were arriving at a destination after the dinner hour but we checked in to the Inn at Harbour Town and immediately went for a stroll. We started at the famed 18th green where they were still taking down the grandstand from the tournament and watched as the last few foursomes came in on that nasty-long par-4. We then walked backwards down the course covering the 18th, the par 3 -17th and the par 4-10th hole. That is where we encountered two critters that Mrs. Gym recorded on her trusty camera. We dined very late in the clubhouse on that first night and turned in.

View from our deck - No. 1 Tee, No. 9 Green and in the background the range at Harbour Town

Darn narrow fairways - 30 yards wide

The famous lighthouse at Harbour Town

Critter No. 1 - don't let the border collies swim here!

Critter No. 2 (Red Cardinal)

In the morning, we took the hotel up on the free bikes that they had to offer and we went on a long ride to the island's south beach. The entire resort area is criss-crossed with excellent bike paths and biking is a great way to explore the island. We saw some beautiful properties adjacent to the golf course and along the beach. The beach itself was beautiful and although it was a little blustery out, it was still a wonderful way to spend the morning after two long days of travel. Unfortunately, we spent less than 24 hours on the island but we saw the highlights and we promised the hotel staff that we would be back for a longer stay next time. We packed up and headed back towards Savannah and the Ballastone Inn, where we are currently camped out in the China Trade Room. They have cocktails in less than an hour in the parlour, so I am going to wind this entry up and change into my evening wear for our first of two nights in this really interesting southern belle of a city.

Gym on South Beach, Hilton Head Island

Mrs. Gym and her bike

Some shacks at South Beach, Hilton Head Island

Critter No. 3 - to be identified)

China Trade Room (our bunk in Savannah)

Invasion of the Deep South - April 21, 2012

As I begin to write this entry, Mrs. Gym and I are sitting in the Calgary International Airport waiting for our flight to be called. We are leaving the country again, but this time we are not leaving the continent. We are headed to America; our big buddy next door. We are flying into Miami today, with a short stopover in Houston. After all the intercontinental travel in 2011 you might think that this trip sounds pretty run-of-the-mill but I assure you that it isn’t. The plan is to invade the Deep South and tour through four states in the southeast corner of the continental United States. Our journey takes us into Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

We are on a multi-pronged mission this time, with several objectives, as follows:

<1. We will be attempting to confirm that there is still some southern hospitality in the Deep South and will be grading each state on their overall grace and positive display of exemplary manners;

<2. We will be checking out some historical sights in this region of which there are many, spanning more than four centuries of recent times, including important battlefields from the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. Mrs. Gym is willing to accompany me in these explorations because I have promised ample beach time at the end of the trip;

<3.   We will be looking for Moores in the Carolinas, because we are probably related to them. General James Moore of the Continental Army fought the British loyalists in North Carolina at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Fighting the British came naturally to him because he was a direct descendent of Rory Og O’Morda of the ancient noble family of Moores from central Ireland. Rory fought the British in the Irish Rebellion of 1641;

<4.   We will be looking for establishments that serve chicken and waffles;

<5.   We will be checking out a number of beaches for Mrs. Gym and a plethora of golf courses for me. We will be mostly just be looking while we are in the Carolinas but after we complete our tour of Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina we will settle back down in the Miami Area and camp out at South beach for seven nights; and,

<6. While we are in South Beach we are hoping to sight the Raven. We will see if we can’t capture this hoped for encounter on film. I will fill in more details on this interesting fellow in future postings.

So there should be plenty to talk about over the next couple of weeks. You don’t have to leave the continent to make for interesting blog entries.

Cheers for now!

Been Home Too Long

We are getting the itch again. We have to get out of town. Gym has planned a new adventure and Mrs. Gym has consented to the preliminary concepts of Gym's itinerary. Stay tuned!

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.

Livingstone

our pool on the banks of the Zambesi

Livingstone, Zambia

We landed in Zambia yesterday and we have been busy ever since we got here. We were picked up at the airport by two Micato representatives; Joseph, a black Zambian and Mel, a white Zimbabwean.  Since Victoria Falls is shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe, both countries have tourist infrastructure near the falls. Both the towns of Livingstone, Zambia and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe have multiple hotels. It was nice for us to have a Micato person from both countries because they are both quite different. Joseph’s Zambia is a fully democratic country that just had voted in a new government, which includes a white Vice-President. Zimbabwe is a real mess of a totalitarian country, which has a very recent history of multiple conflicts and a shattered economy. Only 10 years ago, Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, confiscated the farms of all the white farmers in the country, without compensation to the former owners. He then dished them back out to his political cronies.

Joseph drove us through the town of Livingstone and deposited us at the Royal Livingstone Hotel. We checked in and had a little bit of time to freshen up before Joseph and Mel met us again to take us down the road for a planned cruise down the Zambezi, aboard a two-deck river boat. As we boarded an African duo played African instruments similar to xylophones but made out of African hard wood loosely strapped to a frame over top of graduated sizes of animal horns. Together these guys made a pretty cool sound together. We were served finger food and drinks and Mel accompanied us on the boat and was happy to discuss politics and whatever else we were interested in talking about, between sightings of crocodiles and hippos. We got back to the hotel and would eat dinner in the dining room that evening. We needed to get some decent rest that night because the next day would be a very busy day. The next day’s activities included a hike to the Eastern Cateracts, a helicopter ride over the falls, and a boat ride to the Island right on top of the falls where Livingstone first viewed them in 1855. 

Mrs. Gym was dreading the helicopter ride.

Here are some pictures from our first half-day here:

The Royal Livingstone Hotel

hotel pool on the banks of the Zambezi

Victoria Falls' mist downriver from the hotel

this is how you keep crocs and hippos out of the lobby

crocodile from the river boat

marimba players

Merry Christmas from Zambia

Stay tuned for more from Zambia.

Singita: Part Two

Selected Singita Stories

Chapter One: The Most Fascinating of Creatures

I love the Dung Beetle! Think about it, this rather large insect flies around until he finds a nice pile of fresh dung. Then he lands in it and using his specially adapted front legs he separates out a big lump of the dung to form into a ball. When he is done kneading and sculpting the dung, he has formed a perfectly round ball of the stuff many times his own size. He then rolls it around the countryside until he is able to attract a female beetle that approves of the size and shape of his dung ball and agrees to lay her eggs in it.

Think about this. If your ball of shit is too small you are not going to score. But if you have a very large, perfectly shaped ball of shit you will probably succeed. Does this sound familiar?

The pictures speak for themselves. The lesson is simple, you have to have your shit together.

Chapter Two: Hippo Hike

We did something a little different at Singita. On our second game drive into the concession, Ian asked us if we were interested in participating in a little foot-patrol. We both nodded agreement to the concept but I immediately began to doubt that snap decision. I wondered about leaving the relative safety of the Land Rover and marching off into the wilderness. I then remembered that Ian’s .455 caliber Holland & Holland and its five inch bullets would also be accompanying us. I asked Ian whether his elephant gun stopped everything in the concession and he assured me that if the shot was placed correctly then no animal could withstand the armament. I then proceeded in another line of questioning about Ian’s relative marksmanship skills and came away from those queries with only partially satisfactory answers.

Some time later, we stopped at the trailhead of Ian’s planned hike and we all jumped out of the truck, except Daniel who indicated he would guard the Land Rover. This struck me as odd, until I remembered that I had seen a troop of baboons earlier and the vehicle had some refreshments in the back.  So off we went down the game trail, which descended from a flatter area around where our ride was parked and down into a lower river-course that was parallel to the dirt road. We hiked for about 300 yards to a narrow opening in the bedrock that lead down to the bottom. As soon as we came to the roost that Ian wanted us to observe the inhabitants of the river from, a tremendous racket ensued as the locals noticed our arrival. We gazed down on what Ian estimated was a population of 150-200 hippos, of all ages, and they were all a little excited about our arrival. Ian assured us that they would soon get used to us and sure enough the din started to die down a bit after a couple of minutes. Then Ian calmly told us that more people die of hippo attacks in Africa every year than attacks from any other animal. My already racing heart rate shot up a few more bpm as I looked down on the assembled masses in the water below who were all facing us.

Obviously, we survived and it was a really cool experience but I felt very much better after I had retaken my seat in the Land Rover and we continued on down the road.    

Ian in the lead with the elephant gun, the dear wife, Dick Browne and Gail Browne starting off on the hike

Surprised Hippos

checking us out

not too happy

showing aggression

check out those chompers

Chapter Three: Lions of Singita

At Singita there was a very large pride of female lions with older cubs. The whole group included about 6-8 adult females and 10-12 cubs that were older than the cubs we had seen at Londolozi. In total the pride numbered 18 without the male lions who were around but spent most of their time off on their own. We visited this group of lions at both of the morning drives and the one evening drive that we went on while at the concession.

On the first drive, Daniel had wanted to do some scouting on foot because he had seen some tracks, so off he went into the bush with a radio and the elephant gun. Not too long after that, Daniel radioed back to Ian to make his report but I do not think any of us understood what was being talked about on the radio because Ian and Daniel were communicating in Daniel’s African dialect. Daniel had indeed found some lions though. Chatting with Daniel later on, he told me how he had come upon the lions and how he had then stuck near a big tree so that he had somewhere to seek refuge if the lions attacked.  

The lions were resting in the shade of two trees and a bush and there was not much movement exhibited by them during this first visit. It was easy to see though that these big cats had not eaten in a while. Many of the adults were pretty skinny.

The second visit was at night and we got there about a half hour before sunset.  This was good timing because the pride was beginning to stir. We had arrived just before they began hunting. They lionesses took no notice of us as they rose from their shady day-beds and started to stretch. As the lionesses began to go through their pre-game motions the cubs watched but stayed put.  In fact, the cubs always stayed in the rear throughout the hunt and watched their elders. There was a beautiful sunset that night and the lionesses began to fan out and move in a westerly direction. This obviously makes sense because the predators would be approaching the prey from the dark. We followed along and watched how intensely the hunters watched the prey from their positions on either side of the Land Rover. At several points we had lionesses crouching facing the west on both sides of our vehicle. It was amazing to be there amongst them and not them not give us any consideration whatsoever.

Eventually, it was pitch dark and another Land Rover had come up to join us. They were on the right and we were on the left. We stayed with the other vehicle for a half hour and then decided to leave because we had about a 20 km. drive back to the lodge and we did not know if the lions would even be successful that night. The other group stayed with the hunting party.

After we got back and were getting ready to go to dinner Ian told us that the other group had radioed back that only a short time after we left the hunt, the pride had killed a small wildebeest. The other group did not see the kill but they did witness the feeding. Subsequently, members of the group told me that they had witnessed the scrap over the kill by the senior members of the pride  and that after that vicious fight, when the food was gone, all the lions were grooming each other and were friendly again. Unfortunately, only four of the lionesses ate anything at all and because the prey animal was small, none of them got much to eat. It was sad that we had not stayed a little longer at the hunt.

On the last game drive we said goodbye to the pride from a distance as they had left the Singita concession sometime during the night and were about 300 yards over the boundary and in the National Park where Ian could not drive, We noticed that at least one of the male lions had joined the group of 18.  We had to leave Singita that morning and fly back to Johannesburg so went spent only a few minutes watching them with binoculars and trying to get some pictures of the pride. The Boss got a pretty darn good shot of one of the males that had not participated in the hunt.

First contact:

hanging loose in the shade

my tummy is rumbling

skinny cub

skinny mom too

 Second Contact:

after sleeping most of the day the pride gets active

let's go hunting

sunset and it is a better time to hunt

Third Contact:

A male has joined the pride but we can't go close because they are over the boundary

Final Chapter in Singita:

Ian drove us to the Singita air-strip and we shook his hand and said goodbye to our guide and Singita resort. 

We were on our way to Johannesburg to stay one night there and then we would board a British Airways 737 and fly to Livingstone, Zambia. Our next mission was to view one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls.