I will start loading photos and info about some of our travel destinations that might be of interest.   If anything piques your interest and you would like more info or have questions, I can be reached by email   here.

Please check back as this page grows.  I've been a bit slower than I thought in doing updates here so I figured posting the most recent update date might help you know if there has been an update since your last visit to the page.   

Most recent update:  Feb 23 2025

I plan on adding things from our trip to New Zealand in Jan 2024.  But for now, I'll start with some items from our recent Africa trip, May 2024

The first question we [my wife and I] typically get asked is 'did you see the big 5?' and the answer is a BIG yes!  And that would be - lion, leopard, rhino, elephant and buffalo.   But I have to start by saying that you need to be ready for the experience of just getting there.  Flights typically have a stop over someplace in Europe depending on which airline.  Without getting into issues dealing with airlines and airports, be ready for a trip lasting easily 24 hours.  Plan on a day to recover once landing in Africa.  Our trip took us from Ottawa to Montreal where we got on our flight to Amsterdam and finally landing in Johannesburg.  Extra legroom seating is very welcome on these long flights.

Landing in Johannesburg late in the day we just needed some relaxation at the hotel but the next day we planned a visit to Soweto.  It turned out our hotel was just a few steps from Mandela Square - photo below with the large clock, fountain and statue.  It was not quite what I had pictured in my mind with all the shops and restaurants surrounding the square. 

With an excellent guide providing much info about the history of Soweto, we were able to see much of what the township is now as well as visit the home, now a museum, of Nelson Mandela.  Soweto is now a mixture of very nice modern homes and homes and a short distance away homes [a generous word for those dwellings] that are still occupied by some of the very poorest families.  Many of those eek out a daily subsistence living by collecting recyclables in huge bags on wheeled carts and taking their daily haul many kilometers to sell at the recycling depot.   

Since the area with the Mandela house is popular for tourists, there are many 'street performers' there to entertain.  I have a video below of one of the dance performances that we saw while walking the streets around the Mandela house. 

A very moving experience for us was to visit the Hector Pieterson museum that memorializes the 1976 Soweto Uprising.  The number of black children that were killed is uncertain with 176 being the frequently used number but unofficially there could have been hundreds more.  It is quite sobering to see the 176 stones with the names, where known, of those who died on that day.  The photo only shows a small area where the stones are.

 

After a couple of days in Johannesburg we headed to our first game accommodation - Kapama Buffalo Camp.  This is a private reserve that borders Kruger National Park.   Several game drives brought us very close to many 'locals' including elephants, buffalo, giraffes, hyenas, zebras, a rhino mother and baby and the pesky monkeys who love to check out what might be a tasty bite to steal from your plate.  And, true to it's name, we saw lots of buffalo in addition to many, many elephants, giraffes, hyenas and a good variety of birds.

  

Sabi Sands Nature Reserve is a large private game reserve that abuts Kruger National Park and it contains several camps.  Our second camp was at the Savanna Lodge on Savanna Private Game Reserve.  Our experience there was amazing.   Our previous safari trip to Africa had been to Kenya and Tanzania and we had visited various national parks so something that came as a surprise to us on this trip, being in 'private' reserves was that our game drives could go off-roading.   To relate just one of those drives, word had spread via the 'bush radio' that there had been a sighting of a pack of wild dogs.  These roam freely throughout Kruger and the private reserves that border Kruger without any fences.  They are fast, elusive and seldom seen.  The opportunity to catch a glimpse lead to an exhilarating chase over not just the roads [all dirt of course] but also through the bush.  Yes, actually through.  Our guides [Neil and Life] took us through the scrub and around trees and over stumps as we tried to keep within sight as the pack moved very quickly and for them, very easily through the bush.  We had never experienced a more exciting, amazing, thrilling game drive and this was just one of the off-roading times we had at Savanna.  It's hard to convey how thrilled we were to have seen this pack.  Wild dogs are endangered and the parks are trying to collect as much information as they can about each member of these packs and each dog has specific, individual colours and markings for identification. 

I can't leave Savanna without showing another unexpected and amazing experience.  Not with the wild animals but one night during dinner [always excellent food, btw] under the stars we were regaled by an African choir.  While we were seated at our tables and conversing about the days sightings with Neil [our game driver / guide and his wife Natasha, Savanna's Manager] we heard the sound of singing off in the distance.  Beginning quietly but growing stronger we realized that the choir was walking towards the dinning area from behind the buildings.  I've posted the video here of the performance because it was a highlight of the trip.  The sound and the sight of that choir under that dark, starry African night sky was magical and something that I will never forget.  I hope this video captures and expresses that moment for you as well.  

From Sabi Sand we flew from Kruger airport to Victoria Falls airport and then by private vehicle to Victoria Falls Town.  Going through borders is greatly simplified when your tour operator is making all the arrangement to get through what can seem like very confusing and very busy border transit points.  I'm glad we did not have to do that for ourselves.  Our driver had everything we needed and simply took us through the border crossings talking to the officials on our behalf.   

Our hotel at the falls was the Palm River Hotel.  Very modern, great staff and very nice room.  There was a sunset river cruise on the Zambesi and the photos at the right of the hippos are from that cruise.  That's about all you see of them when they are 'swimming'.  The video below with the small group of mongoose was a fun thing to watch as they ran around the hotel grounds without too much concern for all the humans they were entertaining.

I have to put in a word here for our Thomsons Africa staff.  While we had booked through Goway in Canada, Thomsons was the company that handled all the transportation issues in Africa.  After arriving in Victoria Falls, Gail realized that she had lost her credit card.  We thought / hoped it might have dropped out during one of the times we needed to get out of our vehicle and go into the border customs offices.  In a panic, hoping that it might have been in the vehicle we were in from the airport to the South Africa / Zimbabwe border [vehicles have to be changed at the borders] our new driver radioed back to the previous driver if the card might be in that van.  It took a bit of time to connect but it was!  However our South Africa driver was now well on their way home.  We went for lunch while this was being worked out.  We think that the Thomsons drivers minimized what had to be done but the card got back to the border where it was passed on to our current driver and then back to Gail.  Relief all around and huge thanks to our drivers for making this happen.

The next day was our visit to Victoria Falls.  We initially went to the Zimbabwe side and then to Zambia for the other part of the falls.  Our timing was excellent because at some times of the year there is so much water flowing that the clouds of spray obliterate any reasonable view.  The falls were spectacular and, of course, we got drenched from the spray but that's part of the fun of being there.  The falls are much more 'viewable' on the Zambia side but both sides are worth seeing.  Once you have seen the falls on foot, consider a helicopter ride to see everything from a birds eye perspective.  The one shot on the right is from the helicopter.

Our next stop after Victoria Falls was Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana.  Chobe was somewhat a different experience with the lodge being right on the Chobe River.  The day we arrived we were booked for an afternoon river cruise.  It was on that cruise that we saw the elephants coming down to the river for a late afternoon drink and cool down.  A video with that encounter is below. 

The Chobe River is on a wide, quite flat plain but it leads directly to the Zambezi River not far from Victoria Falls.  In addition to the elephants we saw a variety of birds, hippos, giraffes, and lions on our inland safari drives.  The area is very sandy and is thus quite a different landscape than our other camps.  Additionally, the lodge is more 'hotel-like' rather than having the tented, canvas structures for our rooms and, as with all our other accommodations, the food was excellent.  

All the photos to the right are from Chobe.  Rather than post more elephant and lion photo I thought I'd show a few of the birds and other animals.

After Chobe it was back to Kasane airport for the flight back to Johannesburg and then our flights back to Canada.  While this was our second trip to Africa, it was just as thrilling as the first.  Different parts of Africa, different experiences.  While it will likely by some time before we return, we will and we know where we would return.  Africa is an amazing adventure.  If you can go, GO.

Couldn't resist adding a photo of Gail on one of our safari drives and her smile given everything we had seen and done during this trip.  It says it all...