Dr Livingstone I presume

If you’re an avid reader of our travel blogs and follow them chronologically, you’ll notice a trend that any new trip is usually planned toward the second half of an existing trip taking place. This odyssey is no exception and it was whilst in Vietnam over his 400th beer that someone asked Fatpap “where to next?”. Africa in March 2025 was the immediate reply which at the time was only a loose notion of tackling the dark continent in some form.

A few months later Fatpap advised Lyndall over the phone that he was eyeing up an African trip in March. Her response…."can you make it May?” The answer of course was yes realising she was coming along and that we’d better get to work on planning the event. So a late February weekend in Bowral of wine and rum, countless google searches, duelling computers booking flights and hotels and tours saw an extremely structured itinerary put together in only two days with the skeleton allowing plenty of meat to be added in the coming months.

Jump forward to May 2025 and we were booked on QF63 to JNB and luckily had a couple of lounge passes at our disposable. So after the immigration shuffle and some very quick duty free shopping, these were of course well abused with Bloody Mary’s and G&T’s unashamedly downed before the sun even came up. We’d also ponied up some Qantas points to take us upstairs to Premium Economy and before long settled into 37E and 37F for a champagne and 14hrs of Indian Ocean transit. It should be noted that originally we were scheduled to leave a day later than we did, however Qantas cancelled our Thursday flight so we rebooked a day earlier. This wasn’t planned of course but did allow an extra day in Johannesburg that you’ll learn all about tomorrow.

Determined by the more than reasonable online Qantas airfare, we would start our journey in Johannesburg before joining a 10 day Intrepid Travel tour through Botswana to the fabled Okavango Delta. Leaving that group in Victoria Falls we moved virtual mountains to head east toward Mount Kilimanjaro and the town of Moshi for 24 hrs. At Arusha we would join a private tour of Tanzania for 7 days taking us through the magical Serengeti National Park and Ngorogoro Crater region before boarding a quick flight to Zanzibar. On this island paradise we would spend 2 days in historic Stone Town before heading north to Kendwa Rocks for 2 further days of resort style relaxation and cocktail consumption.

You will come to learn of the gargantuan journey next required in heading south to Kruger National Park in South Africa where we would end our trip with 4 days in a private lodge being served endless Gin & Tonics between our 2 daily private safari drives and degustation menu. Qantas would return us to Australia via Joburg finishing our assault of the continent in exactly 28 days and far beyond the financial boundaries we set in initiating this adventure.

The level of luxury and inclusions of the trip would increase with each new sector which was always our plan and part of the madness in tackling the African continent. From pitching and striking tents every night to private transfers and 5 star lodgings, this trip was designed to encompass as many aspects of Africa as possible while keeping us within the guardrails of our own comfortabilities.

Africa is the worlds second largest continent accounting for approximately 1/5th of the globes earthly surface. With a population of 1.5 billion, 20% of all humans, speaking over 2,000 languages in 54 countries, even David Attenborough required numerous visits to capture all the land has to offer. We were never going to get it all done in 4 weeks but gave it a red hot go regardless. Madagascar sadly didn’t make the cut nor did the Ugandan mountain gorillas despite Lyndall’s endless channelling of Dian Fossey. Cape Town couldn’t be squeezed in either nor the Masi Mara NP or Namibian Dessert. But like Sir David we can always return and as you will learn by the end of this blog, we most definitely will.

So what is it that draws travellers to Africa in their millions every year and why would anyone want to spend vast amounts of money sitting in uncomfortable safari vehicles through endless dust and stifling heat. Well firstly it is home to an estimated 1 million species of animals not found anywhere else in the world. Sure many of those bugs no one gives a shit about, but the lions and leopards, zebras, giraffes and wildebeest make a pretty compelling case for visitation. There is of course vast ecological and geographical features of the continent rarely found anywhere else in the world with the continent boasting diverse biomes like savannah, deserts and tropical forests as well as unique geographical formations like the Great Rift Valley, Ethiopian Highlands and Lake Victoria, the worlds largest tropical lake and Victoria Falls, considered the largest in the world.

Lastly, Africa is known as the "cradle of humankind" because it's the continent where the earliest evidence of human ancestors, like Australopithecus have been found. Fossil discoveries including tools and other remains in South Africa and East Africa's Olduvai Gorge provide strong evidence human evolution originated there. Africa is the oldest inhabited continent on Earth and been referred to as the “birthplace of civilisation”. It’s for those reasons alone a trip to the continent was always an inevitability.

Arriving into Johannesburg early evening we meet some of our future fellow travellers at the airport then made our way to the Holiday Inn Rosebank, Intrepid Travels starting point to have a few beers and obligatory BLT before hitting the hay after almost a full day on the move. Secured safely on Fatpap’s 5th and Lyndalls 7th and final continent, our real journey would begin in earnest at first light tomorrow morning.

So buckle up good reader, you know the drill by now as the following pages will be filled with amazing imagery, tales of our journey together with spatterings of historic and interesting facts at every stop. We travelled with 10 cameras on this trip so no angle will be missed with Lyndall even stumping up thousands for a new 150-800mm Moon Bazooka for her bitchin R6 Mk II Canon to bring the wildlife into full frame and highest clarity for you all to enjoy.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to our socials to follow more of the journey, otherwise enjoy the next 28 days and hopefully fall in love with Africa as much as we both did.

Sunset I - Johannesburg