Flying Adventure: Southern Africa – Day 11 (FVFG – FVFA – FBKE – FBSV):

Today is going to be another very scenic flight, but with a couple technical stops for fuel and border clearing.

Spurwing Island to Victoria Falls

We take off from Fothergill and fly along Lake Kariba to the west. As he had mentioned in an earlier blog post, Lake Kariba is the largest man made reservoir on earth, and holds nearly 200 billion tons of water. It is so large that the weight of the water has created seismic activity, including earthquakes greater than magnitude 5 on the Richter scale. Bigger is definitely not always better.

After passing the Zambezi’s mouth into the lake, we route to Victoria Falls airport to re-fuel and exit Zimbabwe. The Victoria Falls region is Zimbabwe’s main tourist attraction, so the airport here is also the busiest so far on our tour. It is the first time we actually have to line up in a queue to get through security and immigration. Not really what we are looking for, but as an exceptional occurrence it is acceptable, and doesn’t dent the high spirits. Particularly as we don’t have to wait and queue again for boarding.

Victoria Falls to Kasane

We then climb out to the infamous Victoria Falls, or Mosi-oa-Tunya (“The Smoke that Thunders”) as they are called in Zambia. Victoria Falls, is neither the deepest nor the widest waterfall, but nevertheless the largest in the world by plain, i.e. it is the largest sheet of falling water.

Although, we are asking Air Traffic Control very nicely, we do not get permission for a low level flight over the falls. Being a nice guy, doesn’t always help. But then, the alternative, to be not nice, is also not nice and not a sensible choice. On that matter, as a pilot, you should always be nice to Air Traffic Controllers. An angry controller, you had previously upset, may exacerbate your problem when you need his help, and that is then definitely not nice.

In any case, even from 2500 feet are the aerial views of the falls just breathtaking and truly awe-inspiring.

From Mosi-oa-Tunya we cross over to Kasane in Botswana, which takes just a few minutes.

Kasane to Savuti

After clearing the border into Botswana and filing flight plans, we are off to our last flight for the day, over the Chobe National Park to the Savuti airstrip. The closest airstrip to our destination would have been Saile. But this strip was severely flooded during recent rains and is still closed. We therefore have a slightly longer flight ahead to Savuti.

As we land at Savuti, our bush guide is already awaiting us and has a few cold beers ready in his cooler box. That really goes down well in the scorching heat of mid afternoon, and makes the very last leg for the day much more pleasant.

It takes us just over two hours by vehicle through the sand tracks up to Linyanti, our final destination for today. On the way to the camp we are welcomed to the area by a lone African buffalo and a few kudus.

Linyanti Concession

We settle in at the Linyanti Bush Camp, where we stay for the next two nights. Linyanti is a superb Bush Camp with an awesome setup on the banks of the Linyanti wetlands and offers great service and hospitality.

We also spend day 12 of our tour at Linyanti Bush Camp to enjoy more game viewing and relax at this magnificent spot, deep in the African bush.