I took off on Tuesday April 28 th, 2008 at about 2.30pm from FASI runway 03
 
Almost as soon as I got into the air I noticed that the GPS pointer was not tracking the movements of the aircraft.

After about 10 minutes of trying to fly Zulu Uniform Echo Oscar Sierra in the bumpy afternoon air, and trying to find out what was happening with the GPS, I gave up and looked down at the ground to see where I was.  With a jolt I realized, as I banked hard right to return to Springs airport, that I did not recognize any familiar landmark. The visibility was already diminished by the haze of the coal fires from the slums surrounding Johannesburg.

The GPS was from Paul’s 206. His friend Pasquale had returned with the plane from a trip to Namibia two days earlier. I was unfamiliar with its workings. I had read the instructions and programmed in the routes in the early jet lagged hours of the previous night.
 
Monday had been a public holiday. So it was only Tuesday morning that I managed to get all the insurance cleared up and the flight planning process explained to me,  for the last time, by Mark  Paxton, a local pilot, who was of invaluable help. When I took off I had not yet received the clearances into Botswana and Zambia airspace. However the outfit which was arranging these said they would SMS them to me.
 
After a minute or two of orientation I found the field and put down in a strong, 20 knot, cross wind. The craft was heavy as I had my full suitcase strapped on the seat next to me, and in front of it, was strapped a 20 liter jerry can of fuel. I had been advised that there maynot be fuel in Francistown, Botswana.

Landing in those crosswinds boosted my confidence that I could do the same further up Africa if confronted by any such adverse winds.
 
I pulled to a stop in front of the ‘Rainbow Aircraft’ hangar where ZU-EOS was built and asked owner Vladimir about the GPS. He immediately called his son Alexei who said all I had to do was press 'quit'. I had put it into ‘screen scroll’ mode while I had virtually gone up and down my flight route to Polokwane - 2.12 hours flying to the north.
 
After a cup of coffee I was back in the craft. Then with the throttle full open and a bit of rudder to counter the torque, as the airspeed touched 60 knots, I pulled  back on the stick. The nose of the little lime green and black Cheetah aircraft lifted and climbed into the warm bumpy afternoon sky on the first leg of my African sky safari.

A cold front was forecasted later in the week and the air was already being sucked south and west across Southern Africa. So I had quite a strong head wind on this first leg. I only got ‘visual’ of Polokwane at about 5.15pm and the sun was already low on the horizon, seeing as it was 6 weeks from mid winter here in the southern hemisphere.

As I dropped down from the high to the lowveld I contacted the Polokwane (FAPP) tower and was told to report at 5 miles out. It was a strange feeling to be landing at the old military airbase, which in my youth had been home to the Mirage fighter squadrons. The long runways and the fortified, and now unused hangars, are still present. 

The tower at Polokwane directed me in, and to an overnight parking spot.

By the time I had paid landing fees and refueled it was already dark when I unpacked the craft and caught a taxi to the Holiday Inn for the night.  Checking my cell phoned messages I saw that I had the Botswana and Zambian clearance #'s.
 
The taxi driver picked me up at 6am and I was at the airport at 6.30am. My intention was to be in the air at 7am, as per my filed flight plan. But I could barely see the end of the parking lot in the fog.
 
At 9am the fog had cleared to a solid layer of clouds only 300' above the ground. These were being pushed by a strong NW wind. The cold front was approaching faster than I had thought. By 10am the clouds had broken up enough to allow flight gaps and I headed up between them.
 
However the late start meant that I only reached Francistown at 1.30pm. By the time I had cleared immigration - customs had taken the day off and were not even present at the airport - refueled and paid the landing fees it was close to 3pm.  This meant I could not push on to Kasane and reach there before dark. So I headed for the briefing room and filed flight plans for Kasane, Livingston and Lusaka the next day, then caught a taxi to the TatiRiver lodge for the night.
 
Thursday I started out early. The flight from Francistown to Kasane was one of the  smoothest I have ever experienced. Barely a bump the whole way. The short flight to Livingston to clear into Zambian airspace was also much the same. But by the time I got in the air for the flight to Lusaka the hot afternoon turbulence had set in and it was ‘rock and roll’ all the way, especially with the Cheetah which only had a 456kg  empty weight.

The main hassle I had was understanding the English of the air controller at Livingston. I still do not know the alternate frequency of ‘Lusaka Control’ that he gave me four times. I was a bit worried about this as I could not contact Lusaka  Approach until I was well past the Kafue River and just about into the Lusaka TMA.   But I finally did make contact and was thankful for the clear English of the female  controller.
 
She cleared me into and through the TMA and handed me off to ‘Lusaka Tower’ for the landing. As I touched down I saw an Ethiopian Boeing 757 waiting to take off. Other small Islander aircraft were doing ‘touch and goes’ at the time. As I was taxiing to Staravia to park I heard the pilot of the 757 call the Tower to say he had just cleared a small aircraft by 300' and why was he not notified of it - Africa being its usual.
 
As I had cleared immigration at Livingston I simply taxied further along to park at the Staravia hangars. It was 4pm and I was met by Justin Seymour-Smith, our old junior school days ranch neighbour. After being evicted at the end of 2006 from their safari ranch in Zimbabwe he had now moved up to Zambia to set up and run the safari operation t Chamafumbu camp on the border of the huge 22,400 sq km Kafue National Park. Justin had been waiting for me since midday.

We headed for the nearby camp where Justin was staying while he waited for his work permit. He had organized a great bungalow for me with a comfortable bed and mosquito net. The shower was very welcome. Then it was across to dinner at Chris and Beva's. Chris manages the overall Mbizi Safari operations in Zambia.

The next morning we were back at Chris’s to begin packing and then headed out for the Kafue and Chamafumbu camp.

I rode with Justin in the old Oz built land-cruiser. Thankfully it had air-conditioning This meant that we could roll up the windows and crank up the blower so that the myriads of tsetse flies that covered the hood and window of the car could not get in. 


 The journey to from Lusaka to Chamafumbu camp took 6.5 hours and it was after 3pm by the time we arrived.

 

However before we got to the camp we had to cross the Kafue river. Being the African autumn it was running full from the summer rains. The pontoon is once more working after being out of action for 4 years. It is a lifetime experience to cross the Kafue on this ancient relic of the colonial days. 

The river is broad and beautiful and the transfer cable rises and splashes into the water with the tug and pull of the 5 crew as they hook their wooden slot mallets into the cable to manually push the pontoon inch by inch across the river.

The camp at Chamafumbu. I s vastly differnet from when I first purchased it in 1997. However it was not changed much since I was last there in October 2007. Two more chalets have been added and the workers laid the foundation for the kitchen while I was there.


The camp is due to host its first guests in July.  The deck out over the river from the  Chitenge is done and provides a wonderful place for coffee at  daybreak or a sundowner beer in the evening.

I spent the next two days relaxing and fishing and talking business plans with Chris and Justin.

In the predawn there is nothing better than listening to the first calls of the black-eyed Bulbuls, the Hadedas, the Trumpeter Hornbills, the Fish Eagle, the Red-eyed bush doves, the Arnotts Chats, the Schalow’s Loeries …and a myriad of others providing the background sound to the clink of the metal pot and the scratch of a log being dragged over the ground as the camp staff kindle the fire and heat the water for the predawn coffee.

As the day warms up the thermals begin and I spot a Brown Snake Eagle circling in the sky overhead.

Later in the morning a Gabar Goshawk flits through the camp looking to make a meal of any unwary small bird.

Chris and Justin begin to prepare a mid morning brunch under the watchful eye of the ever present and resident pair of Arnott’s Chats

The camp is still a work in progress and the old chitenge is now the storage room.

The first ‘new’ chalet has been demolished and will be made into thes ‘managers quarters’. The flat ground were I first set my tent in October 1997 is where the foundations  for the new kitchen were dug while I was there.
 

 The last evening in camp was heralded by distant flashes of lighting to the northwest as we sat enjoying sun-downers on the deck. The storm must have been massive as some of the sheet lightning flashes generated thunder rumbles that continued for almost a minute or two. 

 It started to spit rain drops at about 8pm and then continued to drizzle almost all night. Even the two prides of lion that we had heard roaring every night across the river were quietened by the rain.

 

I was worried that we would not be able to make it back through the swampy ground near the pontoon. The road which had been fine in October had been reduced back to the usual potholed track by the rainy season traffic of the mining companies. That is the sad state of the rush for commodities in today's over populated world. The renewed surge and search for copper and other metals and the pressure to open up the parks to mining. While we were driving in we had passed a park vehicle and the ranger said he had just shut down an illegal mining operation.
 
However the rain was not enough to soften the mud in the potholes and we made it through without problem.  The air-conditioner bearing gave up the ghost at the ferry. We had to travel in the warm cab for two hours as we made it through the tsetse belt before we could open up the windows as we closed in on Mumbwa and the tar road and the final 150km back to Lusaka.
 
In town I invited Chris and Beva out to dinner at one of the malls that are springing up across the city. The city is booming!
What a change since I first went back to Zambia in 1994 and even from 2002 when I came out with Adam. In some ways sad…. The western ‘Mall’ification of Africa

Tuesday saw me refueling the aircraft with jerry-cans and filing flight plans. Wednesday I was awake at 4am and at the airfield at 6.30.

Right at the Staravia hangar, in an adjacent tree, Justin and I saw an African Hobby Falcon. My first sighting of this type of bird and a parting gift from that great country.
 

 

I did a lot of flying and made it all the way through to Francistown in Botswana. I had two close passes with vultures at 6500' and it made me much more attentive to what was going on in the sky around about.

On the leg from Kasane to Francistown I diverted slightly to the west to pass over the edge of the massive Makadikadi salt pans and the little town of Nata. Then it was on to Francistown and the Tati River lodge again for the night.   

Thursday morning had me up at 6am to take the lodge shuttle to the airport. But I was told that the immigration only opened at 7am and so they would have the driver take me out at 6.30am. I was back at 6.30 and no driver was available. I complained and finally the night manager drove me out in his personal car. He was a black Zimbabwean and I had an interesting conversation with him about the current    politics in that country.
 
I had checked the African weather website before I left Lusaka and it had good weather forecasted for the two days of my flying.

The morning dawned bright and windless. I climbed into the sky and headed south east. After an hour and a half of flight I crossed the border into South Africa and switched frequencies from Botswana’s Gaberone Control to South Africa’s Johannesburg North FIR. I was back in an area of radar coverage. The Joburg controller gave me a squawk code for the transponder so he could identify me on his screen. Then he advised me that Polokwane was QBI, which in the old South African air morse jargon, meant that FAPP was under instrument flight rules. Apparently Polokwane had 300' visibility and 100' ceiling.  Just like the morning that I left on the outbound leg.
 
I was now faced with a dilemma. It was 9am and I knew that when I was in Polokwane the fog had burned off at just after 10am. So should I push on and run low on fuel waiting for the fog to clear and not have much idea of where other  alternative runways were? Also what trouble might I get into without landing at an immigration entry point, no longer being a South African citizen.


…..I turned around and headed back to Francistown. I landed refueled and called the tower and requested an update on the Polokwane weather. I had to re-file flight plans and by the time I was finished the bureaucracy it was midday and tower advised me that FAPP was fine.
 
I touched down at 3.35pm and thought I could rush through immigration and landing fees and refueling and be able to get into the air asap and head south to Springs.

But this is still Africa and the refuel attendant was nowhere to be found. 40 minutes and two phone calls to his boss and listening to his boss shout at him on the his cell phone had him appearing on a bicycle from somewhere. At least the new technology could reach him, even if it was the old technology that got him back.

By then it was 4.15pm and too late to fly to reach FASI before dark. So it was off to the Holiday Inn again.
 
Finally Friday morning, after a lazy big breakfast at the Inn, I headed to the airport and did the last two and a bit hours of low level flying without a flight plan back to Springs and the comfort of the Gramadoelas bed and breakfast Inn - The old farm house of Oom Paul Kruger and one of the best deals in Africa.

Altogether thirty and a half hours in the air flying there and back.

Springs – Polokwane – Francistown – Kasane – Livingston – LUSAKA – Kasane – Francistown – Polokwane – Springs.

There is one thing better than owning an aircraft and a safari operation in Africa – that is having a brother who owns these (grin).

I am a very lucky person to have a great brother!

- David