Victoria Falls

Zimbabwe 2010 - Victoria Falls

It was in November 2008 that we first visited Vic Falls. It was completely different this time because there was so much more water in the river.

We stopped at the Victoria Falls Rest Camp (S17 55.553 E25 50.333 )in the town and visited the Falls one morning.

The most Westerly Falls (the Devils' Cateract) were fairly clear and we could see a double rainbow

As we walked eastwards it became harder to see anything as there was so much spray, the amount of water and the nose made by it was incredible.

This is as far East as you can get on the Zimbabwian side of the Falls. When we were here 18 months ago we sat on these rocks in the sunshine watching people rafting in the river below!

This time we got soaked by the spray.

We saw several animals and lots of birds in the rainforest area to the south of the Falls - the spray from the Falls causes the rainforest.

We were able to get a 'Pass' at the border in order to walk across the bridge between Zimbabwe and Zambia - we didn't have to hand in our passports here.

It's a joint rail and road bridge.

From the bridge we couls see the Zambezi Gorge...

.... and the Victoria Hotel (we had a drink there last time).

A few people were doing the bungee jump or the gorge swing from the middle of the bridge - we weren't tempted!

We'd booked a sunset cruise and were picked up at the Rest camp and driven to the launch site above the Falls.

Just after leaving the jetty the steering chain broke and we ended up going round in circles for 15 minutes before getting back to the jetty. We then had to wait for another boat to pick us up. However we ended up with an excellent guide who took us very close to a group of hippos and some birds before getting ahead of all the other boats to get some superb sunset shots.

African Skimmers have a lower bill much longer than the top bill. A they are flying just above the water their lower bill skims through the water to catch small fish and invertibrates.