Kate Jackson

Kate's BP Gallery

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The two of us together with the boatman crossed the wide Zambezi river filled with hippos and crocs in a tiny open boat with an outboard engine.  The ferry itself had queues of lorries waiting to cross and apparently they usually had to wait up to 7 days to get across as one of the ferries was out of service due to having tipped over on its side in the river. Several people drowned and apparently they never even found some of the bodies. So now they have solved this problem by loading the lorry first and if it does not tip the ferry over then they let the passengers on!

I had a culture shock when we arrived at the hotel. It seemed so luxurious after the bush. People were wandering around in smart clean clothes! I just wanted to go escape back to the bush. But inevitably we got used to the luxury and Victoria Falls is magical.

We then had to fly back down to Johannesburg and spent one night in a hotel in the Caesers complex which is like Las Vegas. What a contrast to the rest of Africa! The next day we flew back up again to Entebbe in Uganda for our Gorilla Trip.

Uganda was so different from Botswana. We had to drive for 10 hours south to Virunga Mountains. It was so green and every inch was utilised for growing crops. There were terraces of veggies everywhere on the mountains. And people. I have never seen so many people everywhere along the roads. We drove into Rwanda at dusk and there were people walking everywhere carrying things. Needless to say the gorillas were fantastic. We saw them in all three places. In Rwanda we only had to walk for 20 minutes over a potato field, climbed a wall and hey presto there they were. One came so close to Geoff that the viewfinder in his video went black. Back in Uganda at Mgahinga we had a more worthwhile trek of about an hour and a half each way to see them. We were so close to them. You are meant to be 7 metres away so they do not catch any human infection, but they came much closer to us. At the last location in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park it was a much harder trek. The mountain was straight up through the rain forest and it was muddy and even started to rain while we were watching them. I hired a porter to carry my bag but he wouldn’t let me struggle on my own and insisted on pulling me up. The gorillas were really fantastic but I was actually more affected by the orphan music and drama groups both at Mgahinga and Bwindi. The drumming and dancing at Bwindi was fantastic and the kids were so energetic dancing with their bare feet on the stones. Apparently they used to sit naked on the side of the main road begging from tourists. Now, they have been taught all the drumming and dancing plus they make some very good crafts which they sell, including woven patterned baskets. In Uganda we were again traveling with great companions and enjoyed every minute of it.

The last part of our trip was in Tanzania. We visited Lake Manyara National Park before traveling on to the Serengeti where we were lucky to see what was an early start to the migration which because of early rains meant that herds of wildebeest and zebra were amassing in the north of the Serengeti rather than the Maasai Mara. We stopped by a river where I could have watched for hours as they were crowding together getting up the nerve to go and drink in the river and then once they were there they would suddenly decide to run off again kicking up dust. We saw 2 cheetah in the Serengetti but no leopards. One of the highlights was Loliondo. It is to the east of the Serengetti and there were no other tourists there at all apart from those staying with the Maasai at the Tented Camp. The Maasai were great taking us for walks and meeting other Maasai families and all the little herdboys who go out all day on their own. They have maize porridge for breakfast where one boy could be in charge of about 100 cattle all day with only a spear to protect him - no water or food until he meets up with other boys at dusk when they herd the cattle into corrals of thorn bushes for the night and sleep in there with them. They are aged from 5 to 10 and do this in the dry months when there is no grazing for the cattle near their villages. So they only attend school part of the year until after they reach age 10. We also met some Maasai who were living in a cave near our camp. As Loliondo is not in the National Park we could walk where we liked accompanied by Maasai with spears and we could drive off road and at night. We saw plenty of giraffe, cokes hartebeest, hippos, a lion kill with vultures and even saw zebra chasing cheetah which Elias our guide had never seen before in his life. He thought the zebra were going to try and kick the cheetah! After the Ngorongoro Crater where we saw everything (except leopard) all in one day including rhino and flamingoes we moved on to Lake Eyasi where we met a tribe called the Hadzabe who are now in decline as they are hunter gatherers and the onion growers have taken up a lot of their land. We went out hunting with them for rats and squirrels. They were eating berries off the trees and they caught one little mouse by digging in the ground and one squirrel by chasing it and killing it with bow and arrow. They took them back to camp and put the squirrel on the fire and shared it with about 25 people, singeing a little bit at a time. Then they had an archery competition. Geoff had a go and managed to lose two of their arrows.

Before taking our flight home we flew in to Nairobi. We spent a pleasant 8 hours at a The Rusty Nail, a beautiful restaurant with a lovely garden, where we could take a shower and have tea on the terrace finishing up with a delicious dinner before being picked up and taken to the airport. But located between these luxurious surroundings and the airport is the largest slum in Africa.

We will never forget being under African skies. We dream the impossible dream of peace and plenty for all the wonderful people throughout this exciting continent.

Photography, Africa by Kate Jackson

Stampede, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved

Savute elephant charging, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved

Savute elephant baby hiding, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved.

Lion with Zebra, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved.

Flamingos, down, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved.

Flamingos up, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved.

Mgahinga gorilla, photo by Kate Jackson, all rights reserved.

Maasai Baby

Loliondo, Maasai herdboy

The Smoke that Thunders

View more of Kate's photos on BloodrootZ

Kate's Family Home Page.

Geoff and I had the adventure of a lifetime in Africa for one month in October and November 2004. We started out in Botswana with a camping safari. The first two days in the Okavanga Delta were the easiest part of Botswana as we flew in to a tented camp. Our travelling companions were Ron from Kent about our age and Dan a younger guy from Melbourne. At the Delta we had a camp staff of about 8 to look after us along with Pilot who was to be our guide for the whole trip. He knew everything about the bush having been brought up as a bushman. He could make all the noises of every animal, he was excellent company and had a great sense of humour. The two days in the delta included a walking safari, highlights: two giraffes, two elephants, and a black mamba the deadliest snake in Africa. We followed lion tracks through the bush to the sound of warning noises from birds and walked along the edge of the water where we found the skull of a crocodile which Pilot carried back to camp. Late afternoons and evenings we went for mokoro canoe trips where we saw night lilies, frogs, malachite kingfishers, saddlebilled storks and red lechwe which ran in front of our mokoros skipping and jumping over the water. We had mokoro paddling lessons and sundowners on islands. The nights were filled with the noise of millions of bell frogs and other night noises.

We flew back in to Maun before driving up to Moremi Game Reserve which is a beautiful place with plenty of water as it is still near the Delta. Lots of red lechwe by the water along with the crocs and hippos. There was a beautiful hippo pool where we used to go for our sundowners to watch the hippos yawning plus an elephant walking round the pool in the deep red sunset. Every day we saw lions including two pairs of mating lions and a beautiful brother with 3 sisters. Lots of birds, especially red hornbills. The camping involved erecting and dismantling tents, collecting firewood and a rota for cooking. We were woken at 5.30 am and all shared a bowl of water on a tripod (being the only woman I used wipes) a quick breakfast and on the road at 6.00 am for the game drive. We stopped for coffee and rusks mid morning but later when it got too warm and the animals were taking their siesta we returned to camp for our brunch which, if you were on rota duty, you had to prepare. Then we could have a bucket shower, do our washing and take a siesta until about 3.30 when we went out on another game drive which finished up with a sundowner somewhere picturesque, before returning to camp almost in the dark which meant cooking in the dark. The nights were generally not so noisy as in the Delta but one night just after retiring we heard a howling hyena rushing through the camp looking for food right outside Dan’s tent.

We moved on to Savute for 2 nights. Savute has lots of kopjes (rocky outcrops) and on one we saw a mother leopard with two cubs. The elephants were a favourite there as you could get so close to them and watch them for a long time around the watering holes along with hyenas and jackals. We continued to see lions including one pride of 27. They were all laying around in the shade of some trees and Pilot parked so close to them that I was only one yard away from the male lion with an open side to the Land Rover. I couldn’t even focus on him as I had my telephoto lens in and was far too worried about moving to put the other lens in. The morning we left Savute Pilot saw lions’ tracks that had appeared during the night going through the camp.

Our last stop in Botswana was in Chobe National Park where there were even more elephants and plenty of my other favourites the baboons who I could sit and watch for hours. Of course there were so many other animals too plentiful to mention.

But all too soon we had to say goodbye to our friends and the conversations around the campfire as our agent had booked for us to finish the tour at Livingstone, Zambia to see the Victoria Falls, whereas the others were going to the town Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. We were a bit disappointed not to be sharing the last two nights with them but we and our tour company did not agree with going to Zimbabwe. 

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