The Journey

It was 2:30am on the morning of our scheduled departure to South Africa. The Safari was booked and we were supposed to be sleeping soundly, dreaming of the animals we were to see. Instead, Zack was lying on the couch drenched in sweat and sporting a 100^oF fever. We had both been feeling unwell off and on for the past week and despite the numerous doses of antibiotics (which in retrospect may or may not have been real) the bug refused to leave us alone. Poor Zack was miserable and I am sorry to say that I was a little cranky at the prospect of missing our trip. Knowing that some people wait for years to go on Safari we could hardly believe our luck when the opportunity arose. Zack’s conference in Johannesburg was scheduled to start on the Wednesday and we were leaving nearly a week early to enjoy the animal reserves north-east of the city... who cares about the conference, I didn’t want to pass up the chance to see a wild giraffe! Neither of us slept much that night but as morning came Zack’s fever dropped slightly and after a good sleep he was ready to go... Hooray!

Despite the fact that we were flying within Africa, the entire journey took about 20 hours. Not only is Africa huge (who knew?) but Gambia is fairly remote and flights are infrequent so we had to overnight it in Dakar, Senegal. We arrived in Joburg at dusk so by the time we finally got out of the airport (3 stressful hours were spent trying to pay the credit card bill online which we had forgotten about) it was dark and we could have been anywhere is the world. We planned an early start to pick up the rental car at 8:30am... by 11am we were finally driving Matilda the Nissan Tilda along M5 and we were on our way.

When Zack first suggested driving in South Africa I had visions of dusty potholed roads, crazy minivans driving erratically and animals all over the road. In reality it is nothing like Gambia and the drive actually reminded me a bit of country Australia. Small rolling hills with grazing cows in the dry paddocks and power plants on the horizon were a bit reminiscent of Gippsland, Victoria. Driving down the main street of the country towns I had an urge to stop at a bakery for a pink lamington. Well that was until we saw the barefoot kids playing on the side of the road and women sitting on the dusty sidewalk selling vegetables off a rug... "oh right we’re still in Africa".

Around dusk we rolled up to gates of the reserve. A small sign clearly told us to call the lodge on the provided radio and they would open the gate. We had finally arrived... well nearly. Upon entering the gate we were faced with four dusty dirt roads leading off into the bush, well what could we do but guess? As we blindly headed off it suddenly occurred to me just how vulnerable Matilda seemed, did I mention it was right on dusk and I’m sure I head a lion roar! After 15 minutes of driving around the scrub, guessing at every fork in the road, we finally gave up when we came to a roundabout.... a roundabout? Gee a sign would have been nice! We headed back to the gate - “Zack you remember the way right?” Back at the entrance everything seems simple, we’ll just get safely out (I’m sure I saw a rhino in the scrub) then wait for the owners to come and collect us. It seemed simple until we realised that they had abandoned the radio. So there we were, stuck with the Big 5 in a cheap hire car, screaming into a useless radio on a post. I was prepared to risk the barbed wire and electric fence just to escape, there were defiantly – maybe – some hyenas around! Just as the lions, rhinos, hyenas and buffalo (did I mention the buffalo yet?) were about to demolish us whole the gate slid open... “We’re free, we’re safe, we’re... in the middle of the bush in a strange country... now what?”

So as you already know we did eventually find the lodge. Our guide conveniently drove up just then and showed us the way – of course you turn right at the roundabout, isn’t it obvious?! After we had recovered we were very happy to see that we had randomly picked the perfect lodge. Until 2005 it was a private holiday retreat for a very wealthy family. Now it is a small 5 room lodge and for the weekend it was accommodating solely to us... our very own private game reserve!