1st anniversary.

I hope the new layout of the blog meets people's approval. I will probably get bored again, and change it, but it'll have to do for now.

It's the first anniversary of my holiday to Southern Africa. I have held back from writing about my holiday before, as this is a garden blog. However, over the course of the year, I've come to realise that garden bloggers appear to discuss most other things, and rarely mention gardens..

Looking back on the pictures, I am quite sad that I can't be there now. Some of you, such as Mr.Colborn, have visited this magical and awe-inspiring part of the world several times. And talk at length about it.

So that's what I'm going to do, to escape the joys of Christmas. Due to work commitments and various other things, I will be unable to revisit Africa for a while. I will be writing a series of posts on my four week holiday, in a bid to try and re-live the time I had there.

In short the itinerary was as follows;
Drive to London Heathrow.
Fly to Johannesburg Airport.
Take connecting flight to Harare, Zimbabwe. Stay overnight.
Drive to Mutare, Zimbabwe. Stay overnight.
Drive to Rio Savane, Mozambique. Have a rest over ten days, and see in the New Year (2009).
Drive back to Mutare.
Drive to Gweru, Zimbabwe. Stay a couple of nights.
Drive to Harare, our base. Stay overnight.
Drive to Chirundu on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi river, the border with Zambia. Stay a few nights.
Drive back to Harare, stay a bit, then fly back to snowy London.

What carbon footprint?

Here are some pictures of the first few days in Mozambique.

Our car tyre went on the main road from Mutare to Beira, so we were forced to stop in a small village. The adults watched us change the tyre from the other side of the road, while the kids came for a closer look. These were the first few kids that arrived at the scene. Being situated on the main road, these Portuguese speakers were more than happy to pose when I asked them for a photo.

By the time we were ready to continue on our journey, there was a group of about thirty five children helping and then waving us off!

Taking a sharp turn left, off the main road, we made our way through a market and village. We did have to drive around some rather large, water-filled potholes.

As we drove on through swampy coastal land, the main dirt track was the causeway for the local bus.

After unpacking our camping gear onto a boat, we crossed the river to the main camp at Rio Savane. We dragged our things through the camp.

The camp was beautiful. It was based in a grove of mature coconut trees, on a spit of land surrounded by the river and the Mozambique Channel of the Indian Ocean.

The sun quickly went down, and we had a much-needed swim in the warm sea, under the stars.