Chobe National Park and Victoria Falls via the new Kazungula Bridge through Zambia.

Join us as we explore the northern parts of Chobe National Park, where the abundance of animals cross the river and thus the border, freely. It is also not a huge surprise for someone in the nearby village to open their door and find an elephant helping itself to one of the backyard trees. We went on a late afternoon cruise on the Chobe River and watched the different animals go about their business, while boat captains jockeyed their craft into sometimes tight spots to get prime viewing opportunities for their passengers. The sighting of elephants crossing the Chobe River to the Namibian side drew the boats from all over. Our bloke raced to the scene with the taps wide open! It’s the third time that we have done the river cruise and we saw the elephants crossing on all of those visits. It is a matter of keeping an eye out for when it looks like they are going to cross, because try as they might, the park rangers have not yet been able to get the elephants to comply with a tighter schedule. In the meantime, there are other smaller animals also well deserving of some quality viewing time. The next day, we enjoyed ourselves driving the sandy tracks of the park in search of all sorts of birds and animals. When we first started game driving in around 2002/2003, birds did not feature very highly on our “must see” list. Now, however, we are liable to put the car into a handstand to stop for a tiny feathered friend perched on a little twig at the bottom of a shrub. We did not capture any good shots this time though. The day after that was a day of exploration a bit further afield. We crossed the new Kazungula Bridge that joins Botswana and Zambia at the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi Rivers. The bridge is built on a curve, to avoid encroaching on the territories of Namibia and Zimbabwe. The bridge passes between two international tripoints that are 150 metres apart. This beautiful bridge accommodates road vehicles and pedestrians at the moment, but it can also accommodate a future rail network between the two countries, as it has rails down the middle. This took us to the absolutely stunning Victoria Falls, also known as Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke that Thunders). When I was a kid, we learnt that David Livingstone “discovered” the falls. The term has since fallen into disfavour, as people contend that the falls were always there and well-known to all the inhabitants of the area. As it was, him “stumbling” over the falls was a major coup and he named it after Queen Victoria, cementing his own legacy in area and beyond. Thank you for spending a few minutes of your time with us on this one. #kazungulabridge #victoriafalls #chobenationalpark Music and sound effects: artlist.io