Ted's Tours: An Unexpected Journey*

Stephanie Abbott-Grobicki
Dec 23, 2015
3 min read

I am going to split up my safari story into multiple parts, but I am hoping – unlike The Hobbit films – that this journey warrants more than one blog post. I had been looking forward to and planning this trip since early July when Ted first proposed the idea, I couldn't believe the time was actually here. Our route was as follows:

The first part of our trip was making our way through Zimbabwean National Parks to Victoria Falls and then back down through Botswana.

I call it this post unexpected because – true to the definition of the word, funnily enough – I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t done any travelling through Southern Africa, nor had I ever been on safari. Camping trips were pretty frequent when I was small, but never as long as 10 days, and not in the bush. So this was the complete unknown.

Our tale begins early on the morning of the 7th of December 2015. I rose early (this is much too much of a habit) to finish some packing and make sure I had everything ready for the trip. I am quite proud of myself – I really stuck to this whole “packing light” thing. Apparently, in the bush, no one cares what you’re wearing. Our bags were downstairs, at 7:30am ready to go (our departure had been delayed from the night before because Ted realised that we would need to renew the registration on the land cruiser – so that was our first stop). And then we waited. We ended up – in true Grobicki fashion – setting off at 9:15.

In the car (or as we affectionately named her, Polar Bear Betsy) we have Ted “Baobab” Grobicki, Ted’s friend Mike “Rafiki” Sowerby, Myself nicknamed “Bleating Dotty”, and James “The Sapling” Abbott-Grobicki**. It was a 40 degree day (=104 Fahrenheit) and I confess I slept most of the way up through to the Limpopo region.

The landscape changed from the hills of Joburg to the flat plains that surround the Limpopo river. Our first bit of excitement as we headed to the first campsite, Mapungubwe, was being surprised by four elephants running along the side of the road. They were quite clearly distressed as the matriarch tried to hustle her little ones past this threatening white vehicle.

A game ranger later informed us that they had pushed a tree down on the fence and gotten out but then had been unable to get back in, running up and down the fenced boundary, which had caused the panic.

We arrived in our campsite at 6pm – just in time for sunset. On the way to the sunset dock, we saw kudu, zebras, gemsbok, eland, impala and wilderbeest.

(Picture: Gemsbok or Oryx)

The viewpoint was overlooking a (very dry) Limpopo and we enjoyed the sunset with some well-deserved, cold beers.

Day two was predicted to be our most difficult because we had the dreading crossing of the Zimbabwean border. However, the morning began pleasantly enough – I opted out of the sunrise game drive, but James learnt a lot about how elephants skulls have holes in them because if they were solid, the elephant wouldn’t be able to support its head.

After a leisurely breakfast, we walked along a tree top path leading to multiple viewpoints of the Limpopo. This famouse Rudyard Kipling quote addorned the entrance:

As we walked, I failed the first test on Ted’s Tours. The quote speaks of fever trees and Ted turned to me and asked “where are the dotted about trees?” I looked at him in complete confusion – not making the connection to Kipling. I eventually understood and pointed out a fever tree but was unable to escape the nickname “Dotty”.