Last Day before trip to PEI

Tue. 2 July 2024

Timothy (TJ) Swan Update  |   Final Prep Work for trip to PEI

Best in Show 

Mon. 1 July 2024, at the Stony Plain Shine and Show, Richard Hackett won 1st Place with his new car. Shown here is Timothy Swan holding the plaque in front of the car!

Final Drive to TJ Workplace

For the last month (since Brian left for the NWT), Darlene and I have been driving TJ to work. At first, TJ was driving 1 way while we supervised as he had a learner’s permit. As soon as he got his license (first try), he was no longer able to drive our car because of insurance issues with the fact that he was under 25. Since then we have been driving him to/from work, with me (Don) taking the morning commute (6:15 am) and Darlene taking the evening drive (3:30 pm). 

Today was the final day as Darlene took TJ to get his insurance for his car after they got back from work.

TJ’s First Car !

Trimming Carrie’s bushes

Today, after taking TJ to work, Darlene and I went over to Carrie’s and worked with her on her yard for most of the day, as there were some trees and bushes that needed trimming this year. 

Final Motorhome prep work

There was a long list of items that have already been done for the trip but I had to go to Crystal Glass to see about fixing the rear bedroom window that shattered on me while trying to press window to adhesive I had applied to make inner & outer window stick together - They wanted 550 for a “temporary” fix!…. Needless to say, some silver metal tape worked a whole lot better!

We pulled in the kitchen and bedroom slides so the slide awnings could be taped for our journey across Canada, clean water added to tank, black/grey water flushed, batteries and tires checked.

The bikes were loaded onto the car and tarped down in case we get rain.  In addition that, the lights trailer lights and solar battery charger were all set up for our trip.

Day 22 - Trip Home

Day 22 - Trip Home

We awake early, and after a shower and packing, go down for breakfast where Tim and Mike join us shortly afterwards.

At breakfast they want us to sign for it, which we do, but it is upsetting as we have paid 280 bucks and they are not including breakfast?  When we were here before it was included and also the rooms were cheaper at 220 per night.

Prior to returning to our rooms we stop to see about the charge for breakfast. It looks like it will take a while, so Bob stays in the lobby to clear it up and I go up to finish my packing.

Bob gets it cleared up and we check out, leaving our bags in a room until we return in the afternoon.

All 4 of us once again head down to the waterfront for some last minute shopping and sightseeing before our long journey home.

We have a nice lunch down at the waterfront and get our photos taken by a very outgoing young lady who showed us our table. We wander about some more, killing time now, and end up at a small place overlooking the crowds and have a last drink on the waterfront before heading back to our hotel.

Tim has a taxi provided because he flew business class so he leaves us waiting for our van, which does not show up. There is another taxi there so we hire him to take us to the airport.

Once at the airport, it is thru customs again and there we meet up with Tim.  Too late, Bob and I discover that the VAT we have paid on our purchases and were supposed to be refunded are to be done BEFORE you go thru customs and cannot be done now.  It is a bit of a bother, as Bob has about 200 bucks coming back to him.  There is an option to fill out forms and have customs in Canada fill out a form and we can mail it back for a refund..... Tim has done that in the past and is still waiting for him money some 10 years after the fact.

Mike has an option to upgrade to business class for 1000 bucks, which he does..... Bob and I, meanwhile, in economy, finally get to board about 15 minutes after they have. lol

I take the window seat this time and our long trip home begins.

Cape Town - Dubai = 9 hours

We arrive in Dubai at 530 AM and it is 31 C outside and VERY VERY humid.  They load us onto a bus, which takes a good 20 minutes and finally we get into the airport.

There is a 4 hour layover here, but we waste no time in going thru customs to get to our boarding gate where we wait for our flight.

Dubai - Seattle = 15 hours

This is a long, long flight, but Air Emirates is a very good airline with excellent service. Bob manages to sleep quite a bit, and I watch a number of movies in between small fits of restless sleep.

Seattle - Vancouver = 1 hour

We say Good-bye to Tim and Mike as they have their luggage before ours arrives.  My suitcase arrives and then we wait, and wait, and wait for Bob's luggage..... it is the last suitcase off this plane, and the plane holds 350 passengers!  We are now rushing a bit as we don't want to miss our connection to Vancouver.  We have to take to tram to another terminal and finally get to Air Canada kiosks where we get our boarding passes.  We had to do our Check-in during our layover in Dubai and the internet connection was not that great there. lol.

I get my boarding pass first, but there is no seat assignment. We are told they will do that at the gate before we board.

When we get to the boarding gate, we find out they have overbooked the plane and are looking for volunteers to take another flight. Obviously neither of us is interested.  We sit down and after awhile they call Bob up to ask if he would be interested in a delay..... no..... Then they call me up and give me a seat assignment.  Bob is not called up and there are a couple of announcements where they are offering 400 bucks on another flight if you will give up your seat.  There are no takers.... Finally we board, and Bob is left behind.

My flight to Vancouver is short, and going thru the customs is relatively quick and automated to a large extent. I have to go thru a second set of customs and this is the Air Canada part and it is packed and I don't know if I will make my connection to Edmonton.  Finally I get thru and rush to my gate as the last people are boarding.  This is the last leg and I feel exhaustion washing over me as there are no more connections, no more flights, no more hotels, no more worrying,.... 

Darlene and TJ are waiting for me and it is good to be back home.  It has taken me 35 hours to get here from the time I arrived at the airport in Cape Town.  That is now so far away ......

Day 21 - To Cape Town

Sun. 21st Sept

The last day of our trip, and once again I have weird dreams going back a long time to when I worked as the Chief Dispatcher at LMC.... I get up, shower and meet the group for breakfast at the late hour of 8.  Bob elects to stay in bed and then pack before coming for breakfast.  Judy and Chris have elected to sit by themselves again as I believe they have had some argument with Misheck, our guide.

After breakfast everyone says their Good-Byes, and I must confess to knowing that I will miss some of these people, and their humour as you start to bond over the many dusty miles we have put on over the past 21 days.

We finish packing, Bob pays for our meals and drinks for the past 2 days (149 US) and the 4 of us get on a shuttle for the airport. On our way to the airport we come across a bunch of baboons along and the road so we slow so I can take some iphotos of them. It is 15 each for the shuttle and after we get there it is not that long a wait before we board our plane and take off for Johanessburg, or Jo-burg as the locals call it.

The flight to Jo-Burg is 2.5 hours long and we have a meal on board. Somehow we got the last 2 seats in business class which was kind of neat. There were curtains behind Bob and I and we were offered drinks before the plane even took off. We were given a choice of our meal and I noticed that the economy class people got no meal. 

At Jo-burg, which is a large airport and we have to go thru customs into South Africa, retrieve our bags, go thru customs to leave South Africa and then wait by the boarding gate for about an hour before our plane leaves.

It is 6 PM when our plane leaves and it is soon dark outside, although we can see the setting sun for some time as we climb to 30,000 ft.  We will also have a meal on board which is being served as I type this, trying to bring my blog up to date.

We land in Cape Town, get our bags and then get a van to take us to the Protea Breakwater Lodge where we had stayed before.  It costs 350 Rand for all of us and I give the guy a 100 Rand tip as we arrange for him to pick us up tomorrow at 3 for our flight back home.

As we are driving to the lodge, I turn back to Tim and mention that it seems like we have been out in the bush for the last 3 weeks. I feel this way because suddenly we are on nice paved roads, surrounded by traffic, lights and we have A/C in the vehicle as well. Tim laughs and agrees, as he had been thinking something similar.

Once in our rooms, Tim, Mike and I go down to the bar for a drink while Bob elects to stay in the room and re-pack again as he has big concerns about his weight on the plane.

Back in the room, Bob has the TV on and we watch it for awhile before drifting off to sleep.

Day 20 - Victoria Falls

Sat. 20 Sept.

This is our second last day of the Safari, and I have elected to pass on Elephant Safari and also on the Lion Walk, which others in our group are going on. Instead, it is a morning to sleep in a bit and then do some relaxing before our long journey home commences.

I am up at 6:30 and wander up for breakfast beside the river by myself. The Elephant Safari left at 6 AM and Bob is still asleep.  As I sit enjoying a coffee and the early morning sun, a young man calls over to me that there is an elephant on the bank across the river.  He was the teacher I was talking to yesterday and I end up enjoying my breakfast whilst watching the elephant across the river for about 20 minutes before he ambled off.

Bob and I catch the shuttle downtown to do some shopping at 9 AM.  We are dropped off at the open market and as soon as Bob buys something. there are about 5 guys wanting to sell us things. The only way we can get rid of these street vendors is to duck into shops nearby. We soon become engrossed in what is available and I am quite taken with the ironwood carvings. A young fellow named George (after King George) tries hard to sell me a carving, but it is too expensive and too heavy for the plane. I then mention I am looking for a child's T shirt, and he says he knows a good place.  Well, he ends up shepherding us all over the place and also keeps the street vendors at bay.  We find most of what we are looking for, and give him a nice tip for his trouble.  One of the big items tourists purchase is the old Zimbabwe dollars.  During the Mugabe years, inflation became out of control and skyrocketed to 1600 percent. They were printing money like it was going out of style, because it was!  You were lucky to find anything in the stores to buy.  If you went to the store to buy a loaf of bread in the morning, it might cost 50 dollars.  By nighttime, if you wanted another loaf, it might cost you 300 dollars!  For that reason, people spent their money as fast as they could, as it would buy nothing if you kept it for very long.  I purchased as set of the old money and have a couple of Trillion dollar bills for TJ.

We take a taxi ride back to the hotel and have a couple of drinks with Bill and Cheryl. Bob relaxes while I go for a swim. Afterwards we go back to the room as it is getting humid outside and Bob sleeps while I go over my photos. At 5 in the afternoon, I take a look out our front door to find a small herd of Warthogs outside with a setting sun lighting them nicely.  Photo-op I think, and grab my camera for some shots.

Supper is once again a buffet but it seems some of our group have had it with buffets and instead want a regular meal where they don't have to get up and wait in line.  Misheck hands out questionaires on the tour he wants us to fill out.  It seems a couple of our group are not pleased with something and they elects to sit by themselves for upper.

We have a chance to catch up with everyone else during supper and it seems the group that went on the Elephant Safari were not that happy with it.  The only wildlife they saw was the elephants they were riding. lol. 

The Lion Walk was interesting but did not get any big rave reviews from those that attended it, so I was kinda happy that I took the day to just relax.

We crashed early, as Bob wanted to pack and I was also wanting to do the same. This was our last night of the safari and I think most of us were getting a bit anxious to be heading home.  Misheck has arranged our ride to the airport at 11 as our departure is 1:30.  

Bob has packed and re-packed as he has purchased a couple of items that might weigh him down. This suddenly reminded me of a joke Tim had told prior to our helicopter flight yesterday about a young girl who, when asked what she wanted to do on her date said "I want to be weighed" ..... She is oriental and ..... Chris does not get the joke for awhile which is kind of funny. The reason Tim told it was because we all had to be weighted prior to our flight to ensure we were in the correct seats in the chopper.

Day 19 - Into Zimbabwe

Day 19

We head for Victoria Falls today, which is a short drive, but we have to go thru the border in order to do so.  We are up and on the road by 9.

Within 15 minutes we are at the border crossing and have to get our passports checked in order to leave Botswana.  This is fairly painless. We drive a couple of hundred feet and get to the border to enter Zimbabwe.  There are lines of trucks waiting to be processed and lots of safari vehicles. There is a long line of people waiting to get into the building and we go stand in line. Misheck shows up a couple of minutes later and gets our passports along with our Visa money to see if he can get it processed faster.  Judy raises her concerns about letting go of her passport but Misheck is patient in explaining why he needs them.  Some of the people had already paid for their Visas (100 bucks each on line) while the rest of us had to have the exact US cash.  It was weird in that Australians and US citizens had to pay 30 bucks while Canadians had to pay 75 bucks.  We felt bad about this but not nearly as bad as those who had got their visas ahead of time and paid more!

Customs took about 1 hr. and once thru, we were off for our final leg to Victoria Falls.  It was only 70 km and we were there. We took a short drive thru Victoria Falls, stopped at the Victoria Falls Hotel for a 15 minute walkabout and then boarded the bus to go to Victoria Falls, which is next to Niagra Falls in size.  The cost was 30 bucks (US) to in to the Falls. We walked around, took some photos and then met at the restaurant for some lunch.  It was quite hot by this time (1 PM) and we were all anxious to get to our lodge.  The Akizuma Lodge is very nice, but our rooms are not ready for about 45 minutes.  There is a pool, warnings about crocs, and the rooms are quite nice.  Wandering about the place are monkeys, baboons, and warthogs!

We get into our room, and just relax, as it is quite warm outside and the room has A/C and also wifi, which is a treat.

At 4 PM some of us meet Misheck at the lobby and he drives us up the road to the helicopter pad.  There is a choice of either a 15 or 25 minute helicopter ride, and Tim, Mike, Bob, John, Chris and I have all signed up for the 25 minute ride. I get a really good seat beside John and Chris. Time and Bob are across from us and facing backwards which is not that great for photo taking. Mike was lucky and got the shotgun seat beside the pilot. The flight is really neat as you get to see the falls from the air after you have walked around them a couple of hours prior. We also flew over the Chobe National park which we had viewed the day prior. We say some large herds of Elephants and Water Buffalo as well as Giraffe during our flight. None seemed bothered by the chopper as they are up there all the time, catering to the tourists.

Supper is a buffet again, and we get a supposed deal on it (35 bucks knocked down to 25) There is also a show of some young Africans singing, dancing and playing drums around a large fire which is quite entertaining.

After supper, everyone heads back to their rooms in fairly short order. Tomorrow is a 

Day 18 - Chobe Safari Lodge

Day 18 at the Chobe Safari Lodge

Everyone has signed up for the optional Game Drive in the morning and it leaves at 6 AM due to the heat later in the day.

We get into 2 Safari vehicles and head out. Once again, we are putting blankets over ourselves in the early morning coolness as the vehicles move out.  Soon we are entering the park and find there are about 10 other vehicles waiting to get into the park. After the guide has paid the entrance fee we are once again on our way. There are a number of different dirt roads you can take thru the park and we take a number of them in our search for wildlife.  We have yet to come across Water Buffalo and we are not to be disappointed on this drive as we spy a number of them, as well as Giraffes, Elephants, Springbok, etc.  We also come across a female lion and her cubs hiding in the bush, but it is very difficult to see them.  We see lots of baboons, some eagles, vultures, warthogs, grouse, and some zebras as well.  Our driver is a tad fast and it is a very rough ride as I am in the rearmost seat with Judy and Nik on this trip.  Tim and Mike were in front of me but we picked up another couple at another lodge and Mike ended up in the front seat with the driver.

The game drive finishes up around 10 and we are back at the Lodge around 1030, in time for a late breakfast at the buffet. I load up on breakfast as I will pass on lunch and spend some time chilling in the afternoon, before we head out on the included Sunset Boat Drive,

There are 2 large pontoon boats that we head out on. Each one is carrying about 50 people and has 2 decks on them.  As we head towards the pool where we are to meet prior to boarding there is a fellow with a Nikon D4s and a HUGE lens attached to it.  He tells me it is a 600 mm lens and that it is simply a hobby with him. Pretty serious hobby as the lens alone runs about 12,000 dollars!

Anyway, we get on board, and head out onto the Zambeze River.  We cruise along and stop to view Hippos, Elephants, Water Buffalo, Crocs and a number of different birds and waterfowl.  There are drinks on board, and I get some great shots of the wildlife as we cruise and stop along the river.  Finally sunset is approaching and the boat goes up a narrow channel before stopping to watch the sun set in the distance.  There is a herd of elephants making their way across the marsh and I get some really cool shots as they move across the plain in front of the setting sun, which has turned red as it nears the horizon.

By the time we get back to the lodge, it is close to supper, and, once again we enjoy the buffet. Everyone leaves fairly quickly after supper as it seems we are all tired what with 2 large excursions that day.  We don't have an early start tomorrow, but it is nice to have some down time in a nice room.

Day 17 - Into Botswana

Day 17 (Tuesday)

Once again I am awake before the alarm as I relish being up to welcome a new day in a strange environment. I turn off the alarms to not waken Bob, bang my crocs to ensure no scorpion has crawled into them overnight and then get stung by a bee which has hung on to the inside of the left shoe as I put it on. I give a yelp as it is a shock, capture the offending beast for proper identification, which wakes Bob and he is very helpful by getting some polysporin which I apply before putting on socks and getting dressed. 

We go outside to be greeted by a gorgeous sunrise and playful hippos in the water. We take some photos, I get the bee identified before we release it, have breakfast and are on the road just before 8 AM. 

We do not drive far before our first stop, which is where we go thru the border to enter Botswana. There are Baobab trees here and in the distant I take some photos of them.  We have to carry a spare pair of shoes and wipe them off on a wet pad and then wait while the truck drives thru this shallow pool of water.  In the distance, we can see a large herd of elephants in a field that has a shallow river running thru it.

Once thru customs, we continue on our way to the Chobe Safari Lodge.  It is mid afternoon when we finally arrive in this small town and Misheck parks the bus in a small, dirty parking lot behind a small mall and takes off to see about our rooms.  There are baboons and warthogs wandering about freely as well as quite a few locals who look a bit shady as well. Bob decides to stay with the bus while everybody else wanders up to the small mall as we all need to get some money changed into Pulus, which is the currency in Botswana. 

En route to our Lodging for the next 2 nights we drive thru a part of the Chobe National Park, which is known for its large herds of elephants.  We see a Sable Antelope as soon as we enter the park and then nothing the rest of the way. The road is paved, and it is exciting, knowing that this is one of the better known parks in Africa which we have entered.

Once again, it seems we are wondering about our lodging for the night as this parking lot does not bode well for where we might be staying.  When Misheck returns we all board the bus once again and it is a very short drive to a magnificent lodge on the banks of the Chobe River.  It has a large pool, wooden walkways thru the trees, wifi, A/C, and even a refrigerator in the room. The shower is huge, there are mosquito nets over the beds and a small veranda, as Bob and I are on the second floor.

We settle in quickly and head down to the bar for a couple of drinks to cool off and also to check our email as that is where the wifi is located.

Supper that night is once again a wonderful buffet, yet even tho it is wonderfully set up, I think we are all getting tired of the buffets as time rolls on.

During supper some dancers and singers come out and perform. Their music is magic and very African. I let my supper get cold as I use my ipad to film parts of their performance. Afterwards, Bob and I spend some time in the lobby catching up on email before heading back to our room.

Everyone has signed up for the optional Game Drive in the morning and it leaves at 6 AM due to the heat later in the day.