More new from Oz!

Sorry to all the Austrailans reading this but francky you're all a bit odd, where do you get off befriending total strangers and inviting them into your homes and giving them guided tours of your cities. It just doens't seem right!

Anyway ...

I've now experienced my first Australian BBQ (which was far more civilised than I expected so maybe haven't had the real thing yet), visited what I hope are some of Perths worst night clubs, climbed the Swan Bell Tower and walked around Kings Park (where there is a rather lovely statue of Queen Vic - doens't quite seem right seeing them outside the UK). Also been out to Freo and Cotto as I'm told the locals call them and so I think I've pretty mush done Perth.

Having 'done Perth' I've now purchased a rather nice 1986 ford falcon XF and will be setting off for Margaret River, the Wave Stone/ Rock (stone that looks lilke a wave apparently - Australians appear to have quite a tallent for original naming of the may rock formaitons they have scattered around!) then north to Broome and Darwin.

Will be heading down to Margaret River with couple of lads I met in the backpackers and then one of them is heading north with me - Tim Henman look-a-like, kind of freeky really! May try to find more people fo the northward journey as the car is huge but have to wait and see what happens.

Other Perth highlights I guess must include staying up until 2.45 am to watch the mighty England winning against Switerland and Croatia, low point came at about 5.30 this morning as we crashed out to Portugal and found myself in pub full of drunken English yobs - really is amazing how well we can represent out country overseas if we really put our mind to it!

Other significant development is that I've got myself a mobile (number 040 440 1673 - country code 0061 I think) which has the added benefit of having a clock, alarm and diary so I now know the time and date and when I'm meant to be doing stuff which is nice.

And other than that I've not really done a great deal as I've just been enjoying having the same bed for more than a coupe of nights. Still horiffid at the price of alcohol compaired to everything else out here but guess I'll just have to get over that.

Hope all is well back home, please keep all the news coming.

Laters

Jonathan

Internet cafe
Northbridge
Perth
WA

Greetings from Oz!

Yes, you read that correctly, I changed my plans again and am now in Perth, Western Australia and have been for a little over 24 hours.

In the end although the gorillas of Uganda sounded amazing it would've been fairly expensive and a lot of hassle to sort out so I booked a flight back to Jo.burg from Nairobi and then having spend about 8 hours drinking coffee in Jo.burg airport I took my original flight to Perth.

Having traveled on from Zanzibar up into Kenya we went leopard hunting but although we searched through the Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Nukuru NP we failed to find one until we got to the Nairobi Museum where there was a stuffed one on display! However, I did manage to find loads of white Rhino to add to the black ones I'd already seen along with more lions, eland (biggest antelope in Africa), Thompson and Grant Gazelles, waterbuck (that don't die easily and taste great!), bushbuck and all sorts of birds inc pelicans and long crested eagles.

While in the Ngorongoro Crater we (as a truck) decided to forget about roughing it for a night and paid an extra $40 each to stay in a great lodge/ hotel on the cliffs over the crater so had a night eating in a fancy restaurant then night in room with hot showers and big double beds. This little bit of luxury convinced me that camping isn't all that so then got upgrades virtually every night from there on in having been good and stayed in my tent whenever possible up until that point.

As my subject line may of suggested I've arrived in Australia and have sampled my first night of Perth's night life (though not convinced I went to quite the best hotspots Northbridge has to offer (maybe tonight!). I've got a couple of contacts from Africa (friends of people off the truck) that I'm hoping to meet up with so fingers crossed

I've not quite figured out my next move as my brain isn't really working too well having only had a couple of hours sleep in Nairobi before leaving for Joburg soon after 5am, then bugger all until arriving in Perth at about 9.30 yesterday morning, then failing dismally to get an early night yesterday as I had to go drinking ....

Not sure what other news is worth telling really, Nairobi isn't as bad as the name Nairobbery implys and the restaurant there called carnivors is sensational (paid equvolent of about 12 UK pound to eat as much dead animal as possible, managed to keep going for hours!).

Now I actully typed the details below for people that were on the truck with me but as it took forever to do I thought I'd share it with you as well! Here are the details of the animals I spotted and the locations of first sighting (the list probably isn't exhaustive as unless I got a 100% positive ID I didn't put it in the book). * after means it was also eaten, theory of how hard they are to kill stands!

the animals...

Chacma Baboon - Chobe
Vervet Monkey - Chobe
Eastern Black & White Colabus - Elsamere, Lake Nukuru
Tree Squirrels - chobe
Brown Hyena - Cape Cross, Namibia
Spotted Hyena - Moringa Watering Hole, Etosha
Lion - Etosha (female), Ngorongoro Crater (male)
Cheetah - Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park
Banded mongoose - etosha
African Wild Dog - Chobe
Black-backed Jackel - everywhere (though may well of also seen side striped jackel in second half of trip as book says bbjs don't tend to be seen north of Tanz and ssjs look similar just lighter in colour)
Cape fur-seal - Cape town harbour & cape cross, Namibia
African Elephant - etosha
Dassie - Cape of Good Hope
White Rhinoceros - Lake Nukuru
BLack Rhino - Moringa watering hole
Mountain Zebra - Namib-Naukluft Park (tried to eat but couldn't find, gutted!)
Burchells zebra - etosha
Bushpig - chobe
Warthog - Namib-Naukluft Park*
hippopotamus - okovango delta
giraffe -etosha
blue wildebeest - etosha*
REd Hartebeest - etosha
steenbok - etosha
springbok - etosha*
Thompson Gazelle - crater
Grant gazelle - crater
Black faced Impala - etosha
Impala - crater *
sable antelope - chobe
Gemsbok - Namib-Naukluft Park*
Bushbuk - Lake Nukuru
Eland - crater*
Greater Kuku - etosha *
African buffalo - chobe
Waterbuk - Lake Nukuru*
Puku - chobe
Leopard - Nairobi museum (stuffed)

(think I ate a few more than is listed but ....)

Birds
Ostrich - Cape of good hope*
Jackass Penguins - Roben Island & Boulders bay
White Pelican - Lake Nukuru
Darter - chobe
Hamerkop - Vic Falls
Goliath Heron - chobe
Green backed heron -chobe
great white egret - SA
Black backed heron - SA
saddle billed stork - delta
marabou stork - chobe
yellow billed stork - chobe
Sacred ibis - crater
Greater & Lesser flamingos - Lake Nukuru
Egyptian Goose - chobe
Tawny Eagle - etosha
Bateleur - crater
Augur buzzard - crater
Long crested eagle - Lake Nukuru
Martial eagle - chobe
secretary bird - etosha
African fish eagle - delta
white backed vultures - ? didn't records, (maybe etosha)
Lappet faced vulture - ? dito
Helmeted guineafowl - who cares! maybe chobe?
Southern Crowned Cranes - crater
kori bustard - etosha (africas biggest flying bird don't you know! - getting really bord of typing these now!)
blacksmith plover -chobe
Laughing dove - crayfish campsite ( Kenya)
Rosy faced lovebird - Coffee Bay SA
Rose ring necked parokeet - dito
Barred owl - etosha
pied kingfisher - delta
woodland kingfisher - delta
Malachite kingfisher - Coffee Bay SA
white fronted bee eater - chobe
little bee eater - chobe
lilac breasted roller - chobe
ground hornbill - namibian/ botswana border
yellow throated longclaws - crater
red winged starling - Cape twon
glossy starling - lake Nukuru
Pied Crow - Cape town
Oxpeckers - chobe (on Sable antelope)
Masked weaver - crater
Long tailed widow - Lake Nukuru

Other stuff
Nile Crocodite - delta*
Nile Monitor =- Coffee Bay SA
Water Monitir - chobe
Angle fish - zanzibar

And thats that I believe, hope you are all safe and well.

TTFN

JP
Internet Cafe
Northbridge
Perth
Australia

News from East Africa

Greetings from Zanzibar!

Well, what's been happening.... As I just said I'm in/ on Zanzibar having traveled up from Vic Falls in Zimbabwe through Zambia, Malawi and then on to Tanzania.

The last week or so has been a bit of a blur having got a new truck (soft sided and make the old one look like a luxury coach) and new crew and crowd of travellers. The new crew are rather different the last set (and are called Adel and Aaron) but equally as good fun and the change in people on the trip has dramatically changed the dynamics of the group as we lost two sets of couple and gained 7 single people (5 girls ages 21, 22, 27, 29 and 59 and two blokes, 29 and 38). Everyone's getting on so far but we still have 12 days for that to change!

Bit of amusing news from the truck is that the father of the father daughter pair lost both their passports in Vic Falls and the pair of them bad to fly of to get replacements so we were without them for a couple of days during which time The father got the pair of them arrested by the Zimbabwe police for entering a restricted zone around Mugabi's offices! Needless to say he was popular for a few days!

So what else has happened, I think when I last typed I was about to go gorge swinging and tiger moth flying. I highly recommend both but if you have to go for one of the other there aren't many rushes like diving off a perfectly good cliff! I did a couple of solo jumps and a couple of dual ones all of which were sensational, however the best was the final single jump as I decided to change the launch plan.

Normally you can either step off forwards (and drop feet first and see the valley), step off backwards ( feet first but see the rocks) or a death drop whereby you fall backwards for go head first looking into the valley, however..... having done the death drop I asked if I could dive off head first - I can assure you the ground rush was amazing. Apparently the guys running the swing looked a little worried as I plunged into the gorge but as I came out with minimal bruising and the biggest smile of the day it didn't appear to be a problem.

No new game to report either being seen or eaten but having a great time and Sim (bloke on truck that's half of only remaining couple) and I have put together a great theory that means we have to try to eat a lion! The theory states that the harder food is to kill, the better it tastes, hence tomatoes - very very easy to kill, they grow at a convenient height for picking and are a soft mess, taste crap, potatoes - grow underground, take some digging up but then die, taste ok. Beef, cows don't just fall over and die, you have to catch them and kill them but they don't fight a great deal, taste good. Gemsbok, big horns, fast running, hard to catch , tricky to kill, tastes great. Eland - big beast, big horns, fantastic. So, clearly I have to find me an elephant and a lion, not quite figured out how yet but ...

Anyway, back to real news. We spent three days at Vic Falls and got soaked to the skin walking in front of them, also found a terrible nightclub called Explorers where I spent 3 very drunken nights. Before coming up to Zanzibar we had a couple of days on Lake Malawi at Kande Beach which was very chilled, made all the more so by the son of the local tribes chief making us a cake that turned Jas, Beth and I into a gibbering mess for far longer than we thought possible!

My only other big news is that it looks like I'm going to delay my flight to Australia by a month and carry on up to Uganda to look for some gorillas, haven't confirmed it yet but fingers crossed!
I'm heading up to the north of the island tomorrow to have a few days on the beach snorkeling, sailing and relaxing then on to the crater where I'm told we have a great chance of seeing leopards so fingers crossed.

Glad to hear all is going well back in sunny England (hope the warm spell is continuing) and I'm sure I'll be in touch again soon.

Laters

Jonathan
Internet Cafe
Zanzibar
East Africa