September 1st - Day 29

Well, this was it, the last day of the African Adventure 2005. The month had simply flown by and now we had to say our goodbyes to both old and new friends.

What an adventure it had been! When we signed up last October, we both thought it would not be possible to match the Great China Tour that John and Joanna Brown organised in April/ May 2004. Well, how wrong we were!

We never realised how beautiful southern Africa could be. The tourist guides, magazine articles and TV programmes simply cannot convey the beauty of the place. Added to that are the animals. To see so many different animals in their natural surroundings, such as in the national parks of Etosha, Chobe and Kruger, is a real joy. It just didn't cross our minds that we might see herds of elephants drinking at the Chobe River in Botswana and a pride of lions walking in single file down a road in the Kruger National park a few feet from us. Again, the thought that we would be just yards from a herd of buffalo standing around a dead elephant as the vultures flew down and a lone lioness attempted to feed off the carcass, and failed, never occurred to us before we left England.

These were but a few of the amazing moments from the tour that we will remember and enjoy when we look at the six hours of video and nearly a thousand photos that we have taken.

Southern Africa is a place that we never thought of visiting before the African Adventure. Now that we have completed the tour we can't wait to return.

As our plane took off from Cape Town International airport we both felt privileged to have been able to participate in such a wonderful adventure.

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