Ron & Viv Moon trip diary


Read about Ron & Viv's journey so far through Africa.


South Africa Flag Lesotho Flag Swaziland Flag Mozambique Flag Namibia Flag Botswana Flag Zambia Flag Malawi Flag Tanzania Flag Kenya Flag Uganda Flag Ethiopia Flag Sudan Flag Egypt Flag Libya Flag Tunisia Flag Euro Flag	AFRICA TRIP - February to October 2007 Click on read more to go to the corresponding trip diary page. Arriving The big day arrived on the 18 th February as we touched down in Jo'burg at the O.R Tambo International Airport. Like any big city the first introduction to Africa is a far cry from the wild - traffic jams greeted us as we headed to our hotel to wait a flight to Durban. read more Late February - Early March 2007 Sani Pass and Lesotho Our first camp in Africa! read more South African Battlefields Battlefields in Kwa Zulu Natal read more Swaziland and the Royal Hilane National Park Swaziland read more Mid to late March 2007 Pretoria - LOE Expedition South Africa, Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa read more Early April 2007 To Cape Agulhas Our last views of the vast cities of Jo'burg and Pretoria as we headed south were the Black townships that stretch for miles along the N1. read more Early to Mid April 2007 To Southern Namibia and Windhoek Sooner or later all things come to an end and we had to leave and listen to the sound of rubber rolling on bitumen. Now we were heading north on the BIG drive north to Egypt! read more Mid to late April 2007 Namibia - Swakopmund, Skeleton Coast, Herero & Himba country - Kaokoland, Epupa Falls, Etosha National Park With the Patrol running much better after six replacement injectors (the diesel fuel is crap in southern Africa so be warned!) we finally left Windhoek and headed across the mountain passes on one of the lesser used routes to the old German town now come holiday resort of Swakopmund . read more Early to mid May 2007 Botswana again and into Zambia Our return to Botswana was marred by a shifty looking copper at one of the first road blocks we had to go through on the way to Maun. read more Mid to late May 2007 Zambia to Malawi and Lake Malawi Before leaving Zambia we stopped at the small art art-craft-fabric set-up in one of the local villages just outside Luangwa NP. read more Late May & early June 2007 Northern Mozambique Here we were at the border post in Mozambique trying to converse with a Portuguese official to organize our visas – and not having much luck - when in walked an Australian. read more Early to mid June 2007 Tanziania & Zanziba Our first day in Tanzania was spent in the small border village of Kilambo waiting for Fred and hoping the ferry would run. ...... read more Mid to Late June 2007 Tanziania - Lake Manyara; Ngorongoro Crater & Serengeti National Parks After shopping we headed north along the coast to the small village of Bagamoyo. The town was once the capital of German East Africa but it was abandoned in favour of Dar and is now nothing much more than a big fishing village. ...... read more Early July 2007 Southern Kenya - Nairobi, Tsavo & Amboseli National Parks From our delightful time in the Serengeti we had the rude shock of people, buses and animal life as we headed to the sprawling waterfront town of Musoma, which is a small port – but busy - on the edge of Lake Victoria. ...... read more Mid to Late July 2007 Uganda & back into Kenya Forget what you have heard about Uganda – Idi Amin and all that sort of stuff - the place is fantastic! And it's pretty safe too now that the government is having peace talks with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). ...... read more Late July - early August 2007 Return to Nairobi and onto Northern Kenya That rain put paid to our plans of driving around the mountain (the dirt road becomes impassable), so we headed along the blacktop to the Kenya Border at Malaba. ...... read more Early to Mid August 2007 Southern Ethiopia to Addis Ababa We were sill working our way thru' Ethiopian Customs – a fairly laid back affair with pleasant helpful people when we were approached by Biruk Desalegn , a freelance tour guide to the Omo Valley. He seemed pretty nice with good English, so we hired him for the next few days – it worked out well!! ...... read more Mid August 2007 Keyafer Health Clinic, Keyafer This Health Centre in the Lower Omo Valley at Keyafer, has to deal with malaria, worm problems, hygiene, TB & leprosy, dysentery, births and AIDs – and these are just some of the everyday issues they are confronted with. ..... read more Mid August 2007 Northern Ethiopia To get a Sudan visa it is better to have an Egypt visa first ... Went to the National Museum, mainly to see ‘Lucy', the 3.6 million year old hominid skeleton found back in the late 1970s ..... read more Mid - late August 2007 Sudan Don't believe all that you read in the news or see on the TV about Sudan. We found some of the friendliest people in Africa, nobody hassled us, while officials were polite and friendly. We also had our best bush camps of the whole trip and you have a feeling you are safe no matter where you are. ..... read more Early to Mid Sept - Egypt Egypt Now we like Aswan, it's probably the best looking big city on the Nile, but it's not a place you like spending time in going from Custom office to Police post and back, to do it all again next day. But that's what we did. It took two full days to get our vehicles out and on the road again! ..... read more Mid Sept - Libya Libya We parked in the ‘No man's land' of border control under the watchful gaze of Libyan security and waited for about half an hour until our escort come guide, Nabeel Aljilli, arrived with the paperwork. ..... read more Mid to late Sept - Tunisia Tunisia We crossed into Tunisia and filled out a ‘Visitors' Card', got our passport stamped and a form filled out for the vehicle, then we were waved thru – no visa, customs or anything, “You can go – Welcome!” We'll see how easy it is to get out of the country and if we have done everything right. ..... read more Late Sept to late October - Europe & England Sicily, Italy, Switzerland, France, England So much for our 4 hour time frame to get through customs, passport control and onto the boat to Sicily - we were down at the ferry point at 5pm readying ourselves for our 9pm departure at Tunis, in Tunisia. Yeah … right! read more	Diesel Fuel Price Prices current as at Feb - July 2007 Eastern & Southern Africa Note: 1: Quality of fuel varies greatly across Africa – in most countries it is pretty poor. Only South Africa and Kenya (Nairobi) have ‘low sulphur diesel' – well so far anyway. 2: Diesel is more readily available than unleaded petrol, especially in rural areas. 3: Diesel is generally slightly cheaper than unleaded. South Africa Fuel - Av price – R 6.66/litre (AS1.33/litre) Botswana Fuel - Av price – P 4.69/litre (AS1.18/litre) Namibia Fuel - Av price – $N 6.29/litre (AS1.26/litre) Zambia Fuel - Av price – ZKw 6203/litre (AS1.88/litre) Malawi Fuel - Av price – MKw 154.6/litre (AS1.40/litre) Mozambique Fuel - Av price – Mt 28.16/litre (AS1.41/litre) Tanzania Fuel - Av price – TSh 1309/litre (A$ 1.31/litre) Kenya Fuel - Av price – KSh 68.95/litre (A$ 1.19/litre) Uganda Fuel - Av price – USh 1960/litre (A$ 1.30/litre) Ethiopia 5.53Birr/L - A$0.65/litre Sudan 1.04SPD/L - A$0.55/litre Egypt 1.13EPD/L - A$0.22/litre Libya 0.15LDN/L - A$0.13/litre Tunisia 0.80TDN - A$0.75/litre