THE ROUTE FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO ENGLAND VIA THE INDIAN OCEAN ISLANDS…
So where on earth are we going?
The trouble is with these kinds of expeditions is that if you are already going thousands of miles…when you open the atlas and look at the map of the world you feel that a slight diversion of a thousand miles or so is perfectly acceptable. Lizzie wanted to go to Madagascar, and Trevor the Seychelles…so we might as well as do some islands in-between, don’t you agree? (and it breaks up the journey over water)
Nothing is set in stone, and anything can happen in terms of weather or being delayed for various reasons like administration. We have chosen this time of year as we hope the weather will be calmer, but storms and ‘weather’ can appear and delay you, or divert you.
However, here is the sketch of our hops back to Blighty. DRAWING
From Johannesburg we fly first to the Kruger, to see some of the amazing animals in one of the largest National Parks in the world.
We then make our way to Madagascar via Mozambique.
From Mozambique we fly over the Indian Ocean to Madagascar. Using Madagascar as our ‘hub’ we fly to Reunion and Mauritius returning to Madagascar and up to the tiny island off the northern coast called the Nosy Ve (pronounced Nosy Bee) then set off for the Seychelles returning to Madagascar and then set off west and head for the Comores. In all cases wearing our immersion suits, life jackets – keeping us nice and toasty, and with the raft at the ready.
From the Comores we get back on to the mainland, landing in Kenya. From Nairobi we cross the border into Tanzania, landing at the base of Kilimanjaro and the International Airport there. We then continue through Uganda, tracking down gorillas, after which we bounce through Ethiopia (Addis Ababa.)
Approaching Djibouti airport we will be flying over the amazing terrain of the alien landscape there and the hundreds of spikey limestone chimneys, then through Jedda in Saudi Arabia, and then onto Luxor in Egypt. We stop for a breather here, and then fly onto Heraklion in Crete, where we might have another lie-down!
From Crete as we head into Europe the concerns become different, and the focus changes to busier skies and more restrictions as the ‘no fly’ areas are more prevalent and closer together.
Crete, Italy and Florence, turn left into southern France, up to northern France and then over the channel to home……
We hope to leave South Africa around mid July and reach home around mid September.
During the trip we will meet up with friends, see some wonderful sights, hear some wonderful sounds and probably smell some extraordinary smells especially the ylang ylang and vanilla farms in Madagascar (let’s just talk about nice smells!) We also hope to visit some schools and NGO’s on the way. For those you need to see the “SERIOUS BIT”.
More to follow……..