Zambia - A Family African Adventure
An African safari, with a little fishing craftily blended in, proves a hit for Ian and Isobel Scruton with their young family, as all ages fall for a touch of luxury and the endless fascination of life in the bush.
We were nervous taking our daughters on safari. My wife thought Maisie, aged ten, and Phoebe, aged seven, might be eaten: I feared they’d be bored. Neither of those things happened and our journey, through Zambia and Mozambique, surpassed our wildest dreams.
Victoria Falls
We didn’t want to spend our whole time travelling, so we set aside three weeks to explore four places in depth. First stop was Chuma House, on the Upper Zambezi near Victoria Falls. The Falls were an obvious highlight but there were other surprises. I’ll never forget the first morning when I woke up at seven in the morning to find the staff wheeling a log fire into my bedroom: a great start to the day. We also took the chance to explore some villages and generally settle in to the pace of Africa.
South Luangwa
Next stop was Robin Pope’s house in South Luangwa. My first concern was that my children might feel confined. There were elephants right outside the front door taking ebony nuts, and hippo in the river below, so there was no question of them leaving the house on their own: they’re active girls and I wondered how they’d respond – and also how they’d react spending up to five hours at a time
on game drives. I didn’t need to worry – they loved it all. We’d go out on game-drives at 5:30 in the morning and they got right into it. The guides know so much they’re almost encyclopaedias, and the girls discovered a love of bird watching. At their age they remember it all, just soak up the knowledge. We’d come back for lunch and after an hour or two splashing around in the pool they were really keen to get back in the Land Rover for an afternoon drive lasting well after dark. The floodlights picked out leopard and all sorts of nocturnal game.
Lower Zambezi
We moved on to Chongwe which was absolutely stunning: a newly-built property in a Gaudì style, incorporating live trees into the design, with no straight lines anywhere. From here we explored on walking safaris, canoe trips and riverboats, but most importantly we also got in some serious fishing. This stretch of the Zambezi is excellent for tiger fish, the hardest-fighting freshwater fish in the world whose local name is ‘striped waterdog’. I teamed up with our guide, Garth, to form a girls vs boys fishing competition from boat and bank.
The first fish we landed was a revelation, and I understood why we’d needed wire trace, as they had an enormous array of teeth and looked really vicious. But in the swirling waters of the Zambezi the surprise catch wasn’t a ten-pound fish, but a £200 rod. A fish took Phoebe by surprise and ripped the rod from her hand – it just disappeared into the water – and I assumed it was a goner. Garth didn’t give up so easily – in the heart of the bush you can’t just wander off to your local tackle shop to replace equipment like that – and with a couple of casts he managed to hook the rod off the riverbed and bring it back on board. As for the fishing contest, although Garth and I caught – and released – a good few fish in the high teens, overall the girls won hands down. As my wife pointed out, they always do.
Benguerra Island
After Chongwe we flew out to Benguerra Island off the Mozambique coast to chill on an Indian Ocean beach. We relaxed in a luxurious beach villa, went beach-combing for pansy shells, and really relaxed for a few days. But we hadn’t done with fishing yet. Our guide called Glanville took us out fishing a couple of times and though the first day was too rough to catch much, the second was superb. We headed out to sea surrounded by a pod of bottlenosed dolphin, saw leatherback turtles, humpback dolphin and even – very luckily – a dugong. The girls caught blood snapper and grouper but then suddenly we came across a humpback whale with her calf, very close to the boat. Finally, just to close the whole trip off we moved to calmer waters and I hooked a giant trevally. Also known as kingfish, these are very underrated, real Mike Tysons of the underwater world. My 45lbs adversary took 15 minutes of trench warfare to bring in and left me totally exhausted. They’ve got incredible powers of recovery though: when we put it back into the sea it blasted off into the depths as if nothing had happened.
My powers of recovery being somewhat less impressive we spent the last few days just relaxing, building sandcastles on the beach while the girls dug holes and caught hermit crabs. All in all, a superb holiday.
|
Location:
Chongwe River Camp
Freshwater:
River and stream fishing
Country:
Zambia
Capacity:
8 per week
Season:
Year-Round
|
