route
Where on earth are we going? Well, at some stage I’ll put a pretty map on here, but for the meantime, here is a rough route and an indication of when we’ll be there (subject to change!!).
If you have any suggestions of cool wee places to visit, please let us know!
We’d be delighted to try and meet up with family, friends and like-minded travellers on the way – if your keen, get in touch via the contact page.
- LONDON – left on 16
Feb 2011 - Germany
- Austria
- Slovenia
- Croatia – 19 Feb
- Albania
- Montenegro
- Greece
- Turkey – 28 Feb
- Syria – 19 Mar
- Jordan – 23 Mar
- Egypt – 6 Apr
- Sudan – 26 Apr
- Ethiopia – 9 May
- Kenya – 4 Jun
- Uganda – 20 Jul
- Rwanda – 2 Aug
- Tanzania – 7 Aug
- Malawi – 2 Sep
- Northern Mozambique – 11 Sep
- Malawi – 19 Sep
- Zambia – 22 Sep
- Zimbabwe – 2 Oct
- Southern Mozambique – 26 Oct
- South Africa – 2 Nov
- Lesotho/Swaziland -
- CAPE TOWN – 16 Dec
- Fly Home 23 Dec
- ARRIVE Christchurch 25 Dec 2011!!!
Hi Guys,
So good to hear of your plans. We are planning a simmilar trip, starting in July. Has the trouble in Egypt affected your plans? We are hoping that by the time we go, all will be peaceful again. Will keep up to date with your progress.
Good luck and “Happy Travels”.
Carol and Doug Ralfe (The Roving Ralfes)
[Reply]
ness Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 7:49 am
Hi Carol and Doug,
Awesome you are also off on an adventure in July! We have been keeping a close eye on the Egypt situation. For the time being at least the unrest seems to be quite localized and we have heard from a few overlanders on the road there at the moment that things in Aswan and the red sea towns are fine, so hoping that by the time we get there in April we will be able to drive through Egypt, avoiding the big cities if there are still protests. The ferries are still running and I’m sure the locals are crying out for tourists to come back. Hopefully it will be fine. We are getting our Ethiopian visas here so we don’t have to go to Cairo, and we can get our Sudan visas in Aswan. We’ll be posting updates on the situation as we go through but still a few months away. Keep in touch in any case. All the best, Ness
[Reply]
Hi Vanessa,
I presume you’ve got your itinerary sorted out, but if the road is open, Lalibela in Ethiopia is pretty amazing. It’s a long time since we’ve been there, but the churches cut into rock were made around 800 years ago so they probably won’t change much. Market day there was amazing (sorry not sure what day of the week that is)
See
http://www.davidwallphoto.com/searchresults.asp?tx=ethiopia&ts=&c=&t=&g=&Lids=&Gids=&p=1&n=670&phrase=
If you can get a copy of The Sign and The Seal: The Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant by Graham Hancock, it has great background on some of the top places in Ethiopia – Axum, Gondar, Bahir Dar, Lake Tana, Tis Issat Falls, Lalibella etc.
There’s lots of other rock hewn chuchres around the highlands, often in quite remote places. We wished we’d had more time in the Simien Mountains, the hyenas of Harrar sounded really interesting, and some people we knew went onto the remote Omo Valley way down south and came across people untouched by the outside world (still had plates in lips etc) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mursi_people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surma_people
It sounded pretty remote though, and I don’t know what security is like ther these days.
Have fun and stay safe.
Cheers
Dave and Jude
[Reply]
ness Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Hi Dave,
Cool, thanks for the great tips. Really looking forward to getting to Ethiopia and doing some exploring, I’ll check out those places you mention. We are hoping to do the Omo – Lake Turkana route into Kenya so will be great to check out the different tribes. Its all a bit weather dependant so we are hoping the rains haven’t started by then – in Sha’allah! We’ve definitely got Lalibela on the list. Should be good!
x
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