Victoria Falls - River Cruise and White Water Rafting

Now that I had actually made it to one of the key destinations on my trip through Africa, Victoria Falls, I had to chose some memorable activities to take part in. However there were so many activities on offer it was difficult to decide which ones to do and they were all quite expensive.

There was no way I was doing the bungee jump and the helicopter ride only lasted 15 mins and cost $220 US dollars, too much. I ended up opting for the Sunset River Cruise and of course, the White Water Rafting.

The river cruise was aboard a split level river boat with the most important section on the top deck, up front ...the free bar. So it was gin and tonic time!

The cruise followed the banks on the Zimbabwe side of the river where we were lucky enough to see hippos.

and also some tourist about to have an evening dinner on the riverbank, but rather too close to the hippos. It looked like the tourist had just arrived and were looking at the dinner setting not sure if sitting so close to the river bank was a good idea.

After several gin and tonics and a BBQ later we watched the sun go down.

and then returned to Waterfront bar and lodge..

A great cruise and well worth doing.

The next day with a 7.30am start it was time to go on my second activity, the White Water Rafting on the Zambezi River, something that I had on my ‘must do‘ list. We were taken back to Watrerfront bay for the briefing where I had been the night before for the River Cruise, before we jumped into a Safari truck for the 45 minute off road journey to the raft launch site via an extremely bumpy track. It made me realise that ridding a motorbike off road is much more enjoyable.

Once we arrived the next challenge was to climb down to the base of the gorge where the raft would be inflated and we would start the journey through the rapids. It took a good 40 minutes to get down to the raft launch site, traversing a very slippery, steep and loose rock path. One thing I know is that I was glad I was not carrying the raft down.

Once down to the base of the gorge it wasn’t long before we were off and arriving at the first of the rapids...OMG!

and the following video tell the full story...