Armand Hough
Nature photography was the reason I picked up a camera in the first place. I can recall asking my parents for a subscription of National Geographic at an age when my friends wanted toy cars and G.I. Joe action figures.
I guess I realised that the people creating these photographs had to physically go to these amazing places. They would have to interact with the people, hear the sounds and breathe the air. I wanted to bear witness to the world and share my stories.
The opportunity to combine my photographic passions presented itself when a Swedish friend of mine, Gabriella, decided to visit Cape Town and wanted to go on an African adventure.
This was my chance to experience my long-awaited nature photography desires.
I called up a friend, Conrad, who I knew did his own overland tours through Africa. His company, Roaring African Adventures, and his reputation as an expert in the area preceded him.
He quickly customised a two-week round trip through four countries, including wildlife excursions in several national parks, adrenalin-pumping adventurous activities, a traditional canoe safari and getting face to face with Africa’s wildest inhabitants.
The commute from Cape Town to Livingstone was a gruelling 52-hour bus ride with a quick stopover in Windhoek, where we had just enough time to find a dirty chicken shop and buy some last-minute snacks for the second leg of the drive. In Livingstone, we would pick up the overland vehicle.
On our arrival to Livingstone, it was a race to the Zambezi Waterfront’s swimming pool, where we lounged with Mosi Lagers in hand and nurtured our aching muscles from the long bus drive up.
Five Australian travellers and a New Zealander joined us and the next morning our journey officially started with a visit to the Zimbabwean side of the Victoria Falls.
We spent the next few days making our way through Zimbabwe, spotting more elephants than local people and we were treated to seeing two lionesses taking down a warthog in the Hwange National Park.
After crossing the border into Botswana, we went for the surreal experience of driving through the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans, a few more nature reserves and some of the most beautiful game lodges I have ever seen in my life.
We arrived in Maun after a short drive, where we climbed into a couple of Mokoro canoes for a three-day trip into the Okavango Delta.
We crossed the border into Namibia’s Caprivi Strip, where we spent an evening sleeping among hippos and crocs at the Ngepi Camp.
Our journey drew to an end after that, but on our return to Livingstone we had a few days to relax and enjoyed the first 27 rapids of the Zambezi River on a white-water rafting day.
The trip was life-changing, the views mesmerising and the photos, well, I guess they came out all right.