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Wednesday 19 September 2012 – Amesbury – Heathrow – Dubai

Despite a morning of last minute panic of packing, while trying to get the last plants into the house for winter, I still managed to leave home without the boarding pass that I had printed off yesterday. Eunice Thompson saved the day by being able to download the boarding pass onto her iPhone and so we arrived in good time at Heathrow Terminal 3 where we met up with Cliff Thompson and David Neville.

Thanks Angie, for doing the annual airport run. At least next year you’ll be coming with us.

As some of you may know, I’m a bit of a camera nut and for the last 18 months had been searching on Nikon Rumours for details of a new affordable replacement for my D300. Well, about a week ago, the D600 was announced at Photokina in Cologne and said to be available in the UK from 18 September. Usually these are ‘wish dates’ rather than reality. The price was also higher than I was prepared to pay, so imagine my pleasant surprise when Eunice pointed out that the tax free camera shop had it in stock – body only, at more than GBP 400 below UK internet prices. Too good to miss, so I’m dragging yet another camera around.

Nothing else to report, except to say that Emirates gets my vote as my favourite airline. It was my first flight on an Airbus 380 (Thanks to Brian & Rene for spotting my dyslexic keyboard), the double decker monster that has the potential of making boarding and disembarking a nightmare, but it all went remarkably smoothly – well done! Comparatively spacious seating, much better than the usual flight food and excellent soundproofing. A very smooth flight.

Tomorrow we land in Dubai for a 2 hour stop over.

Our home LHR to Dubai

Our home LHR to Dubai

Category:

South Africa 2012

One month to go!

In exactly one month’s time we should be arriving in Cape Town in the Republic of South Africa. During the nine weeks that follow we’ll be travelling through the western provinces of South Africa and Namibia in search of interesting succulent plants plus anything else that we’ll see that seems worthy of having its picture taken.

I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the famous fog of the Namibian Desert as it will compliment what I saw in the Chilean Atacama Desert and in Baja California.

The outline of the trip is best seen in three phases:

Phase 1 is the journey from Cape Town to the border with Namibia

Phase 1 – South Africa

Phase 2 covers our time in Namibia

Phase 2 Namibia

Phase 3 sees us back in South Africa, traveling a bit more slowly through the famous areas that we’ll have driven through at the start of the trip: The Richtersveld, Namaqualand, the Knersvlakte etc before heading east as far as Somerset East. From there we’ll head back to Cape Town and the flight home on 20 November.

Phase 3 - back to South Africa

Phase 3 – back to South Africa

To follow us on a day by day account of the trip follow this link to

19 September 2012

Category:

Namibia, South Africa 2012