We woke up on Day 2 of our journey and when I say “woke up” I do mean this very figuratively; as we didn’t really sleep very much. Which we kind of knew would happen, so at least we were prepared. It was nice to be able to make a nice cup of tea with an exotic biscuit to start off the day. Especially when it’s 6 am and you know you’ll only go to breakfast at about 9.
So, we basically lay in bed for a while staring out the window because we had stopped at the Beit Bridge border crossing and could actually get out and walk around on the platform, which we actually did for a bit after breakfast. We needed someway to work off all the calories 🙂
After breakfast and our walk, we headed to the bar car and out into the observation car once again (our favourite place already). We always met new people in the observation car and got to see some interesting things as well. For example, at the border; there was a random donkey walking around and crossing the tracks.
Luch, ever in the holiday spirit ordered a G&T at 10 o’clock in the morning. I however, needed to wait a few more hours. We spent most of the day sitting outside and watching the world go by, but what we were most excited for was lunch time. We had seen in the itinerary that we would be travelling through the Hwange (pronounced Wankey) National Park during lunch and would be able to see all sorts of animals from the train cars.
I’ve been on many game drives from my own car, but all I can say is that this beat them all out. I have never experienced anything better than relaxing with a glass of wine in hand, eating a 4 course lunch and watching buffalo and elephants walk past in the distant. We even managed to see a few giraffes.
After lunch, it was our turn at an afternoon nap (pretty much the only time we slept), before our stop in the afternoon when we would all get off the train and climb into a safari vehicle for our journey around Hwange.
The train literally stopped in the middle of the reserve and we all got out, grabbed bottles of water and headed to our vehicles. What a luxury experience. Luch loved the fact that he didn’t have to drive, since he is usually the one driving us around a game parks and I’m usually the one pointing out all of the animals.
We actually managed to see a male and female lion up close, giraffes in the distance, lots of elephants and one particularly ingenious one that figured out where the fresh water was coming into the park and was drinking directly from it.
Although the game drive was amazing, what came next was even more incredible. Once we’d finished and the sun was just starting to set, we headed to an area in the park where they had a table full of drinks, snacks and chairs set up for all of us; so that we could socialize a bit. It totally felt like something from a movie; or something only the elite travellers would ever get a chance to do.
When it started to get dark, we headed back to the train and were given a hot towel and champagne before jumping on board again. They really did go above and beyond to cater to our every need.
We had the quickest shower of our lives and got suited up for our last dinner on board this magical train. We still ended up being the last ones to enter the dining room, but that worked out just fine because I’d actually decided to put a headband on to look like I’d just walked out of the 1920’s and it really did get everyone’s attention. In fact one of the ladies even came to take a picture of us because of it. We all got roses pinned to our clothes for our last special dinner and it really was amazing.
There was even a cocktail party in the bar car after dinner, which we had to join, although no one ever stayed up as long as we did. We had a few melktert shooters which were just amazing, watched the moon for about an hour and then headed to bed ourselves.
We thought it was definitely the perfect last night to end our incredible journey on Rovos.