Africa 2001

Victoria Falls (2)

On the paths around the Falls, we saw some wildlife wandering around. Other people saw elephants, but we had to wait until Wednesday for those.

On Monday morning, we took a ride in a tethered balloon to get a different view of the Falls. The balloon rose to a height of 120m, perhaps 150m above the top of the Falls.

Lucy and Kathleen inside the cage of the balloon.

The cage formed a ring, with the thick steel tether in the centre.

Looking north-west up the Zambezi

The western end of the Falls, with the bridge to Zambia just visible on the right of the picture, carrying both road and railway.

The water drops into a chasm that varies in width from 25 to 75 metres. The chasm's only outlet is a narrow channel cut in the barrier wall at a point about three-fifths of the way from the western end of the falls, and through this gorge, which is less than 65 metres wide flows the entire volume of the Zambezi River (which is 1700 metres wide above the falls). The river's waters then emerge into an enormous zigzag trough that forms the beginning of Batoka Gorge, which has been cut by the river to a depth of 120-240 metres through the basalt plateau for a distance of 100 kilometres.