Pilot Review: Ever since I went on my first Safari in the Masai Mara when I was 16 years old, I dreamt of being able to pilot an airplane into the bush and hop from camp to camp by plane. 32 years later, I managed to fulfill my dream.
After months of preparation and with amazing support from Shana at Skytime and Zelda at ZS-Safari, I embarked on my trip. I invited Christian and Nicholas, 2 work colleagues that have lots of flying experience along with me.
We decided on renting 2 Cessna C172 with Diesel conversions. They seemed to be the perfect match for what we wanted to achieve. Their endurance was insane, the rental costs very fair and the fuel usage amazing! After a conversion training in Switzerland, we took to the South African skies around Johannesburg for 2 days of Bush Flying training with an amazing instructor. Tony Kent knows the bush and the characteristics of flying in the bush like the back of his hand and is really good at showing and explaining it all in a great manner.
Our bush trip was epic and for us being European, we thought we were going into the serious wilderness and far away. We did, but in South African terms, this was a mini bush trip. Nonetheless, it was perfect to get our feet wet and to get our first bush flying experience.
Skytime was amazing. Every little request we had, they came through with. They even made us cowl covers out of foam with smiley faces! They are a super professional organization and I can highly recommend them to anyone looking at doing hour building or going on a 2 person per plane trip.
Pyramid Air Park was our first stop. It’s an Air Park outside of the Kruger Park that has houses and cottages with a whole bunch of gras runways surrounding them. What an amazing place! I can highly recommend it as a stop and if possible, stay more than just one night. They can even help organize a car if need be.
Manyeleti and the Khoka Moya tented camp was perfect. A camp without fencing meant we were visited by wildlife right outside our tents and next to the pool. Check out the photos of the elephant! This was our first proper bush landing without our instructor Tony and it felt surreal and quite emotional for me to finally have touched down in the bushveld and amongst wildlife having piloted the Cessna myself. The wildlife and the the Safari feeling during the game drives were top quality thanks to our amazing guide Clive. Clive had never flown before, so as a surprise, we took him on a short flight around Manyeleti before we left. The pictures of his smile are one of the most memorable moments of the entire trip.
We then continued our journey westbound to the Waterberg area and landed in Welgevonden Main Gate, which is a large gravel runway and to much of our surprise on the low level inspection before landing, we were greeted by giraffe! We stayed at the Ekuthuleni Lodge in Welgevonden and their service, staff and facilities were outstanding! The wildlife is spectacular and a must visit if you want to see Rhinos.
A tricky flight back to Johannesburg, dodging low level weather through the mountains challenged us, but through great teamwork we managed to safely return the aircraft and ourselves to Springs in the southern part of Johannesburg.
It was a short but intensive experience and I will definitely be back for more.
Thank you again to everyone involved that made it possible, went out of their way to help us and that made this trip the epic experience and successful bucket list tick-off it was.
