Monday 22nd December 2025
Up and away today, our time at Fugitive Drift has ended. Last night the place was full so we got to meet more people over drinks and the meal. It’s always a shame when a place like this is nearly empty, it loses some of its atmosphere.
The big “cloud” hanging over all us leavers today is the state of the unmade roads, the are everywhere around here. It’s been raining constantly since last evening and we’ve already been warned that heavy rains wash away many parts of the roads. At reception and after settling everything the Manager advised us on what route to take; local knowledge and all that, but it still meant covering about 21kms, once outside the main gate, fortunately it wasn’t raining when we left.
Car loaded and away we went, the drive to the main gate, circa 4kms was ok but once out onto the “public” dirt tracks, the fun began. Christine had put our destination into WAZE out of interest and at the first junction, WAZE agreed with the local knowledge. It was rather odd driving, well crawling, to see locals scattered around nearly all sporting umbrellas!! At the second junction we came to, WAZE said one thing and local knowledge said another, hmmmm which way?; we’ve always been told to trust your Instruments. After a little thought went with local knowledge. It wasn’t too long when we had two 4×4’s up our stern, but passing was a different matter. Though the road was wide enough, the actual “driveline”, zig zagging around potholes, made it difficult. At one stage we had to cross one of many bridges, but the road that butted up to the edge, needed a bridge itself to cover the gap; no problem for 4×4, a little difficult for a normal Toyota, still with a “determination” she overcame this but then drove over the bridge with water cascading “right across” the bridge; this was when I wish I had a diesel car!! Eventually the two 4×4’s overtook us and just drove away from us. Another major obstacle was a hump in the road, probably a large underground pipe exposed, as we went over we sort of balanced on the top, it was the momentum that got us over!!!!! 1-hour later we hit tarmac at an average speed of 15mph; our white car now brown!!
The rest of the journey was ok, reasonable roads, not too much traffic and spasmodic rain and then we hit the motorway a toll road so could really wind the car up. From leaving the reserve until we hit the motorway about four and a half hours later, nowhere to stop for a drink, and the mileage between towns is vast. The services had two or three buy-n-go counters and one restaurant, a “Wimpy”, a name from the past I must add, still it had choices other than burgers!!!
We arrived at the Peach Boutique hotel around 1500hrs and crashed out. The drive, especially the muddy, washed away roads was stressful, not to mention driving the wrong type of vehicle, then miles and miles of straight roads; yes glad to park the car.
For the first time, we managed to get a tv channel that wasn’t South African; Netflix and started watching “The Crown”; but not for long!!!!!
Tuesday 23rd December 2025
The Peach Hotel
No rush this morning other than the hire company are collecting the car at 0900hrs, so planned our visit to the restaurant for breakfast to coincide with that.
The room was comfortable and fortunately it was on the ground floor. There are a serries of buildings set in beautifully manicured gardens with two rooms, one up and one down; no lift, just steep steps. When we saw that on arrival we “hotfooted” it back to reception and asked if we could change to a downstairs room, fortunately they had one, phew. Last night as we strolled into the hotel for a snack we detoured around the two pools to have a “gander”, I must say one was small and the other even smaller but attractively set up with sun loungers etc, but the colour of the water was dark green, not impressed. But the good news, as we strolled to breakfast they were on the job cleaning both pools; it could have been all the rain that caused this to happen.
With the car collected our mind turned to today and what to do. Next minute I get a call from reception to say the hire person wanted to see me, oh dear what’s wrong I wondered and she told me I had damaged the car and I need to see it. I hadn’t damaged the car, i knew I hadn’t hit anything or been hit so how come??? Well no damage is visible unless you get right down, sort of hands and knees or you wipe your hand on the underside of the near side front skirt below the bumper; yes it was rough!!!!! That could only have one of two explanations; it was like that when I collected the car though my visual inspection didn’t pick it up as it was far too low or, a rock from the muddy dirt tracks did it; there were so many noises being heard on those roads, anything could have happened below!!!! Note to self, look under the car next time!!! Anyway I was fully insured for waiver damage.
After breakfast we headed back to our room inspecting the pools along the way and pleased to see the water was now clear and apart from being a little on the chilly side, looked inviting, but not now, we’re heading to town.
We booked our Uber which arrived at the gate just when they said they would and headed to the “hop+on, hop-off” big-bus office in a large shopping centre called the Zone at Rosebank. We are back at the Peach after our excursions around Victoria Falls for a few days and this may be one way to see the area.
We wandered around the two mall areas and admired 4-chaps who were human statues and they only moved when money was tossed into their bowl; I have to say they were impressive. The sun was shining and we enjoyed pots of tea sitting outside watching the world go by.
Back in an Uber, and back to our hotel after an enjoyable time and walked past the pool but no one in it, but still the water was clear.
We skipped food tonight and watched more of the crown before bed; early start tomorrow for our flight north.