Back on line!

Hi Guy's it's been a while!
With the wet break and we have been to Africa checking out all the animals and stuff.

Notso and Kristy, Sue and myself travelled first to Dubai where we spent 4 day's with the Jooste family looking around this unbeleivable city. The skyline is a forest of tower cranes, as the city grows at an incredibly rapid rate. High rise after high rise appear to grow almost daily as an unbroken line of trucks file into the city bumper to bumper 24/7.

Dubai Airport

The mind boggles with the vast amounts of money and technology being poured into this arab desert to produce this amazing place. Shit, you can even snow ski in the desert on real snow!

This is the Berg the only 7 star hotel in the world and costs AUS$15,000 a night for the best rooms, but you can get a budget room for around AUS$6,500 If you like.

Nothing like a cold beer in a hot arabian desert watching the sun set.

From Dubai we travelled on to Nairobi the capital of Kenya and then on to Malindi which brings us to the real reason for an african holiday"FISHING".

I wanted to catch a broadbill swordfish on fly and from all reports this was the place to do it.

However to cut a long story short I had one shot when we raised one on the teaser on the only night we fished for them, and didn't manage to tease it all the way back to the boat.

It was a long night!

(picture Angela Jooste with her first ever sail on fly)

We did however catch 9 sailfish on fly between us and the Jooste family that organised the whole trip to Kenya and who we stayed with in Dubai.

Kristy managed to get a striped marlin and a sail on conventional tackle and I also caught a 200lb black marlin on fly which was only the second ever caught on fly in Kenya and the biggest on fly.

The blue water fishing in Kenya was sensational, they have a great fishery, but the boats and equipment leave a little to be desired.

My black marlin, check out the weather, it was like this the whole 6 day's fishing

Lunch! This red snapper was caught on a jig from the bottom, which was deep while I was fighting my marlin.

After the fishing, we took a 3 day safari out to Tsavo national park to see some of Africa's wildlife.

We stayed in canvas tents on the bank of the Sabaki river and although were upmarket safari style tents theey didn't appear to give a lot of protection against the lions.

I think the mossie mesh on the sides should be made from Kevlar instead of nylon.

I know Kristy did when the first night a hippo came charging down the hill which sounded very close to her tent as it crashed into the water in the river.

Kristy didn't sleep at all that night!

It was exciting though and very well run. Our guide was "Gaetano" was a great guide and very knowledgable about the wildlife and all the amazing bird species.

I would certainly recommend the whole Kenya experience, although it is a long way from Oz it is worth it.