This section of the river is quite unlike the better-known section below Lake Kariba. The Upper Zambezi River is regarded as FREE FLOW as a dam does not control it and as such the water is subject to seasonal variation.

Floods begin in November and normally peak in April / May. Therefore, throughout the season the route varies as new channels open with the rise in water level. The Upper Zambezi has numerous heavily wooded islands, which are dissected by channels that may be several kilometres in length and vary in width from one to twenty metres.

The ve­get­a­tion pre­dom­in­ately con­sists of ebonies, wa­ter­ber­ries, palms and a tre­mend­ous vari­ety of aca­cia and al­b­izia. The rap­ids are small and at their peak are only classed as grade two, which is the second easi­est grade.The Canoe Trail passes along the banks of the Zam­bezi Na­tional Park, where cli­ents have a good op­por­tun­ity of view­ing vari­ous spe­cies of an­im­als, such as Ele­phants, Buf­falo, Im­pala, Kudu, Hippo, Cro­codile etc. The bird­life is pro­lific with at least 50 com­mon spe­cies of bird that can be seen from your canoe.

MIN­IMUM & MAX­IMUM NUM­BERS:

Min­imum num­ber is 2 pax and max­imum of 20 pax. Lar­ger groups on re­quest using ca­noes and in­flat­able rafts – see canoe float MO

AGE RE­STRIC­TIONS:

The min­imum age for canoe trips is 7 years, sub­ject to life­jacket fit­ting. There is no max­imum age. Man­age­ment re­tains the right to re­fuse a child who they feel is un­suit­able for the activ­ity for any reason what so ever.

AVAIL­AB­IL­ITY:

Ca­noe­ing trips are avail­able 365 days a year. However, dur­ing the rainy sea­son (Decem­ber to March) we may not be able to run the trip if there has been large quant­it­ies of rain as the roads be­come im­pass­able so we are un­able to drive to the canoe put in and take out points.

DAILY CANOE SA­FARIS:

Pick up from Vic Falls Ac­com­mod­a­tion: Between 06h45-07h00
Drop off at Vic Falls Ac­com­mod­a­tion: Between 14h00-14h30
Turn­around Trip dur­a­tion is ap­prox 7 hours.

The Ca­noe­ing Trail op­er­ates above the Vic­toria Falls on the 15km stretch of the Zam­bezi River between Chundu and the Mine Fields take out point next to the Na­tional Park en­trance, run­ning along the banks of the Zam­bezi Na­tional Park.

• Cli­ents are picked up from lodging and trans­ferred to Ad­ven­ture Lodge for check in.
• Cli­ents enjoy a game drive from the na­tional parks en­trance (ap­prox­im­ately 40 minutes) to the canoe start point, which is up­river at the Chundu camp­site.
• On ar­rival cli­ents are given a safety talk by a pro­fes­sional river guide.
• Dur­ing the safety brief­ing cli­ents will be served a light break­fast, with Tea and Cof­fee.
• Cli­ents then prac­tise their pad­dling skills be­fore set­ting off on their canoe sa­fari.
• Please note that cli­ents will paddle them­selves down the river, fol­low­ing their pro­fes­sional Canoe Guide, who will lead them done the vari­ous chan­nels of the Zam­bezi river.
• Cli­ents then canoe the chan­nels of the Zam­bezi river, ex­plor­ing and ex­per­i­en­cing the di­verse flaura, fauna, bird­life and wild­life in this area.
• Lunch is served on the banks of the Zam­bezi and con­sists of cold meats, rolls, salad and or­ange juice.
• The trip ends at the Mine fields take out point. Cli­ents are trans­ferred back to their re­spect­ive lodging by 14h30 (ap­prox­im­ately 10 minutes to Vic Falls Ho­tels).

HALF DAY OR SLIGHTLY LONGER DAY TRIPS ARE AVAIL­ABLE, HALF DAY WILL BE THE SAME PRICE AND THE FULL DAY WILL CARRY A SUP­PLE­MENT CHARGE. BOTH THESE OP­TIONS ARE AVAIL­ABLE ON RE­QUEST AND ARE SUB­JECT TO MIN­IMUM NUM­BERS.

RAFT CANOE FLOAT:

Pick up from Vic Falls Ac­com­mod­a­tion: Between 15h30-16h00
Drop off at Vic Falls Ac­com­mod­a­tion: Between 18h30-19h00

The Wine Route op­er­ates above the Vic­toria Falls in Zi­m­b­abwe on the stretch of the Zam­bezi River between the Mine Fields and the Big Tree take out point, run­ning along the banks of the Zam­bezi Na­tional Park.

• Cli­ents are picked up from their lodging and trans­ferred to our Lodge for check in.
• Cli­ents enjoy a short game drive to the float start point at the Mine­fields. The trans­fer is ap­prox­im­ately 15 minutes.
• On ar­rival cli­ents are given a safety talk by a pro­fes­sional river guide.
• Cli­ents use Ca­na­dian ca­noes with two people per canoe and each canoe has a pad­dler.
• There is a pro­fes­sional guide per trip who will ex­plain the wild­life, bird­life, flora & fauna dur­ing the trip. Please note that the pad­dlers are not guides, they may have some know­ledge of the area, but the guide/s will be the one giv­ing out in­form­a­tion and an­swer­ing ques­tions from cli­ents
• Cli­ents spend any­where up to 1.5 hours on the water (water level de­pend­ant).
• Cli­ents are offered snacks and drinks (Beer, wine, soft drinks) dur­ing the wine route
• The trip ends at the Big Tree take out point.

Cli­ents are trans­ferred back to their re­spect­ive lodging by 18h30/19h00 (ap­prox­im­ately 10 minutes to Vic Falls Ho­tel.

CANOE – CAMP­ING SA­FARIS

Overnight, 2 day / 1 night, 2 day / 2 night and 3 day / 2 night sa­faris are on offer on a re­quest basis only un­less pre-booked and are largely water level de­pend­ent. Min num­bers for these trips are 4.

CLI­ENT RE­QUIR­MENTS

The ap­pro­pri­ate dress re­quired is shorts, T-Shirts, shoes, sun­screen and a wide brimmed hat. Dry bags are provided for cam­eras and valu­ables.

EQUIP­MENT

For the stand­ard and Multi day Canoe trips, the types of ca­noes used are the In­flat­able cro­codile ca­noes, double sided paddles and X-treme high flot­a­tion life jack­ets. For groups, we can use 16 foot in­flat­able rafts. For the wine route we use the Ca­na­dian type ca­noes, each being powered by a guide or pad­dler.

EX­PER­I­ENCE AND FIT­NESS

No pre­vi­ous ex­per­i­ence is re­quired and cli­ents need not be pro­fi­cient swim­mers.

VIDEOS AND PHO­TO­GRAPHS

Videos and pho­to­graphs will be provided on re­quest for group book­ings only and will be shown the same even­ing.

GUIDES AND SAFETY

Guides are li­censed, fully trained and all hold valid first aid cer­ti­fic­ates. Whilst every pre­cau­tion is taken, it is es­sen­tial that agents make cli­ents aware that an in­dem­nity form must be signed be­fore par­ti­cip­at­ing on these sa­fari’s. A com­pre­hens­ive first aid kit is car­ried on each trip. The trip leader is in radio and cell phone con­tact with our base in Vic­toria Falls and dir­ect with M.A.R.S. (Med­ical Air Res­cue Ser­vice).

IN­SUR­ANCE

All cli­ents are covered by Med­ical Air Res­cue Ser­vices (MARS) through Ad­ven­ture Zone, however, this only cov­ers them for emer­gency evac­u­ation in life threat­en­ing situ­ations from the ac­ci­dent site to the local clinic/hos­pital. It does not cover their hos­pit­al­isa­tion and med­ic­a­tion ex­penses. As such travel and med­ical in­sur­ance is COM­PULS­ORY for all cli­ents. Please en­sure cli­ents bring the de­tails of their in­sur­ance policy with them. Ad­ven­ture Zone will not cover cli­ents ex­penses, should they not have in­sur­ance.

PUB­LIC LI­AB­IL­ITY

Our activ­it­ies are all covered by a US$ 2 000 000 Pub­lic Li­ab­il­ity In­sur­ance Policy with SATIB and this is un­der­writ­ten by Lloyds of Lon­don.