Victoria Falls

These are my photos of the amazing Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. It stretches a mile across and drops into a deep, winding gorge where you can experience the best whitewater rafting in the world. Rapid 1 is within sight of the falls. I took a helicopter flight over the falls and I can tell you, if you ever make it to Vic Falls, it's worth the money.

I took this photo below from the Zambian side, looking head-on at the mile-wide pit that the Zambezi falls into, producing constant clouds of vapour. If you're in the town of Victoria Falls, make sure you cross the border to Zambia as you get a much better view from there, and you can watch the bunjy victims (4 jumps every hour, year round!) as you cross over the bridge. The visa is $10 or so, or free if you're Irish like me. You can follow the park trail along the ridge on the left of this photo to get a close-up view.

Here's one I took from the helicopter. The view was stunning. I sat in the front passenger seat and the helicopter had a see-through plastic floor. From up there, you can really see the huge, wide, powerful Zambezi river as its stopped in its path by the falls and it's course is diverted and chanelled through the narrow gorge. No wonder it produces such awesomely powerful whitewater in the stretch that follows.

I took this shot as the helicopter turned, so I got to be looking nearly straight down on the falls. You can see lots of little river islands that have popped up just before the big drop.

I took this pic while standing on a tiny bit of land which jutted out into the river, 20 metres before the huge drop of Victoria Falls (just past that tree on the left of the photo). Not a good time to fall into the water, that's for sure! One of the river guides told me that it's a regular occurence for hippos to fall asleep a mile or so above the falls, drift downriver over the falls and meet a sudden death as they hit the bottom of the gorge with a huge force. They say young crocs can make it out alive though, which explains why I saw one or two of them sunning themselves on the rocks between the rapids, or subtly sliding into the water almost unnoticed.

Here's 2 shots of the magnificent view you get if you sit in the tree on the Zambian side right next to the big drop.It's a long way down and a frightening view - try it for a good thrill. I dropped a few leaves here and watched them go speeding downwards over the drop once they hit the water.

This is the view from the other end of the Falls, the Zimbabwean side. There's so much vapour rising from the gorge below, it looks like a dry ice show on a massive scale. When you get close, the sheer power of the falling water is frightening.

View of the falls through the gorges.

This photo with two rainbows is easy to catch - there's so much vapour coming up from the base of Vic Falls that there's almost constantly a pair of rainbows to be seen. Its so wet from all the vapour that a lot of tourists wear raingear when visiting. Live a little though, you experience it more when you're soaked by the Falls.