An adventurous man from New Zealand was traveling overland through Southern Africa when he came across the Zambezi River. He never left. This man, “Bottles” now runs Jet Extreme along a remote rugged stretch of the Zambezi River just down from the Mosi-oa-Tunya / Victoria Falls National Park & World Heritage Site. Bottles designed a Cable Car and had a group of International engineers build it and fine tune his designs. The jump off point on the Zambezi is about 90 minutes from Livingstone and travels over part of a road that is 4wd. Its hard to believe a Cable Car was built at what appears to be such a remote location. During the ride down, Bottles always feeds his dog, “Egg” an ice cube. Priceless!
The car works well – Bottles used it to transport his Jet Boats to the river below and today all groups go up and down from the river on this. Once the car is about 50 meters above the river it comes to a complete stop and then drops totally vertical, finally resting on the ground below. Bottles drives each group himself – he’s a skilled driver, flying by rock walls with mere inches to spare and then swing the boat around so fast you think you left your stomach in the front of the boat only to find half a second later its still within you at the rear of the boat! With rapids named “shower” and “bath” – clearly you will get wet on this trip. If you have camera’s give them to Bottles trusty staff – they will fire off image after image of your group zooming through the rapids – if your camera has an action mode – put it on this setting.
A number of lodges in Livingstone and surrounding area will book one of Bottles’ jet boat trips. To get in the mood watch the following video from Jet Extreme on the Zambezi River:
Nice post and good info if and when we can make a trip to Africa and make our way to Zambia. It’s on our list to go.
Zambia and the neighboring countries are prolific with wildlife – we enjoyed a “no city” rule during our visit there, rather seeking out experiences in nature – I am trying to get back to West Africa on my next trip to the continent – exploring more of the coastal countries west and north of Ghana.
I didn’t do this but loved the whole Victoria Falls region for the adventure activities. White water rafting down the river over 25 rapids for the day was so much fun, and even though I don’t like heights that much I managed to get out in a microlight. Will have too give this boat a go sometime, I’ve been to Livingstone twice now and am sure I will be there again sometime.
Jonny – yep, next time I visit I want to go into the Devil’s Pool – overlooking the edge of the waterfalls – but I think you need to be there when the water is not so high so that it becomes dangerous. So much to do in that part of Africa!