Morondava for the Avenue of Baobabs

We crossed back to the west coast of Madagascar for our final night stay before returning back across the Mozambique Channel.

Our stopover, after diverting over Antananarivo following weather predictions, was Morondava, famed for the thousands of ancient baobab trees and the avenue of baobabs accessible by road.

An absolutely incredible experience seeing these majestic trees dwarfing us.

Some of the pilots on our expedition - Carsten, Louis, Llewellyn, Marc, Bruce and Hennie

The Durban boys selfie - Dave, Llew, Louis, Lee and Marc aka Cark or Troll

The Airport at Morondava where we spent our last night in Madagascar

Ox or Zebu wagons, bicycles and walking.. main means of getting anywhere for the locals

Some nasty looking bullfrogs at Morondava

Meeting the local kids

Baobab selfie with Llewellyn

These beautiful trees

A chameleon on my shoulder

No visit to Morondava would be complete without a visit to the fresh meat, fish and veg market

Bruce declines some of the favoured seafood

Sunset on Madagascar Expedition

The sun sets over the hills in Durban, South Africa, where I come from, so it was different and spectacular to watch the sun setting over the ocean on the western shores of Madagascar at Morondava where we spent our last night in beautiful accommodation - Palissandre Cote Ouest 

There was a huge beach on front of the hotel with low lying land, so the sea comes in at high tide. There were even boats stranded in the middle waiting for the tide to change.

Our stunning hotel at Morondava with the west coast Mozambique Channel in the background

Exquisite chalets on the beach

I had a swim in the pool despite it being quite chilly in the water, warm out

The sun setting.. small lagoon in the foreground which we crossed to get to the edge of the sea

Dugout boats for fishing as well as many dhows offshore

On the other side of the hotel was a swampy river which seemed to flow into the sea nearby. We took a walk alongside and found an Italian restaurant and bought pizza to take with us for lunch in the plane for our 5 1/2 hour channel crossing the next day.

R&R on Ile Sainte Marie

Weather predictions for our 2 night stay on the tropical island Ile Sainte Marie had been grim with clouds and rain predicted to move in from the east. We were looking at contingency plans to move back to the drier west coast. Thankfully that didn't happen and we all agreed that island lifestyle was what we wanted the most right now.

We stayed at Boraha Village, a lodge on the shores of the Indian Ocean, sheltered by a vast coral reef. 

The lodge had a long jetty out over the shallow water with a sunbathing deck at the end

We have arrived in paradise

Bungalow accommodation overlooking the sea

The views from the bungalows

Great rooms with mosquito nets

Marc pilot of Sling SAA and myself at the end of the jetty

A passing dugout canoe

Getting some sunshine and tan and many many rum drinks

ah, this is the island life

Welcome to our bit of world

The Durban pilots getting trashed on rum

We took a swim out to the buoy about 300m offshore

My shadow on the jetty

Ile Sainte Marie - it's a tropical island off Madagascar

We tried every cocktail on the menu

We did the responsible thing and rode around the island on quad bikes after many cocktails

We did a little curio shopping

The island shops

Quad bike up the island in search of lunch.. and we found amazing langoustines  and fresh fish prepared for R100 a head!!

Quad biking up the coast of the island

Our spot of paradise for lunch on Ile Sainte Marie

Dugout canoes were all along the shore and out at sea

Neighbouring hotel's jetty

A local village

Little shops alongside the road

Back at our hotel

We're leaving this beautiful island 60 km x 4 km big/small, and flying back over the sea for 30 mins to reconnect with the main island of Madagascar

After take-off we flew up the east side of the island to say goodbye to our hosts who were waving to us from the jetty

Madagascar shoreline as we converge to head back inland and to the west coast of Madagascar

A few clouds as we pass back over the mountain ridge where we had been a few days earlier as we route over Antananarivo to the west coast

Our routing was past Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, but ATC advised this was prohibited airspace and asked us to fly over the airport, then route left for the coast and Morondava where we were headed for the night. The runway can be seen on the other side of the lake and we flew over it at 6500 ft altitude.