So far, so metropolitan – but, just 30 yards away, across an inky-black surge of water, three blood-splattered lions are snacking on freshly killed warthog, and the soundtrack is a screeching fish eagle. The Zambezi Queen is the planet’s most unusual safari. Cruising down the muscular Chobe River between Botswana and Namibia, past banks seething with wildlife, the converted casino boat injects a serious hit of urban cool into the remote wilderness. As I board at the isolated custom post of Kasane, it’s difficult to remain unimpressed by what Brett McDonald, the boat’s co-owner, calls “wild Africa with whistles and bells”. For starters, there’s the 14 en-suite cabins. Their understated interiors mix crisp white linen with monochrome animal photographs and glass doors onto private balconies. Spears and thatch do not feature. Then I see the top deck. Like all the other guests – the Queen holds 30 – I’m slightly stunned. One end has the sharp elegance of a city restaurant; the other is party central, with clusters of cream sofas, club chairs and drum-shaped stainless-steel stools around a bar of white Italian marble. Windows are drawn back, revealing 360 degrees of sky, river and land. It’s dazzlingly light, bright and white. The coolly eccentric space is book-ended by sun decks, one spearing into a six-sided plunge pool worthy of Philippe Starck. Two guests are already in there as I arrive, clutching iced Tafel beers and scanning the horizon slightly pretentiously – and the tub isn’t even filled yet. After a night serenaded by grunting hippos, we still h av e n ’t set sail. There’s a game drive to do first, on dry land. It might sound a tad conventional for such a mould-breaking waterborne adventure, but the Queen is moored off the wildlife honeypot of the Chobe National Park, home to 120 000 elephants. We see jumbos. Tons of them. And they’re far from the only evidence that a shoot-to-kill policy in Botswana’s game parks has deterred poachers. There are vast numbers of impalas, hippos, baboons and crocs. Marabou storks gather like grim reapers, guinea fowl huddle nervously and a tree is besieged by hooded vultures – flagging up a pride of lions gorging on kudu sausages or perhaps gazelle fritters. “It’s definitely a kill,” whispers our guide, Boata. “I heard the crunch of bones.” We finally head west on the second afternoon of the three-night cruise, and, under tropical sun, the vibe switches from cocktail lounge to Balearic beach bar. The plunge pool’s full, guests in bikinis lean against the deck railings and a dude in shades and surf shorts strums a guitar. Cape vino flows. The Queen might weigh 157 tons, but with jet drives, rather than propellers – one of several green features, including solar panels and low-emission generators – it travels almost silently. It’s a mechanical big cat, stalking wallowing hippos and drinking elephants. I’m sure I saw a huge buffalo do a double take. Equally surprising is the fact that we travel only about 21 kilometres b e fo r e the Chobe becomes unnavigable. But these are a far from an ordinary 21 kilometres. We ’re passing the densest concentration of wildlife on any riverbank on earth. “On winter days at Luguva, our second-night anchorage, you’ll see herds of 1 500 buffalo and up to 1 000 elephant,” Bret t explains . “It’s the Galapagos of Africa.” The Ngorongoro Crater, in Tanzania, might dispute that title, but it also has many more visitors. For the six miles past Chobe Game Lodge, we don’t see a soul. With Brett buying the mooring rights to the only two pushbacks – shor t tributaries for safe anchorage – on this stretch of the river, it’s guaranteed to remain exclusive. “It’s like my own private game park,” he smiles. Rebuilding the rusting hulk of the Zambezi Queen, discovered further along the Chobe – a task completed in the bush without a crane, let alone a shipyard – had echoes of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. “I was like Noah building the ark,” Brett says. But, partnered by a Cape Town luxury-property developer, he eventually launched his safari boat after a £2-million (R22-million) refurbishment. It’s terrific for the 56 builders and fishermen retrained as staff, but awful for my physique. The two men h av e n ’t just created the world’s most remarkable safari, they’ve created its laziest. I don’t even have to get out of bed to see scenes fit for an Attenborough documentary. And that’s before you eat the food. With serious tuck – butternut and macadamia soup, fillet beef with bordelaise sauce – wa s h e d down with acclaimed D’Aria wine, you could board a gazelle, depart a hippo. It’s float and bloat. Once we’re anchored, the Queen launches its five satellite boats – the equivalent of a lodge’s Land Rovers – for river safaris and fishing. We can now, theoretically, travel a further 130 kilometres along the Chobe. So, late afternoon brings more abundant game-viewing, followed by an evening of bush culture. About 150 flaming torches lead us into an enormous boma on the Namibian shore, with high bamboo walls, animal-skull decorations and a bar forged from an upturned mokoro. After exploring a milky quilt of stars through the Queen’s high-powered portable telescope, we tuck into impala stew, oxtail and sudsa (corn meal). It’s an aperitif for the Luguva Cultural Group, who use drum ’n dance to illustrate local dramas. Touristy? A little. Entertaining? Absolutely. We ’re back next lunchtime, scoffing pizza baked in a river-bank oven, but the highlight is the early-evening fishing. The tiger is the world’s greatest fighting fish and, for a golden half-hour, every cast spawns head-shaking, silver-skinned adrenaline. Back at the mothership, sipping an al fresco single malt, Brett calls for silence. He waves an imaginary orchestral baton and counts in cicadas, splashing hippos and, finally, laughing hyenas: a wilderness symphony. It’s electric, compulsive showmanship – you won’t, to my knowledge, find anything similar in any Manhattan cocktail bar.

Experience the thrill of a unique African safari from the deck of your own private suite aboard a luxury 148 ft. boat based on the magnificent Chobe River.

There can be few natural wonders as synonymous with Africa’s raw wilderness as this stretch of untamed waters. Enjoy water-based wildlife excursions, 4×4 gamedrives in Chobe National Park and the opportunity to visit a local village.

November 30 2010 at 06:19am

With our many rivers, it’s sad that house-boating in southern Africa is not as big as the paddle and steam boat traditions of the Mississippi.

So it was a delight to discover the Zambezi Queen on the Linyati River between Namibian land and Botswana, not far from Kasane and close to Zambia. There are quite a few smart house boats operating in the vicinity, but they are dinky compared with the luxurious, 14-cabin, 156-ton majestic Zambezi Queen.

In the great tradition of African story-telling, the saga of how this floating palace was built on the banks of the Linyati by owner Brett McDonald is a classic. The sourcing of two 1.8 ton generators from the US and getting them on to the Zambezi Queen is a story on its own.

Then there were the roof solar prisms which came from Austria, the sand, charcoal and bag filters used to provide fresh water, and the furnishings, which had to be trucked from Cape Town. And that’s just a part of it.

Determined to ensure world-class, state-of-the-art safety and eco-friendliness, McDonald travelled the world, including to the Amazon, researching all the technology and facilities for the boat. During the two-odd years of building, locals dubbed it Noah’s Ark, possibly because if there was a flood, it could accommodate most of the wild animals from the nearby game reserves.

As it turns out, there was a flood – and it came just in the nick of time. McDonald still chuckles at the many plans he had concocted until then to shift the boat off dry land into the water.

The week we arrived for our Zambezi Queen adventure, the Linyati River was flooding again. The vegetation and wild animals were all shiny and healthy as we cruised elegantly past them in our custom-built game-viewing boat, which transported us the few kilometres from Kasane to where the Zambezi Queen floated on the glassy waters with the presence of a matriarch

We were greeted by friendly staff, the majority of whom are from local villages, and directed to the beautiful 43m long viewing decks for refreshments.

Elephants waded in the reeds just metres from us and as the light started to fade, everything turned that luminous green and gold one only finds in Africa, and the whole world went quiet. As towering clouds in the distance came closer, we hopped aboard the tender boat for a spot of game viewing before the storm came.

Game viewing is very different from the water. For starters, you are out in the open and can sneak up pretty close to animals.

We got back just as fat raindrops started splatting into the water. My cabin, with its own deck and en-suite, was on the lower level with sliding glass doors opening out across the water. The privacy of sleeping out on the water with the nearest neighbours being a pod of hippos is a rare treat in today’s world.

Even though the game and bird watching from the comfortable couches on the Zambezi Queen’s viewing decks was spectacular, we were also treated to a game viewing road trip around the nearby Chobe Game reserve with Kasane’s local vet and a basket packed with delicious snacks.

On another day we took a tender boat through the maze of flooded reeds, past hippos, crocs, elephants and a variety of antelope and water birds, to a tributary of the Savuti River, to go fishing for tiger fish. We also visited the neat local village of Kafubu on the nearby island where the locals still live very much as they have for centuries.

The island is also home to some of the largest baobab trees I have ever seen. Due to the amazing 360° view from its high branches and its central location, one of these giants was apparently used during apartheid by the South African military as a lookout.

Sadly, it was also used by bored soldiers for target practice and is pock-marked by bullet holes.

Other Zambezi Queen activities include an evening boma beach braai on the river bank followed by lazing on big cotton cloths listening to bushmen’s stories. But the best thing of all, was spending the afternoons dozing, either in the well-stocked reading room, on comfy couches or in the Jacuzzi on deck, peacefully watching the world as the Zambezi Queen slowly drifted.

Cape Town, South Africa

Oct 16, 2010 | Trip type: Couples, Friends getaway

A truly wonderful time aboard. The staff and service were superb, the food excellent and accommodation luxurious. There was bountiful game and we came away feeling like we had a unique experience in the bush.

• Date of stay September 2010
• Visit was for Leisure
• Traveled with With Friends
• Member since October 16, 2010

• Would you recommend this hotel to a friend? Yes

Sep 19, 2010 12:00 AM | By Bobby Jordan

Bobby Jordan finds a thrill at every turn during a wine safari on the Chobe

From the roof comes the professor’s cry: “Red-billed ox-pecker on the left! Make that two ox-peckers!”

A flotilla of hippo ears stalks us through the mud as our boat lurches to starboard in pursuit of smaller prey.

Read the rest of the article at www.timeslive.co.za

Sydney, Australia

Sep 5, 2010

• Date of stay August 2010
• Visit was for Leisure
• Traveled with Extended Family
• Member since July 18, 2009

• Would you recommend this hotel to a friend? Yes

Sep 2, 2010

The Zambezi Queen is a relatively new product and having been on a few of the other houseboats that operate in the area, I can safely say that there is no comparison. The rooms are large with beds facing the large sliding doors for optimal views and they seem to have thought of everything. My main gripe with the other houseboats (they all operate from the Namibian side of Chobe) is that you have to keep crossing into out of Botswana and Namibia immigration points in order to get to the boat and also do land-based activities in Chobe itself. The staff on ZQ filled out all the necessary paperwork and made the process a lot easier. The staff are wonderful and take a lot of pride in what they do. Chef Felix, wearing his Frank Senatra-style hat at a jaunty angle, came over regularly to chat and tell us about the delicious food he had prepared. Owners of the boat have purchased more land upriver and so the experience will be extended into a “beachclub” type set up whereby guests can relax in private tsalas (on 3-night trips usually) and swim in a cordoned-off area of the Chobe River. Well done to an amazing new luxury option in Chobe. It is welcome and refreshingly original!

• Date of stay August 2010
• Visit was for Leisure
• Traveled with With Friends
• Age group 35-49
• Member since January 20, 2010

• Would you recommend this hotel to a friend? Yes

Cape Town

Aug 11, 2010

• Date of stay April 2010
• Visit was for Leisure
• Traveled with Solo Traveler
• Member since August 11, 2010

• Would you recommend this hotel to a friend? Yes

Pongola, South Africa

Jul 27, 2010

• Date of stay July 2010
• Visit was for Leisure
• Traveled with With Spouse/Partner
• Member since July 27, 2010

• Would you recommend this hotel to a friend? Yes

Pretoria,

Jul 24, 2010

• Date of stay July 2010
• Visit was for Leisure
• Traveled with With Friends
• Member since August 30, 2007

• Would you recommend this hotel to a friend? Yes