The idea appealed to my wife and me tremendously, and not having been to the Okavango area before, we had no hesitation in accepting. Then started the complex business of organizing the venture, the main problem being that of access to this remote part of Southern Africa with its notoriously bad roads and with great distances between fuelling points. Victor Smith, who has been an airman for 45 of his 61 years, owns a four-seater Piper Commanche 400, the only aircraft of its type in Africa, and our original plan was that he, his wife Betty, Dr. Downes and Peggy Reid would fly to Shakawe, just-south of the Caprivi Strip, via South West Africa. My wife and I were to fly on scheduled services via Johannesburg to Maun in Botswana, from where Victor Smith planned to pick us up after landing the other members of his party at Shakawe. But weekend refuelling problems put paid to this scheme and eventually, with the help of the S.A. Police and other government departments we decided to go by road by way of Rundu, on the S.W.A.-Angolan border, and the Caprivi Strip. With the necessary permits to pass through the border area our group converged on Windhoek - Victor Smith and his three passengers in his personal aircraft, direct from the Wilderness, and my wife and I by S.A. Airways Boeing 727 from Cape Town. In Windhoek we were met by the chairman of the S.W.A. Publicity and Tourist Association, Sam Davis, and his wife Sey, with whom we all dined sumptuously at the Grand Hotel on the eve of our departure by road and air for the north. Through the Publicity Association's Secretary, Mrs. Katie Strauss, we were able on our upward and downward journeys to see and savour much of what Windhoek and South West Africa has to offer the visitor. This in itself was a memorable experience. We had time to visit the impressive Legislative Assembly Chambers at the Government Buildings (Tintenpalast: Palace of Ink) with its charming wood carvings of indigenous animals and its murals in marble and its paintings of the Territory's progress, industries and agricultural and pastoral activities. We also drove out 14 miles to the delightful Daan Viljoen Park charmingly set in the Khomas Highlands with its cross section of South West Africa's fauna. We enjoyed the Gemutlichkeit of the hospitable people not only of Windhoek but of those in the North whom we encountered. I should mention here that Sam Davis and Victor Smith were first associated back in the I930's when Smith made a forced landing near Vanrhynsdorp in the Northwestern Cape, at the end of an attempt to break Amy Mollison's London-Cape air record. As Reuter correspondent, Sam was one of the newsmen who wrote up the "missing" Victor Smith making his way on foot to Vanrhynsdorp from his grounded Comper Swift, which till it was hit by strong headwinds, had been well set to take the record. After arranging to meet again at Grootfontein, our group split up at Windhoek. My wife and I motored to Tsumeb in a hired car over a perfect tarmac road to pick up a landrover for the remainder of the journey. Victor and others flew to Grootfontein direct. There, Victor Smith's aircraft was hangered and we all made a pre-dawn departure for Rundu in the landrover along the "golden highway".