My Wild Travels

My flight back to Maun is at 10.00 this morning. I opt for one final early game drive which will finish at the airstrip. I can sleep when I get home but I can’t go on game drives. It’s a beautiful morning. I sit by the campfire and sip my tea, whilst listening to the dawn chorus.

There is lots to see this morning but I have packed all my camera kit away so will have to rely on the iPhone. Giraffes are out in numbers and majestically lope through the grass. There are elephant and ostrich and a young zebra that is lost. It calls out plaintively and fortunately does re-unite with its mother and the herd eventually.

Only too soon it is time to head to the airstrip. My stay at Kwara has been wonderful. Thank you George and Luke for all the great tracking and guiding. Your skills are tremendous and at this time of year the fact that I saw so much is truly impressive. Thanks too to Charles and your team. Everything in camp was perfect and that room – well it was simply FAB-U-LOUS!!

We decide to not specifically look for anything today but just see what appears. It is after all my last full day. We heard lions roaring at breakfast from the direction of Splash Camp. George thinks it is worth heading off in that direction – you never know. We found tracks of a male lion but annoyingly they cross over into the adjacent reserve so we cannot follow him.

We then need to drive back to the airstrip for my PCR test which has cost me an arm and a leg. Its’s not surprising really as the nurse has to be flown in to take it. The result will be waiting for me at Maun airport.

We have some super elephant encounters this morning. I enjoy watching a small group eating the mud to get salt and minerals and also dust-bathing.

We spot vultures circling so go to investigate. We very nearly get stuck in a hole again. Due to Covid there have been very few guests in the camps and as a result very few vehicles have been out in the past couple of years. Consequently the tracks have become very overgrown in places and it is easy to find yourself off-piste. We can see no sign of a kill so the vultures must have found something small. This detour makes us very late back to camp and we don’t return until 14.00. As I eat my lunch a watch a couple of warthogs foraging close by. The late lunch doesn’t give much time for a siesta. I skip afternoon tea to give myself an extra 30 minutes so I can at least shower.

There is masses of game around this afternoon. Zebras, impalas, warthogs, baboons chasing vervet monkeys. Great. We go to my favourite pool for a final sundowner. There are loads of hippos there and of course a myriad of birds. There is a particularly cute baby baboon that is poorly co-ordinated and hilarious to watch.

I watch my final sunset at Kwara and we head back to camp. We are about 10 minutes out when the radio bleeps. It is Charles the camp manager. He asks where we are as there is a leopard in camp by the kitchen! I can’t believe it! George asks if it’s OK for him to dive fast. Of course it is!! He really puts his foot down and hurls the vehicle along the bumpy sand track. I wedge my feet on the bar in font and hold on tight. This is fun!

We screech into camp. Miraculously, the leopard is still there. Everyone’s saying ‘Hurry! Hurry! Leave your stuff in the truck.’ I grab the bridge camera and we run through reception and down the path to the rooms. There in the bushes, no more than 10-15 feet away is a female leopard trying to catch a genet. People shine torches and I can see her. I crouch down and peer through the undergrowth. This is so exciting. What a treat on my last night! Remarkably, I even get a half decent photo too.

She disappears into the bushes and we go to the restaurant for dinner. We suddenly spot her again 15 feet away from the decking by the table. Incredible! I whip my iPhone out of my pocket and take some video. Wow! I really did not think I would actually see a leopard on this trip. There is so much vegetation and they are always very elusive.

It turns out that the in camp entertainment is not yet over. I have my starter and I have just put my main course on the table when a young hyena appears. I think he wants to joins us for dinner. He trots back and forth around the decking. At one stage we did think he was going to come up the steps onto the decking. What a fabulous last evening to finish off a truly remarkable safari.

I am in the vehicle on my own again today as Amy and Douglas are now flying on to Johannesburg. I ask George if we can visit the hyena den again. We were lucky and managed to see both the mother and pup.

When we leave the den we encounter two more hyenas on the track. They went into the long grass and it was literally impossible to see them even though we knew they were little more than a couple of metres away from us. We saw lion tracks but they again disappeared into the bush. We head off Northwest to try and find dogs but this turns out to be a pointless mission too. You just never know what gifts the bush is going to offer up. Today turns into a great morning with good sightings of jackals, mongooses, hornbills courting, baboons, carmine bee-eaters flying alongside the vehicle to catch insects disturbed by us and a wonderful elephant encounter.

During our coffee break I spent some time trying to photograph a dragonfly close-up. Not bad but I think I need to set up focus layering and maybe invest in a macro lens. The safari has been so full on that I have not had the opportunity to fiddle with camera settings. Note to self – set them up at home before travelling. Also make a list of favourite settings and what to use them for.

The day started out cool but by lunchtime it was very hot indeed. I head off to the pool for a couple of hours before the afternoon game drive. We try to find dogs but in fact there is little around this afternoon. I think this is largely because there is a thunderstorm brewing. We are sure we will get very wet and I think that is why the animals are in hiding too. I put my backpack in a plastic bin-bag and don my poncho in readiness for the deluge. We are lucky. The storm skirts around us and we have nothing more than strong winds and a few drops of light rain.

There was a little bit of excitement this evening when George walked me back to my room after dinner. It looked like the hippos were in camp tonight and had definitely left large footprints and other stuff on the path. As we rounded a corner in the path a huge hippo stood feet away from us. They are massive when you are close up and on foot. It is perhaps worth mentioning here that more people are killed by hippos in Africa than anything else….

George tells me to back up slowly and hide behind a bush. I duly comply. He stands quietly on the path to see what the hippo is going to do. Eventually it ambles off into the undergrowth and I am given the all clear. The hippo has completely wrecked the track by my room. It then proceeds to keep me awake for much of the night by grunting and munching right outside. It was joined by a very loud hyena and of course the ultra-loud backing chorus of frogs and toads. I did sleep but pretty fitfully.

This morning we have a short mokoro trip along the shores of the lake by the lodge. It was a pleasant enough experience but does not match the sunset cruise I enjoyed with Chris at Vumbura Plains in 2017. There we paddled through the channels on a most glorious evening and were privileged to watch a large herd of elephants cross 20 yards in front of us. In all honesty, no mokoro trip is ever going to match that one, which was such a fitting finale to our last holiday together. This morning it is overcast and then the wind gets up too; even photo opportunities do not really present themselves. The best I can manage are some tiny reed frogs.

We then head west to see if we can find the cheetahs and maybe even wild dogs. Luke sits on the spotter seat, eyes glued to the ground. He spots male cheetah tracks as well as lion tracks. George and Luke inspect the ground to try to ascertain the direction that the cheetah went. We head off slowly in that direction. Amy has sharp eyes and spots a cheetah lying in the grass. I look at it and it doesn’t look quite right. It’s too still and doesn’t appear to be breathing. Very sadly it has been killed. We think probably the lion found it. We get out of the vehicle and have a close look and can see that it has been bitten on the back of its neck but no other obvious signs of injury.

The guides initially think that this is Mr Special – the same cheetah that we saw alive and well last night. This is a very sad thing to see and demonstrates how tough life is for cheetahs . We don’t know what happened but maybe the lions found it. We head off in sombre mood trying to find something that might cheer us up. 

We do not have to wait long. In the distance by a termite mound under a tree we spot a cheetah. We head over and take some pictures and the guides, when looking closely at the cheetah, realise that it is Mr Special. He is alive and well. Phew! The guides now think that the dead cheetah was a new male to the area. The odds are that the two cheetahs met and fought over territory – we will never know for sure.

As we head back for lunch it starts to rain. Not heavily, but enough to necessitate the donning of ponchos and protection of camera equipment. Fortunately the weather then improves and the sun is shining again for the afternoon drive. We spend time with an entertaining troop of baboons.

We continue on our drive and once more find leopard tracks but lose the spoor in the long grass. I’m beginning to think leopards do not exist and someone has a leopard foot cut-out and is planting the pawprints! There seems to be a fair bit of game around this afternoon and of course 100’s of birds.

We go back to where we saw Mr Special this morning and I am amazed that he has not moved an inch. I think this is pretty unusual behaviour and reckon the fight has taken its toll on him. Still I’m not complaining as the light is great and he sure knows how to pose!

We say goodbye to Mr Special and head off for sundowners. It’s a beautiful evening made even better by a group of elephants browsing close by while I sip my G&T. Magical.