Back to Namibia – Camp Kwando
Leaving Kasane is our turning point. From now onwards we are on the long road back to Windhoek and our flight home. There are still many places to see and things to do, but the feeling is one of things coming to an inevitable conclusion sooner rather than later.
We are off nice and early, heading west through Chobe towards the border. It is New Year’s Day and the road is all but empty. We stop for a Hyena with her cub by the side of the road then see no other wildlife until we get into no-mans-land at the border, where there are some Waterbuck.
Camp Kwando is another 150km further back along the strip and sits on the banks of the same river as Kasane – here called the Kwando before it is renamed to the Lanyatti and eventually the Chobe. At the camp, it is a river of about 20m width, slowly flowing through beds of reeds and papyrus. They seem to have a bit of a problem with our booking, but it is quickly sorted by upgrading us to bigger cabins at no extra charge. As far as I can tell, these are no better than the smaller ones, but they do have plenty of room.
We have two nights here, so take a game drive the following morning into the nearby park. The gatekeeper is reluctant to let us go into the park, as the heavy rains have made it a bit treacherous. We agree to stick to the roads to the lodges in the park and report back to pay if we see anything worth seeing. It’s only the equivalent of £10 for the four of us, something more than reasonable compared to paying £50 or more per person per day in Kenya.
The roads really are wet and we have to resort to 4WD for quite a lot of it, abandoning one route as it looks like water of unknown depth for several hundred metres. There’s wildlife to be seen, but mostly Impala and Zebra with a few nice birds thrown in for variety. I get some great photos of Carmine Bee-eaters, something I’d tried for several times on the trip with varying success.
We take another boat trip in the evening and it turns into a pleasant leisurely affair, as we are slowly driven upstream looking for birds and whatever else there is to see. The highlights for me are some yawning Hippos and a chance to get a view of some Red Lechwe a little closer than we had managed in Chobe. They were one of the antelopes on my list of things to see and it was nice to catch a good one.
The next day was my turn to drive once more, 240km back to the down of Divundu. The road leads through Babawata National Park – much of the Caprivi Strip is now designated as a park, although some of it is still local farmland and classed as mixed use where the wildlife is protected. Sadly, we didn’t see anything on the drive down. 200km of the trip on the main road was basically dead straight and dead flat, only an occasional short bend to break the total monotony.
The Okavango River – Revisited
Our return to the Okavango Panhandle almost completes the full circle, Nunda Lodge is just about 40km from Drotsky’s Cabins in Botswana, but the character of the river is subtly different. Here, the Okavango is swift-flowing and the banks are well-defined with fewer reed and papyrus beds. 2km north of us are the boldly named Popa Falls, really nothing more than a short set of rapids with a drop of probably no more than 1m and no real vertical drop worthy of the title of falls. Then, I suppose, after Victoria Falls, most others don’t look like much either.
We have three nights here, as Fred wants to spend time in the nearby Mahango National Park, looking for Sable and Roan antelopes – both of which he has seen here before. In fact, he had been quite disappointed that we hadn’t seen them as we drove through the park on the main road when we went into Botswana.
Since the drive down from Camp Kwando had only taken part of the morning, we decided to go into the park for an afternoon drive. Again, the cheapness of the fees meant that we could always go in for a full day the next day as well if we didn’t see anything interesting.
As it turned out, the park was quite good. We saw plenty of Impala and some excellent Kudu. There were plenty of Warthogs and even Lechwe and Hippo in the distance. As we were completing the loop and coming close to the main road, Fred spotted a small group of Sable crossing the road in front of us. By the time that we made it to the spot, they were deep in the bush and we only got a glimpse of them and a poor photo or two.
As we still had good time to make the return trip, we decided to just turn around and follow the same route in reverse. Of course, we see many of the same animals on the return drive, but different angles give some different photo opportunities. Just 400m from the end of the game drive, I spotted another Sable, this time a lone male, deep in the bush on our left. As we allow him to walk along, he comes out into more open ground and we get some great pictures of him before he returns into deep cover.
The next morning, we went straight to the park after breakfast and had a good morning driving both ways through the park. We didn’t really add any mammals, but had good sightings and saw plenty of different birds to keep the list ticking over. After a short break for the middle of the day, we went back into the park and did the same as the night before.
On the following morning, we went back once more to the park, but it was raining again and the animals were much harder to find. Still, several new birds made appearances and we managed to get some good identification photos of a couple of species.
Fred was being our game driver as usual and I was in the front with the window open despite the drizzle. There were one or two fallen branches on the road and naturally Fred was avoiding them when he could. As he neared another twisted branch and moved to go around it, it started to move! It was a Black Mamba, about 2m long. It raised up about a foot and turned to look at me. As Fred called “Snake”, I shouted “That’s a bloody big snake!”.
I do have some prior experience of them. In Kenya, again with me in the front seat, we came across a really big one as we drove down a main highway. That one jumped right back off the road to avoid us, so I know they can jump. My exclamation was caused by the fact that I had the window wide open and it looked right at me. One of them could really ruin your holiday! They have a reputation for being unpredictable and aggressive which one also always has in mind.
Strangely, there were also several Monitor Lizards out during the morning. I guess the rain was making them seeks higher ground or more sheltered locations from which to hunt.
By lunch time I was getting a bit jaded by the park, but as we intended to do some birding around the lodge, it seemed a good time to adjourn to the bar for a soft drink and to catch up on this journal.
By 4pm we are back out walking the grounds of the lodge and looking for more birds to top up the list. We add a couple of species and get some nice photos of a couple more, but soon all adjourn to the bar for a G&T. We barely get settled before rain forces us inside to wait for dinner.
Frans Indongo Lodge & The CCF
The next morning, we need to make an early start for an epic drive of 650km south to our final stop before flying home. It is a day for just travelling and I only take four photos when we arrive at Frans Indongo Lodge.
The lodge is beautiful and set in a 16,000-hectare private farm that is used as a game reserve. They have many native species and a few introduced ones. While we are all happy to look at them and take photos, you can’t really count them as wild. I suppose they aren’t really domestic either, but it’s a little more like a zoo than the wild.
In some ways, it was a very quiet end to a long trip. A couple of nights in a very nice place with a chance to relax and really do a little less than we had been doing for more than a month.
The main event would be a trip to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) for the morning run. I accept that this is even more of a show that’s staged, but it is a small contribution to the ongoing fight to save the Cheetah in Southern Africa and, of course, I love Cheetahs. The CCF is about 50km away from the lodge, so it is one last early start to get there in plenty of time. We take a packed breakfast with us and manage to get this eaten before the run starts.
We are given our brief introduction to the CCF and also briefed on what we can and cannot do during the run. Right on time we are walked into the enclosure and then into our own fenced enclosure within it – now we are the ones in the cage and the Cheetahs are outside. The four “Ambassadors” are let out and the machinery is started up. The idea is that they will chase after a lure if they think it is close enough to catch.
This morning, they are less than enthusiastic, but we get to see a couple of fairly good short runs and I do manage to take some photos. If I had been to the place before, I would have taken a shorter lens, as the 50-500 wasn’t really needed and was frankly too heavy to swing fast for tracking. I have the same problem photographing motorsport – when the action is a bit closer, you need a lighter camera kit to be able to move fast enough to track the action. Still, in the end, I’m happy with the results and they look OK after a bit of photoshop to remove the strings.
We take a quiet afternoon, catching up on notes and internet, before taking a game drive in reserve. They have an eclectic collection of antelopes, including some that are not native to Namibia but are interesting just the same. They also have Rhino – both Black and White – which we hope to get a chance to see.
In the end, we don’t really see much of interest. The Rhino stay away and all the other animals are quite wary of the car, keeping their distance or just plain running away. We do manage to get a few photos, but because they’re of “Captive” animals they don’t have the real pleasure of truly wild images. It is still an enjoyable drive though and we get back to the lodge just in time for a good dinner and a fantastic sunset.
The next morning is our last and we get up for the leisurely drive back to Windhoek at a sensible hour. I’m the driver and the only event of note on the journey is being breath-tested at a police check just a few kilometres down the road from the lodge. I wasn’t singled out, they were checking everyone, but it was a new experience for me.
Final Thoughts
Firstly, I enjoyed the whole trip immensely. There were a couple of low points and some high adventure, but overall it was a great experience with great friends in great countries. 37 Days is a long time and I was also in some ways happy that it came to an end, but I would be delighted to go back one day and see more of what Namibia and Botswana have to offer.
Namibia is a country of huge variety, in its landscapes, vegetation and wildlife. I feel that we have hardly scratched the surface in such a fleeting race across this vast country. We have seen much of what it has to offer, but still would need many months to get to know it in any detail.
The parts of Botswana that we saw were a little more homogeneous, but part of this was related to the coming of the rains and the entire part of the country that we visited being green and lush. Also, we only touched the northern part of the country, doing a loop of the Okavango Delta and staying away from the drier, flatter southern half of the country and the Kalahari Desert.
The Mammal, Reptile and Bird lists follow at the end of this book and, once more they are extensive. More than 300 species of birds out of a possible total of less than 700 is good going by any standard. The sheer number of different mammals is incredible and even the reptiles come out very well.
As for the real motivation for me – the mammal sightings – I am truly delighted by what we saw. We did not see the vast numbers of mammals that we have done on other trips. There were no vast herds of Antelopes or Elephants here. But, and it is a huge “BUT”, what mammals we did see were sightings and events of the highest possible quality. They give us memories that we can treasure forever and photos that we can keep and show with pride and a story attached to each one.
In the end I come home with this short list that sums up the success of the trip:
Oryx in the desert – World class sighting at Deadvlei with dunes in the background!
Desert Elephants – Superb views and action in Armspoort Gorge!
Black Rhinoceros – Walking right past us in Etosha!
Leopard – My best ever view as she walks across the road and into the tree in Etosha!
Lions – Great walking shots and then witnessing a kill in Etosha!
Hippo – Great yawning shots on the Kwando River and getting chased in Chobe!
Wild Dogs – a once-in-a-lifetime sighting in Chobe!
Cheetahs – Running shots from the CCF!
When you add in the visit to Victoria Falls, Epupa Falls, Van Zyl’s Pass and the Marienfluss, The Skeleton Coast, The Okavango River, The Chobe River, The Kwando River and all the variety in between, it has to be considered a great trip.