Gwabi River Lodge
Although it is hard to believe until you study the map with care, we were now, after more than 10 hours on the road, back on the same river as McBride’s Camp – albeit on the other side. The Kafue river winds through the heart of Southern Zambia and we were now in a beautiful camp just a short distance from the point where the Kafue meets the Zambesi.
Gwabi is at the opposite end of the spectrum to McBride’s. It has a modern look and feel, electricity, a swimming pool, air-conditioned chalets and a more cosmopolitan vibe. It also has a very different location and climate. We are now almost 1000m lower and the temperatures and humidity are correspondingly higher. As we step out of Stephen’s air-conditioned vehicle, the moist heat hits us like a wall. It must be 35 degrees and stifling.
The lodge is situated on the bank of the river, but high above the water with a great view of the escarpment down which we had earlier driven. This is well and truly lowland river. The topology is a bit “livelier” than it was in Kafue National Park which had been very flat.
Day One
We are scheduled to be here for a whole week. Fred wants us to spend a night at their bush camp – about 40km down the Zambesi and home to proper big wildlife (read ELEPHANTS). There’s also the river and forest to explore to see what birds and mammals we can find.
We start our first full day slowly. Our guide, Reuben, takes us for a walk back along the road down which we arrived looking for birds. Sure enough, there are plenty of birds about, but getting a photo of any one of them is a daunting task. The forest is thick and the rains have already made everything green and impenetrable. I may have described in detail in the past, just how much I hate forest birding, but we still seem to spend too much time trying it again and again. On top of the greenery, there’s the sun. It is what can only be described as relentless. The humidity is high and the temperatures soon soar into the 30s again – even by 10am.
The best we can manage is to escape to the bar for a cold soda and then Chris and I spend a bit of the heat of the afternoon in the pool before venturing out again in another fruitless search for birds.
So, a quiet first day, but dinner is good and the air conditioning in our room is a welcome retreat from the stifling heat allowing a good night’s rest.
Day Two
For our second day we have planned a boat ride for the morning. We set off just after eight – the threatening clouds and thunder seem to have moved away towards the escarpment by this time and we are keen to get our first sight of the Zambesi.
As always, I really enjoy the boat. There are plenty of birds to keep us occupied as we drift down river with the current, the odd crocodile – including a youngster on a log nice and close to the boat – and plenty of hippos as we get to them main channel.
Now, although I have seen Victoria Falls and the width of the Zambesi at the falls is impressive, this lower stretch of the river feels much more like one of the “Great Rivers” of the world. It is several hundred metres wide, deep in places and fast flowing with islands, sand bars, rocks and eddies.
The contrast between the two banks is obvious – the Zambia (North) bank is dotted with fields and shacks, buildings and lodges. The Zimbabwe side is initially much quieter and wilder – there are a couple of resort lodges further downstream, but to start we see unspoilt wild country.
There are many birds to see – several different bee-eaters that are new for us on this trip stand out, as do the white-faced ducks and the purple heron. The top pick for the excursion, however, is a family of elephants moving through the marshes towards the river on the Zimbabwe bank. They are a little far away, but the water is too shallow to allow us to get closer safely and we snatch a few shots with them before we continue our exploration further downstream.
We move slowly downstream looking for birds for a couple of hours before motoring back to the lodge in time for lunch.
Day Three
For our third full day, we are driven the 50 or so kilometres to the Kariba Dam. The dam was built in the ‘60s to provide power to both Zambia and Zimbabwe. It’s now six turbines can generate 1080MW at peak flow, but the water levels have been a serious problem for several years and were responsible for the rolling power cuts across Zambia while we were there. I love the “Load Shedding” euphemism they use when they just mean they’re turning all the power off for up to 18 hours a day.
The dam itself is a huge concrete double-arch design. It is 600m along the crest and 128m to the river below. I felt it was so big that it was almost impossible to get a sense of scale. As you approach it looks much smaller than it actually is and only when you walk out on to it do you start to get that sense of immense bulk and solidity. Sadly, it is rumoured to be far from solid. The concrete is now showing its age and constant monitoring is required to assess any movement in the structure. The massive (and I mean truly enormous) Lake Kariba that the dam creates is over 5000 square kilometres in extent when full and contains several large and small islands.
From the dam we headed off to a local lakeside lodge for an excellent lunch. Fred and Chris had fresh crayfish which looked excellent, but I settled for a simpler burger that was also very good. The lodge had an excellent view of the lake, but the heat was really quite oppressive and we were happy to head back to Gwabi Lodge and get into the pool to cool down.
Having now seen the Zambesi both at the dam and lower down where the Kafue joins it, I can’t see where all the water in the lower river comes from. At the foot of the dam, the river looks substantial, to be sure, but not the kilometre-wide monster that we were powering back up yesterday. At the Kafue River confluence, you can clearly see the relative flow of the two and the Kafue is insignificant. Yet, to me from the top of the dam, they look much the same in terms of overall size and flow. A little study is advised I believe to see what other tributaries contribute to this lower river. I know it is quite shallow, but even so, it is flowing quickly and that needs a considerable volume of water.
Of course, I have also seen the Zambesi further upstream. On our trip to Namibia and Botswana (2016-17) we visited Victoria Falls at a similar time of the year (when the river was still quite low). The flow there at that time was quite low and would – to my untrained eye at least – seem similar to the flow at the bottom of the Kariba Dam.
Day Four
Fred and Chris had gone out early for a bit of a bird hunt. I had decided that today, as it was a Sunday, would be a bit of a rest day for me. We would be heading downstream tomorrow and spending the night at the island bush camp for which I felt some fortification would be necessary.
It is as good a time as any – halfway through our trip this year – to bring this journal up-to-date and spend a little time on editing and expanding while things are still fresh in the memory.
Day 5 – The Island
The team at Gwabi have created a bush camp / lodge that is situated on an exclusive island about 30km or so down the Zambesi from the confluence with the Kafue. Fred is determined that we shall spend one night down there – Elizabeth and I are less sure about this, fearing a lack of facilities – and tonight is to be that night.
It is a long boat-ride downriver and we start off just after eight, having had breakfast. We have decided that we’ll go slowly and see what we can see.
Things start out really well, with a couple of elephants down by the water on the first island opposite the mouth of the Kafue river. We motor across to get a better view, but the first one has faded into the forest, leaving his companion still down by the water. He doesn’t seem keen to stay near us and quickly climbs the steep bank to tower above us. He does, at this point, stand for some photos and I take a large number – I’m conscious that we may not see many more today.
The journey down is relaxing and rewarding. There are plenty of hippos and birds to keep us occupied, including great views of Goliath Herons, Fish Eagles and my best ever look at an Osprey. I’ve seen them a few times in Africa now, but they often seem a bit distant and never stand long enough for a decent photo. Despite the movement of the boat with the current, this was not the case today and I have a set of really crisp and sharp images.
We also manage to capture some superb images of a Malachite Kingfisher. He seemed unconcerned as we manoeuvred back and forth to get a good shot of him low down on a reed near to the water’s edge. Once again, these are the clearest sharpest images of this bird I’ve ever taken and with my love of kingfishers in general it was a real bonus.
The best, however, was still to come. As we were trying to position ourselves for the perfect kingfisher image, I noticed what looked to be an elephant – or maybe two – close to the water just a couple of hundred metres downstream. Sure enough, there were two youngsters, doing what elephants do, playing in the water. And, as I may have said before, they really do just want to play in the water. Sure, they need to keep their skin coated in a little mud to protect from the heat, and it is always good to get into the water for a cool down, but mostly they just love playing and splashing around.
These particular two treated us to a prolonged game of push and shove as they moved slowly along the river just away from the bank, rolling and wrestling as they went along. You can’t help but take photo after photo when they’re doing this and I always fall into that trap.
The heat had been building all day, it was now near to noon and the sun was relentless. We sped up for the rest of the trip to the island, creating a refreshing breeze by the speeding of the boat over the water. Soon we reached our destination and alighted to find a well-appointed central lodge, and huts with showers, toilets and reasonable beds.
While preparations were being made for dinner, we headed off a little further downstream to find yet more elephants just as we were stopping for a sundowner under a beautiful multi-coloured sky with the Zambesi below us showing barely a ripple.
We ate outside – steaks and chicken barbecued over the embers of the fire – then headed early to bed. It would be difficult to get to sleep, as the heat was still oppressive and the thundery humidity only making it worse.
Day 6 – The Return
At some point in the night – probably around 3am, the wind started to pick up into a strong easterly breeze. The temperature lowered by a few degrees and I finally fell into a more comfortable sleep. Breakfast was to be at seven and we were all apparently awake before that – unavoidable with the breaking sun streaming into the front of our cabins.
Chris was out the door before me, only to return moments later with the news that there were elephants in the camp with us. I struggled into my shoes and grabbed the cameras. Sure enough, what appeared to be a bachelor herd had appeared just inland of our cabins and they were moving slowly along towards the main lodge, browsing as they went.
They drifted from view quite quickly, but appeared once more after breakfast, this time to the east of camp and quite a bit closer – maybe 20 or 30 metres from the lodge. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry to be anywhere else and hung around in the same area right up until we were all packed up and ready for the fast ride back to Gwabi.
This is our last full day enjoying the modernity and facilities at Gwabi. Tomorrow Stephen will return to drive us back to Lusaka. From there we will fly to our third and final location in South Luangwa National Park.
Lower Zambesi Thoughts
Before coming to Gwabi River Lodge, I was unsure what to expect from the Lower Zambesi area. I knew we would spend time on the river and around the many islands that split the great channel. I’m pretty sure that I expected to see the birds, but not that we would see so many elephants and be able to get so close to them in the boat.
I certainly never expected to have elephants walk right up to the edge of our camp and watch us as we ate our breakfast. When the wild animals anywhere are that relaxed, it is a real pleasure to be part of their world for a few moments.
There is a definite contrast between the Zambia side and the Zimbabwe side of the river. The Zambia side is more developed and less “Wild”. There are enclaves of people all along the bank and they compete with the wildlife for space along the water’s edge.
The Zimbabwe side is almost totally wilderness, speckled here and there with a handful of lodges. The wildlife is still scarce, but we saw more elephants on the Zimbabwe shore than we did on the Zambia side.
Long Distances
Stephen doesn’t arrive until lunch time and the drive back to Pioneer Camp in Lusaka takes the best part of four hours. Frankly, it was almost four hours of torture. My right knee was in almost continuous pain from more or less when we set off and the discomfort just keeps building and building for the whole journey. Stephen tries his best and takes an African shortcut around the edge of the city to try and make things go a bit faster. Sadly, this doesn’t really work out and we crawl through the suburbs for what was probably longer than necessary.
By the following morning, I was a bit better, but looking forward to a simpler journey for the day ahead.
I’m so glad we made the decision to fly to South Luangwa. The 600km drive from Lusaka would have simply been too much for any of us – not to mention the loss of a day in both directions. As it was, we would be in Mfuwe in time for a late lunch and maybe even an evening game drive in the park.