Part 3 of 5: A Mobile Safari – journey log of Johan De Bondt
Continuation of the August 2009 safari of Johan de Bondt and his travel companions. All text and photos copyright Johan de Bondt.
Third leg of the trip – Khwai riverside (Moremi)
We took the new road from Mababe village up to Khwai. During this drive I had to cover my camera as it was extremely dusty. At a certain point we took a turn and drove up to Khwai river and decided to have a pick-nick there. Arriving at the very spot I didn’t expect to see the river that wide and more surprises were yet to come.
copyright Johan de Bondt
This part of Moremi has always been my favourite spot in the park, thinking about the fabulous sightings I had, I remember the following ones:
a) wild dogs chasing tssessebe;
b) a martial eagle attacking a wild cat and stealing its hornbill kill;
c) three leopards walking together;
d) a cheetah with a fresh impala kill;
e) roan antelope having a dispute about dominance;
f) 2 big male lions trying to kill a leopard.
I have always been lucky here and I was wondering if the past could tell me something of the future?!
After a Windhoek lager, we slowly made our way to North gate but soon we couldn’t use the river road anymore. It was such irony … I remember someone telling me that Khwai community was considering to let the people pay for using this road and now most of it was just covered with water.
Where last year, there weren’t any crossings at all to reach Moremi, we now had to drive three times through deep water. The last time was actually at Khwai village itself. During this journey, we saw a small breeding herd of elephants, some zebra, a troop of baboons, a couple of hippopotami and a few lechwes/impalas. A lot of the hippo pools like Saguni Hippo pool couldn’t be reached at all.
At North gate, they had built a new bridge (much bigger) next to the old one.
As there are camping sites around Khwai community, one wonders what will be the best option: staying inside or outside the reserve?
Having done both I have always preferred to stay inside the reserve for the following reasons:
- It’s easier to get outside the park than getting inside;
- Especially in the evenings, you don’t have the lodge vehicles around;
- The area is normally big enough to get away from the crowd – outside the park a lot of people are relying on the guides of Khwai river lodge to see cats. So there is always a possibility of ending up in a circus. In theory, it should be less crowded than the area around Xakanaka/Third bridge as there are less facilities. Also you won’t find people camping at Xakanaka/Third bridge in the early morning/late evening driving in this section of the park.
- It’s further away from one of the hunting areas.
Vincent and Kosi had set up our tents at Dombo hippo pools. Last year, we used the same HATAB camping site at our first stop in the area.
Sallie, Ewan’s wife arrived a little bit before three o’ clock and brought us some fresh food for the coming days. This was warmly welcomed as I had eaten the last apple in the morning. After some chatting at tea time, she joined us on our first game drive here.
We drove up to the road you normally use to go from Dombo hippo pools towards Xakanaka. There is a deep crossing and after going through successfully we drove to a lagoon in the middle of the woodlands. But unfortunately, we didn’t see any mammals beside impalas. We saw a couple of Arnot’s chats but as it was already quite dark in the forest, it wasn’t worth to take out the camera.
We slowly drove back towards camp, passing by some floodplains and we hoped to pick up something but even there we didn’t manage to see any red lechwe, which we had seen in good numbers during our drive to camp coming from North gate. Just before sunset, we found a small fish trap and there were some spoonbills, yellow-billed storks and one pink-backed pelican around.
Pelican photo copyright Johan de Bondt
Ibis photo copyright Johan de Bondt
Yellow billed stork - copyright Johan de Bondt
At night, it was much warmer and after my relaxing bush shower, I didn’t wear any jacket and just sprayed my arms and legs (I always wore short pants) with “peaceful sleep” as we were close to water. Nowadays during this time of year, I seldom take malaria tablets as I am not staying in densely populated areas and it’s quite dry. I am aware of the fact that doctors always advice their clients to take f.e. Malarone but I decided not to sponsor the pharmaceutical industry this time.
The next day, it was quite windy and the sky was hazy due to the dust probably coming from the pans. We drove towards North gate and saw some general game like wildebeest, impala and zebra. On the plains close to the gate, we saw seventeen wattled cranes as they were foraging.
The flood plain road was under water so we couldn’t make it to Khwai hippo pool. So instead we took the mopane road, which brought us to pans like “wild dog”. Unfortunate my favourite predators weren’t to be seen here. We had a coffee stop at one of these pans still full of rainwater from last June and close to it we saw some zebra and tssessebe. On our way back, impalas and red lechwes were around in big numbers and birds(storks/sandpipers/fish-eagle) are always there of course.
Back in camp, the guys told us that they had heard the dogs on the other side of the lagoon. As dogs seldom move during the middle of the day (unless disturbed by other predators), we decided to first eat some hamburgers which Sally had brought in from Maun. Shortly after we jumped into the vehicle and looked if we could locate these dogs. We found tracks but unfortunately they leaded to a small island which couldn’t be reached unless we were determined to drown our vehicle. Bad luck … but there was nothing we could do. We could only hope they would leave that island at some stage and we would be there at the right time.
Muddy crossings are always a big risk and chances of getting stuck in one of those are much higher than trying to cross a sandy surface. In the early days, I remember several times to get severely stuck on Chief’s island and Duba plains because we were too eager to reach certain places. But in fact, you lose a lot of time, chances of damaging the vehicle are quite high and it’s hard work to get out. So better to prevent than cure!
We returned to camp and in the afternoon we hung around in the same area but unfortunately the painted wolves didn’t show up. We saw some leaping red lechwe and various aquatic bird species.
Red Lechwe photo by Johan de Bondt
Red Lechwe copyright Johan de Bondt
On Sunday morning, after a quite night (no animals around camp at all), we went out east of camp and found vervet monkeys making alarm calls and some impala were snorting. We were sure something must be around (probably a leopard) but we couldn’t locate it and we didn’t find any tracks on the road. We used our binoculars to scan the area very carefully but nothing … and suddenly the alarming and snorting stopped. Was it false alarm … ??? We decided to drive into the direction of North gate again and close to the monkeys/impalas we saw some giraffes accompanied by a herd of kudus. The dominant bull was a magnificent animal worth to take a picture of. Also a honey badger was seen briefly.
As the day before, we saw those 17 cranes again on the same floodplain and this time I was able to take some nice pictures. There was also a meyer’s parrot drinking and some very relaxed wood sandpipers.
Photo by Johan de Bondt
We drove up the Mopane Road again and at a certain stage we took a turn to end up on the flood plain road (on the opposite side you could see Khwai River lodge). We took our chances and drove back towards horseshoe bend. The water was quite high and according to Ewan, its level was still rising. We saw good birdlife, a lot of lechwe and some hippopotami putting up a little show. At some point, we had to leave the road.
Just past North gate, we came across a lodge vehicle and the guide informed us some lions had killed a buffalo close to the airstrip the day before. Also the buffalo were still somewhere in the area. As it was close to the transit route (Moremi – Savute), we decided not to have a look at it as there were likely a lot of cars around. Also the fact, that there was still a lot of meat, wasn’t promising for a good sighting. Lions feeding is interesting to watch at the start or at the end (if challenged by hyenas/jackals/hooded vultures).
We decided to drive once more in the area were we found the monkeys/impalas that morning. To our surprise, we found some bits and pieces of a dead impala and not that far away we saw some vultures. We drove a bit closer and saw 2 well-fed male lions resting. From our observations, probably there had been a leopard around and those lions managed to steal its kill. They looked at us briefly but then started dozing off again.
Male Lion - photo by Johan de Bondt
male Lion by Johan de Bondt
As Sallie needed to bring some spare parts for the other vehicle out of Maun, she joined us again on the afternoon drive. We had a quick look at the lions but as they were fast asleep,we didn’t want to waste time staying with them. We drove back and forth and saw some plains game . Also 5 bull elephants made their appearance… I remember a friend of Ewan telling him in Savute that elephant viewing had been fantastic the previous days at Khwai… (well we only saw 7 in total during 6 drives). So coming and going again as there was so much water around.
I took some bird pictures (grey heron/blacksmith plover) during this drive and close to the gate we found 2 black-backed jackals feeding (couldn’t see what it was) and at the same time a blue wildebeest was carefully keeping an eye at them.
Kudu on the run.
Believe it or not but again lions walked into camp and roared to let everyone know who’s dominating the area. They stayed around for a while and sleeping wasn’t really possible with all their noise around. As this happened shortly before the dawn of day, we decided to pick up their tracks and see what they were up to. We literally started tracking from camp towards Kgoko plain and we found them lying on the road +/- 4,5 kilometres from camp… they weren’t into serious business as they had a free meal the day before. They were just lazy cats and that’s how you mostly see them during daytime. The occasional look, yawn or roar … It really takes patience and/or a good deal of luck to come up with some spectacular images of lions. After a while, they moved into the shade as it became gradually warmer. At that point we left them and started our journey to Bodumatau. Just before the Xakanaka crossing (still at the Khwai area), we bumped into some Arnot’s chats again and this time the light was perfect. At the same place, there were 3 very tame African hoopoes which were begging to take their picture. So what could I do?
More Lions! copyright Johan de Bondt
Male Lion
As we decided to pass by Xakanaka, we went through some mopane woodlands and saw several breeding herds of elephants feeding. This was actually the first morning we saw them out early in good numbers. We arrived at Xakanaka gate and stopped to do some paper work here … actually quite funny as we hadn’t left Moremi. We continued our journey but from now on we would experience something we hadn’t had the pleasure for since the start of journey … but you’ll have to wait till next time to know what I am referring to…
My opinion:
The massive amount of water in and around Khwai river had a major impact on the gameviewing as game tended to be quite dispersed. It didn’t mean there weren’t any predators around (just before I came in lions were seen feeding on a hippo, two days after I left they saw 2 male cheetahs hunting impala). In general, sightings were more up and down compared to all my experiences in previous years.
Also a lot of the roads that we used last year couldn’t be reached. (i.e. we couldn’t go to the places where we saw the cheetah with the impala kill, the pride of lions feeding on the zebra and the three leopards last year.) For me, that was a bit of a disappointment … Of all the areas we visited in Moremi, I felt the most restricted here … but it doesn’t mean that I am not in love with it anymore.
Elephant crossing the road