We woke up this morning in our great bush camp
expecting to see some game guards asking us what we are doing camped by the
river in the middle of nowhere but there was not a sign of anybody checking up
on us. There is obviously very little park management as there is not even an
entrance gate, just a sign that says " please report to Park
headquarters" however we weren't complaining as it was so nice just being
in the wild.
The hippos were back in the water snorting away
and we had a leisurely breakfast before packing up to go and find our correct
campsite. This park is one of the prettiest ones I have seen and reminded me so
much of what Botswana used to be like when we were up there with our kids many
years ago. I remember how utterly wild it was and Mark used to have to fix the
water pumps in order for us to even get water, now of course our truck carries
450 liters of water and we had filled up all our tanks at Drotsky's so we
certainly don't need water here.
The park has this wide river running through it
which is the border between the Caprivi and Botswana. The Caprivi is such a
strange strip of land that goes from the main body of land that is now Namibia
and runs right across the top of Botswana. The old colonials thought it was a
good idea to give South West Africa, as it was known in those days, access to
the Zambezi river and so giving them access to (they thought ) the Indian
Ocean. It was also very strategic piece of land used by the South African
Government during the Angolan bush war and most of the anti-terrorist
activities and skirmish took place right here. It was also totally devastated
by hunting during that time which was done by the army itself particularly our
own generals etc. Fritz was even telling us that the first real devastation of
the Rhino took place here. Not sure who was killing the Rhino but it seems
possible it was the soldiers stationed in this area. Now it has been turned
back into a wildlife reserve and is one of the gems of Africa. The reserve is
not big but it has a fair amount of game but more important it is completely
wild and you see absolutely nobody, which makes it very special.
The area is very marshy so it must be quite a
challenge during the rainy season and you can see where guys have got stuck and
spent a fair amount of time digging themselves out of the mud....tell-tale
branches churned into the now dried out black cotton soil. The trees are
absolutely huge which is so unusual for an area with so many elephants, they
usually push them all down but these are now just too big even for elephants to
push down. I think the explanation for that might be that the elephants were
more or less shot out during the war and that gave the trees a chance to grow
into the size that you see today. Now that the Elephants have returned, coming
across the river from Botswana, the trees are more or less established enough
not to get destroyed by the large population that we saw yesterday.
We finally managed to get Kim's GPS onto the
right program and the exact position of the campsite showed up. At least he has
the complete set of maps for Africa on his GPS. After that it was pretty quick
to find exactly where we should have been the night before, so we quickly set
up camp this time in the right place, again on the edge of the lagoon/river and
enjoyed a restful morning of reading and chatting and just doing nothing. The
girls got their exercise mats out and did a workout and Fritz grabbed Kim's
fishing rod and went fishing. He did catch a Tilapia and lost it and was stolen
by something to either a croc or tiger.... But whatever it was it was biggggggg
(fisherman big)
The afternoon was spent exploring the reserve,
we saw Letchwe, plenty of Elephant and lots of Lion spoor. Fritz was all for
walking into the bush and tracking them for us but we literally held him back
as who knows what would happen if the game guards caught him.
We did drive right through the camp where the
rangers live and there must have been at least 15 of them all kitted out in
camouflage uniforms. They were very hard at work playing cards and sleeping at
three on a Monday afternoon. They are a real hard working bunch that's for
sure!
We camped right on the river bed so during
dinner we had a visit from some very curious hippos, they came right up about
20 meters away, snorting and making very sure we knew they were there and that
we were the unwelcome guests. We all just sat very still and eventually they
swam off down the river. It was very exciting having them that close.
Tomorrow we are off to Zambia to spend time on
the Great Zambezi River.
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