Moremi Game Reserve 26-29 October

Hippo print

Moremi is the north eastern part of the Okavango Delta. We drove past the most beautiful scenery on the way in. Beside the river there was lush, green grass, trees and reed covered marshes. To make it that bit more scenic there were also hundreds of elephants clustered around and in the water. We also got to see our first Red Lechwe (antelope) which there are thousands of in the park

Bob (the GPS) had a bit of trouble navigating us to our campsite as there were creeks running across some of the roads we were supposed to take. Of course Bob didn’t realize there was water so sounded like a broken record repeating “do a u-turn when possible”, whenever we turned away from the river. Luckily for us we came across some local guys, who were driving the gear for a safari group, doing a u-turn at one of the creeks. They led us to another road, also with a creek running across it, and walked/swam in front to show us the shallowest part. The reason we hadn’t tried that ourselves was because of croc’s. They obviously weren’t too worried because they went for another swim after we had crossed. After that Tana became our official road/creek crosser. We did make it to our camp without drowning the landie.
That night we were woken several times by very strange noises not too far from the tents. Most of the noises we weren’t able to identify but one sounded like a pack of wild dogs rounding up and killing something. From the noises that were made it wasn’t a quick death.

Our next stop was Xakanaxa Campsite for three nights. We did school inbetween drives to find animals. There wasn’t much to see the first day but during the next two days we saw heaps of animals feeding near the road. There were mostly impala, red lechwe and elephants. A few times we were sitting in the Land Rover with a herd of elephants chomping or drinking close by and crossing in front of us.

On our 2nd and 3rd night at Xakanaxa we went on a two hour boat ride. We saw hippos both times and parked in the reeds close by so we could sit on the roof and watch them. When we came to hippos the driver would shift into reverse and rev loudly and when they went under water he zoomed past them. He said that if we went slowly past them they would see us as a threat and attack. We also pulled into the nesting area of Yellow Billed Stork, Marabu Stork and Cattle Egret - impressed with my bird knowledge? I got Zane to tell me what they were. There were eggs, fluffy chicks and parents coming and going. A sneaky crocodile was lying in wait under the bushes ready for any chicks that fell out of their nests. The sunset on the way back was stunning.

Our next stop was 3rd Bridge Campsite. While tiki touring and checking out the local area we came across a place that did mokoro rides (like a dug-out canoe) so we went on a one hour paddle – OK so we didn’t paddle, the boat guy stood in the back and poled us down the river while we sat back and took in the scenery. The people in front of us came back early because there were three hippos in the way. It was very peaceful and a totally different experience to the motorboat but it wasn’t very stable and I’m not sure I could do days like some people do.