Blog Posts in Category: Locations

Overlanding Day 18: Senyati Safari Camp to Victoria Falls

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Overlanding, Wildlife, Zimbabwe Short Link

Unfortunately today was the day where we had to give our truck back, to end the self-drive section of our overlanding trip. We had a lie in and woke up naturally, which was a nice change to the past few days. After getting up we packed our things, before heading into Kasane for breakfast and then headed to Bushlore to give the truck back. Bushlore took us to the border, where immigration was very quick and easy and we were picked up by a taxi from Victoria Falls. This was all very smooth and we then made good time to get to Victoria Falls, which enabled us to chill out before our dinner cruise on the Zambezi. The dinner cruise was very civilised, with great food, an open bar and some wildlife thrown into the mix. After the cruise, we met up with a group of cyclists who we had been constantly bumping into over the previous week for one beer, which turned into many beers and getting back to out hotel after midnight, which was less then ideal for the early start the next morning.

Overlanding Day 17: Ihaha Camp to Senyati Safari Camp (Chobe National Park)

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today we started the day with a morning game drive, which was the quietest drive we have had so far but we saw our biggest crocodile and had a lovely experience with a family of elephants, where the baby just wanted to play with his cousin, while the cousin just wanted to sleep. When we arrived in Kasane we enjoyed some good coffee, before having Chobe Bream for lunch, quite a contrast from the last few days in the wilderness! In the afternoon we did a sunset river cruise which was wonderful with elephants playing in the river, and more importantly, hippos in great light on the ground and a hippo yawning in great light in the river. Morning Game Drive After watching elephants moving around literally just outside our roof tent as we went to sleep, we were a bit disappointed to wake up with no elephants, one of our thoughts was to have breakfast watching the sunrise from our campsite over the elephants. It is safe to say the drive this morning started off fairly slowly, the elephants had all vanished to wherever they were sleeping, and it. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 16: Chobe National Park (Savuti-Ihaha)

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

We got up for a sunrise game drive, which was very successful, as we saw a pride of lions twice, the first time in the golden hour in the morning and the pride had a very young cub. To top if off, we were able to be on the perfect side of them to take advantage of the light. It has to be said that the rest of the drive was fairly uneventful, with just some bok, a few elephants and a few giraffe. Sadly, the leopard at leopard rock remained elusive. We then drove out of the are we were in and up to the Chobe Waterfront area, for our next night, in another wild unfenced campsite. En-route to the campsite we did another self-drive, although there aren’t many photos due to the midday light. On our evening drive we saw so many elephants, it really was unbelievable, some water buffalo (a first in the wild) and some giraffe. Our evening was spent at camp, watching elephants no more than 50m away from us, and listening to lions roaring. We had a decent campfire, to, hopefully, keep them at. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 15: Entering Botswana and Chobe National Park

Alastair BegleyBotswana, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Sadly today was the day where we left Namibia, but we headed deep in the Chobe National Park to make up for it. After an early start, where we had breakfast as soon as we could, we got on the road to make the long journey to Savuti campsite in Chobe National Park. The journey was all pretty easy, if slightly slow going at times, much better than the horror stories of deep sand that I had read about. When we arrived in the national park we did a self-drive safari, where we had a wonderful time seeing lots of wildlife, the highlights being seeing elephants bathing in the water and seeing two very small elephants playing together. The day finished watching zebra walking across the plain in the beautiful golden hour light. Unfortunately we did not see any cats, which was a shame, fingers crossed for tomorrow morning.  Entering Botswana and the Drive Soon after leaving we crossed the border into Botswana, which was all very quick and easy, surprisingly we didn’t even need to open our fridge to show we were not importing any banned items (meat, dairy,. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 14: Camp Kwando to Chobe River Camp

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today we started the morning with a river cruise at Camp Kwando before making the drive to Chobe River Camp, right on the border with Botswana. Confusingly we started the day with Botswana 50m to our west, and finished with it 50m to our east. The drive was very easy with tarmac, not all of which was good, all the way to the turn off for the camp. We stopped en route to do a bit of shopping and to try and get some Botswanan currency, we succeeded with the shopping, but again failed with the Botswanan currency. As we arrived into Chobe River Camp, the look of the chalets overlooking the river was too much, so we paid more money than was probably sensible to upgrade. This was however well worth it for the wonderful view from our bedroom, as the sun was setting we were watching a memory of 70 elephants in the setting sun over the river, wonderful. Morning River Cruise We started the day with another river cruise, this time it was just us and the guide on the boat, which made for a very peaceful. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 13: Mahango Core Area of Bwabwatwa National Park and Camp Kwando

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today the plan was for a very early start to be in the Mahango Core Area of Bwabwatwa National Park as soon as the gates opened, but when our alarms went off there was a significant amount of rain so we decided to have a lie in. We finally got up when the rain eased a while later, and decided to stick with our plan. In the end we spent the entire morning in the park, enjoying the varied wildlife. Morning Self Drive in Mahango Core Area of Bwabwatwa National Park  We arrived in the park much later than planned, but it was still overcast and cool so we were still hopeful that we would have a good game drive. Within minutes of entering the park we were excited to see a single elephant in the distance, munching his way through some large tree branches. While we were admiring the elephant, we noticed that there was a tower of giraffe out of the other window! The giraffe then walked across plain, which was also littered with a dazzle of zebra. We decided to stick entirely with the 4×4 track which. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 12: n’Kwazi Lodge to Ngepi Camp and Bwabwatwa Self Drive

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today we woke up early for a morning boat cruise on the Okavango hoping to see Hippo and Crocodile, while we did see some hippos, it was not that successful as all of the local females swam down the river to the dominant male, so we couldn’t get very close. The rest of the cruise was lovely, with some nice bird life and enjoyable views of the river, unfortunately there were no crocodiles. We then made the short drive to Npegi camp, further down on the Okavango. Instead of going straight to camp we headed to the Mahango area of the Bwabwatwa national park for a lunchtime self drive. We knew we were really too late, but were very happy to see the wildlife we had seen, and then we found a herd of elephants who were washing in the river, wonderful. After our safari we went to camp, where we sat on the deck watching Hippos in the river while drinking a beer, before going on an evening boat cruise. Morning Boat Cruse As we arrived for the morning boat cruise we were informed that just 3 min before. Read the full article…

Overlanding Day 11: Etosha National Park to n’Kwazi Lodge

Alastair BegleyNamibia, Overlanding, Wildlife Short Link

Today the plan was for a morning self drive in Etosha, before we departed to head for the next phase of our trip in the pan handle of Namibia. Due to rain the morning self drive was fairly chilled but we enjoyed seeing loads of zebra and giraffe. En-route to our destination we took a detour to stop at the Hoba Meteorite, the largest single meteorite to have been discovered on earth. Morning Self Drive We woke up early for our final self drive, and were very surprised to find out that it was raining. Thankfully it seemed to be passing and by the time we set off the rain had stopped, but there was still a dramatic electrical storm not very far away. From a wildlife perspective, this was probably our least successful safari of the trip, however it was still wonderful seeing the zebra and giraffe in the morning, a particular highlight was a very small zebra foal. Drive The drive was all very easy, as the road for pretty much the entire duration was good tarmac. We stopped todo some shopping in Grootfontein, and to try and. Read the full article…