Travels with Kathryn

An earlier start today, as today we would be travelling fom our current camp to Kwai concession. On transfer days we wake-up at 5am and aim to be fully packed with our bags outside by 5.30am to give the team time to break camp, travel to the next location, rebuild the camp and prepare for our arrival at around 6pm the same day. It was slightly less rainy overnight and the team wanted, if they could, to get the tents dismantled in the dry (my tent was pretty much down before we had even left) – fingers crossed. It was still cold so I made the far more sensible decision of wearing trousers and my trainers, and obviously topped with the life-saving fleece lined poncho (photo to follow).

And off we went (as per my notes):

• Impalas (definitely going to stop listing them soon).
• Wilderbeast.
• Tawny eagle (bird).
• African hawk eagle (bird, but with a confused name).
• Giraffes in the distance.
• Zebras.
• Hornblls.
• Wilderbeast to the left, zebras to the right.
• Black backed jackal
• The rain…
• Kori bustard – this is the national bird of Botswana (huge, but can fly).
• Sand billed stork.
• Rain.
• Then LIONS! This was a family group, two lionesses, five little and two medium cubs.

The way I have written this out is a good reflection of safari-ing in the cold/rain. You look around taking a general interest, but I did spend this morning still thinking to myself that I really needed the weather to pick-up, and as soon as it did, we would all pick-up. You will be thinking this, and then its LIONS. Suddenly its magical, and you feel so privileged to be there, to watch them going about their business, and the cubs were sooooo cute. This was also my favourite lioness – she just lay in the grass, ignoring the kids and giving herself a good fluff up. Just amazing.

For many people lions would be the highlight. They are no elephants is all I would say. However, I did start at this sighting to get rather “into” lions – maybe because although they are cats, they are not too cat like (I do not like cats). So far on this trip we had seen female lions with babies. When in a pride, lions will stagger when they have babies in order to try and protect the group. The pride will have an alpha male and his brothers who will the father of all the cubs, when the male cubs grow old enough to be a threat they will be pushed out of the group (which also protects the genetics – if only other animals were so disearning, we’ll learn about hippos later!). Other males will try and take over the pride, and if they do this they will kill the cubs and get the females in heat as soon as possible to create their own bloodline. This is why female lionesses will often head off with their cubs to protect them. This is probably what we were seeing here.

A safe distance from the lions we stopped for tea and wees (this is exactly how I have written it) and Mum had her first successful bush wee.

We started to head in the general direction of our next camp and:

• Yellow kite (bird).
• Lone wilderbeast hanging out with impala.
• Mother and baby giraffe.
• Swallow tailed bee eater (bird).
• Elephant.
• Magpie (bird).
• Wilderbeasts.
• Banded mongoose – yes, another variety of mongeese/mongooses to tick off. These may be the best as they are stripey.
• Warthogs (pumbas!)

We also stopped for lunch (in the drizzle). This was a very impressive set up, with the front of the jeep containing a flap down table that would be drapped with a cloth and then tupperwares would appear. The folding chairs would come out of the trailer (which also contained our luggage) and would be arranged in a semi-circle. It was all very civilised.

Back into the jeep, and we found something incredibly exciting – a road. Now, let us not go mental thinking this was a smooth concrete road, more like compacted sand. But still, a road. There were signs and everything! We even went past a village where I managed to pick up the only data I would receive until Kasane seven days later.

However, the BIG EXCITEMENT of this afternoon’s journey was that the sun FINALLY came out. I stopped any thoughts of Oh God, get me out here and I knew we were going to make it. I have also noted that at the afternoon’s bush wee stop, I was watched by giraffe which I found rather distracting.

We finally arrived into camp at about 6.30pm, and it had continued to be dry. However, you can tell that the team had struggled – apparently they had only arrived about 90 minutes before we did and of course everywhere and everything was wet. The tents were rather “thrown up”, but they were up, and we could all have showers (to wash that feral hair). You can tell I was tired today as I have no memory and no notes of what we had for dinner other than the fact that there was chocolate mousse (more like chocolate ice cream), but my priorities were there.