July 27, 2024

I tripped over a pile of elephant dung when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Using a head lamp it’s not easy to see where to put your feet when you are busy checking out the surrounding area in case there are wild animals out there. My first thought was I would so rather have ensuite facilities where there is no danger of spraining your ankle if you need to use the bathroom but looking up at the bright stars shining down on me and hearing the hippos in the distance, I thought I wouldn’t miss being outside for anything. Hearing the sounds of the bush and seeing the night sky is such a wonder. No, I wouldn’t want to miss this experience. It’s worth a grazed knee. At least the dung wasn’t that fresh.

The sun was just rising when we woke up.

In the light of day, I could see that while access to the shower tent (clearly visible on the left) from our tent was quite easy, the access to the toilet tent (cunningly hidden in the bushes and undergrowth on the right) was quite a challenge, I was lucky that it was only elephant dung that had caused me problems.

The rest of our group were already drinking their morning coffee sitting by the fire.

The boats were gleaming in the morning sun.

Here I am on an island in the middle of the Okavango Delta, how amazingly cool is that. Sometimes it’s hard to believe we are really here; this is such an incredible place. I can’t wait to see what today will bring.

But first it’s time for a great breakfast

And the hope that one of the pods from the sausage tree doesn’t fall on my head.

We hang up our damp towels on our tent, and off we all set on our morning bush walk.

I have been on many bush walks before. They aren’t the best way to see wild animals. My mantra is that on a game drive you hope to get an up close and personal encounter with the wildlife, on a bush walk you hope you don’t get an up close and personal encounter. You just enjoy walking through the bush, focusing on the little things that you miss out on as you whizz along in your safari vehicle.

Off we set in a single file, to see what delights this island has in store for us.

Five minutes after we left the camp we had our first encounter. Elephant footprints in the sand. They had walked by our camp last night, but I had not heard them. That’s the thing about elephants. They are extremely noisy when they are breaking tree branches or crashing through bushes, but they are so quiet when they walk though the open plains, you would never know they had been there if you didn’t see the tell-tale footprints. They are just such magnificent animals.

A few steps further on we had our second encounter. Greg pointed out the tracks of a large crocodile in the sand. We were quite far from the water, and I had never expected that a crocodile would come so far inland. Like as far as our camp is from the shore. Something new to be worried about. Still, I was excited to see the tracks, I had never seen crocodile tracks before.

Then there were buffalo footprints. Wow, this island was the site of a lot of activity last night. Who would have thought?

We came across another beautiful sausage tree. Growing up I learnt that you mustn’t sit under a sausage tree because you may get hit on the head by a plummeting sausage and die. I used to give them a wide berth. The fruit of the tree can be poisonous, but in Kenya they boil it and make it into a strong alcoholic drink called muratini. I wondered if they do the same in Botswana. I know that here they use the trunks of the trees to make their canoes, the makoro. I also remembered something about the fruit being useful as an ointment to treat skin conditions. I was lost deep in thought about the sausage tree when it became evident that we needed to move on, and I didn’t want to be left behind.

I noticed that the ground was covered in areas of white lace with a hole in the middle. I had never seen this before. Greg explained that these were the webs of funnel web spiders. The Australians looked a bit concerned about this. Apparently, the Australian funnel web spiders are deadly, luckily the Botswana ones are not as dangerous. The webs certainly look very pretty.

We continued on our walk, stopping to look at flowers

skulls

And ant hills on our way.

All too soon we made our way through some bushes, and there we were, back at the camp.

I had enjoyed the walk, but it was getting quite hot, and so I was pleased to be able to sit in the shade and rehydrate. I wrote my blog while the others knitted and read. It was actually great to have some down time.

Here is the view from our tent

And this is what it looks like on the inside

In the afternoon we went out in the boats again.

And came across some hippos who didn’t seem pleased to see us, so we got out of their way as soon as possible.

Our goal on this safari was to take the boats all the way to Maun, but Greg had been concerned that the water levels were too low, and the channels may be blocked.

Sure enough, things didn’t look good. The papyrus had blocked the channel, and so this was as far into the delta that we would be able to go.

So now the plan is for us to spend 3 nights on this island, and then we will head back north to the Saronga airstrip and fly to the lodge where we will be staying, Hyena Pan, from there.

I was disappointed, I wanted to see deeper into the delta, but there didn’t seem to be any options.

We turned the boats around and went looking for lechwe. We found a lovely spot to stop the boats and watch them at a distance. Greg and Clinton had heard lions in this area last night, but they were nowhere to be found, which was probably good news for the lechwe.

We were out in more open waters away from the reeds and papyrus, it really was a very pretty area.

We had been promised a swim. I was a bit skeptical with all the crocodiles and hippos around, but we were reassured that this was a safe place to swim. So we climbed out of the boats and had a great time splashing around in the cold water.

z

A wonderful place to have sundowners!

As the sun set, we headed back to camp where warm showers and a hot fire were waiting for us.