Botswana Wild Day 15 - October 12

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Travel day - Khwai to Savute

This was a long travel day between two national parks. It started with an unsuccessful look for Leopard at the Khwai public campsite. One had been spotted in a tree just before we arrived. Again no luck. We were able to help a tourist (from North Van, no less) get out of a mud hole where he was stuck in his Toyota SUV. Yet another self-drive issue. Coincidentally, we saw him later in the trip on his way to Kasane, where he bid us farewell before going on to Zimbabwe.

We crossed the Khwai River Bridge which took us out of the park and into the Khwai Community Concession, which was run by the Khwai people. We stopped at a most unlikely building in Khwai Village that turned out to be a store that carried ice. Took a few photos before Chris advised us that the people would be expecting payment for photographs. So we stopped. One way out of the village ended up in deep water, so after consulting with a local, Chris went another way. There is a lot of water in Moremi Park this year - more than in past years for some time.

The road to Savute camp in Chobe National Park included crossing a sand ridge - geologically a shore line beach for a huge lake - now a desert. A herd of 20 elephants crossed in front of us to bath in a large mud hole next to the road - splashing themselves and rolling in the mud - several babies enjoying the fun. Elephants walk with one foot in front of the other to create a straight path - much narrower that their body width. These are called elephant highways. The highways, worn by elephants following the exact same path over many generations, criss-crossed everywhere we looked. We joked with Chris that it is important to know the difference between an elephant highway (which has one track) and a vehicle track (which has two).

Our route was very soft deep sand along a fire break for some time - no trouble for the big International with its large lug tires and 4WD. We spotted giraffe, impala, many many elephants (more and more every day) and warthogs.

Savute has a dry river bed and hugh dry marsh. Because of the severe water shortage Park Management has created 3 concrete pools with bore hole water pumped in for wildlife. We saw lots of male elephants around these pools and seniority prevails for priority to drink. As upstream river water availability is on the increase, the dry Savute river may soon be running again. We learned that because of the water shortage, this part of the park has only bull elephants, and no breeding herds. It's just too stressful for the moms and babies.

We finished the day at one of the water holes watching the elephants.

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Photos

Old Khwai Bridge
There was a new bridge next to this one, but we wanted to walk over the bridge.

Khwai Gate
Leaving Moremi Park