Chobe National Park

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We flew from Joburg to Kasane in Botswana. Kasane has a nice modern airport and it was a short taxi ride to our accommodation, Chobe River Cottages.

Kasane lies at the meeting point of our countries - Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe and the confluence of two major rivers - the Chobe and the Zambezi.

Chobe National Park is one of the great wildlife destinations in Africa. There is a massive elephant population. There are three main sections of the park - Chobe Riverfront, Linyati Marshes and Savuti. Our focus was on Chobe Riverfront next to our home for the next four nights, the gateway town of Kasane.

We enjoyed an evening meal at The Old House a short walk from our cottage.

The next day we had a relaxing morning and late afternoon set off on a 3 hour Chobe River Cruise. This was in a small boat just big enough for our party of four.

This was superb. We saw numerous elephants at the river bank, hippos, crocodiles, buffalo and impala. There were many birds to admire, bee eaters, the African Fish Eagle, guinea fowl, lapwings, egrets, cranes, sandpipers, Egyptian geese, black heron and lilac breasted roller. This is just what I can remember. An amazing 3 hours.

The next day we were up at 5am to start our 4WD safari into Chobe National Park. We saw impala, giraffes, lions, jackals, baboons and buffalo.

Birdlife included kingfishers, spur winged goose, guinea fowl, egrets and lapwings. Another truly magical experience.

To end our special day we ate at the Chobe Marina Lodge.

On our final day we had a lazy morning by the pool and as we had enjoyed it so much set off on another late afternoon river cruise.

We had our final meal at The Old House and then the power was lost during a thunderstorm. On the short walk home Martin and Gemma passed very close to a hippo at the roadside. A bit more dangerous than the many warthogs that were wandering around Kasane!

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