The magnificent seven of Botswana

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It has never occurred to me that the 'Big Five' list of Rhinoceros, Elephant, Lion, Leopard and Water Buffalo was actually named as the five most difficult to shoot in Africa. I find that a bit offensive, so I'm going to create my own list of animals, and have called it 'the magnificent seven'. These seven have only been shot by a camera, rather than a gun!

My seven are:

Leopard

We were lucky enough to see two leopards on separate game drives. They are very shy so our view of them was rather fleeting, but it was fantastic to see them in the wild.

Elephant

We saw hundreds of elephants during the safari. At our last location on the Chobe River there were hundreds heading to the river in the late afternoon. It was an awesome site. Many of the groups were breeding herds, with lots of babies, but we also encountered a few bachelor herds and it was fun to watch them play together.

Hippopotamus

Hippos are amazing animals. They disappear under the water and stay there for 5 to 7 minutes, and quite often pop up in a different spot. It's hard to believe they are responsible for killing humans. They seem so gentle.

Zebra

The Zebra stripes are almost mesmerising. They are also very photogenic with their symmetrical stripes. I took heaps of photos of them including a few who had previously been attacked by lions, and had the scars to prove it. Lucky for them they survived and healed up.

Lion

We saw two lions on our first game drive and about 10 on our last. I never tired of watching them in their natural habitat. Most of them were resting because they hunt at night. The highlight was our waterhole scene where they were outnumbered by the large elephant herds.

Giraffe

These lofty animals are amazingly good at disappearing into the African bush but nonetheless we did encounter quite a few of them. Many of them appeared to be alone, but KK assured us that the rest of the herd would be nearby.

African Eagle

I was completely unprepared for the plethora of beautiful birds that populate Botswana, and none is more impressive than the Eagle.



It's kind of weird driving around day after day in a Toyota Landcruiser, modified to take up to 12 passengers, just trying to spot wild animals and take their photos. Probably not so weird when you consider our other recent holidays where we've followed a little bike race around France, which incidentally is a similar size landmass to Botswana.

The roads are very sandy in northern Botswana and we make slow progress as well as having to pull over regularly to let Toyotas coming the other way pass by. Botswana's other name is Toyotaland because pretty much every vehicle we've seen is a Toyota 4WD. There are a few Landrovers but according to our guide KK they are not as reliable as the trusty Toyota, so not near as popular with locals and tourists alike. The Rutzou lads who are all fond of their Toyota 4WDs would love it. During our eight days of safari the Landcruiser never let us down. We did get one flat tyre on a bitumen road, and we also got bogged in sand once, but it was all part of the adventure.

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