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Published: June 17th 2017
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01 Overcast
This morning started off as an overcast, grey day. Geo: -15.9455, 29.3115
This morning Paul, Francois and John booked a canoe trip on the river. So at 7:30am I dropped them off at the park office. There was no way that I was getting in a canoe and paddling through hippo and crocodile infested water. I went on a game drive. I went on a new road – around the area where Long Pools is.
Soon after leaving the guys I came across a few elephants that were walking along the road and then went into the bush. Along the way I saw elephants, warthogs, kudu, impala, zebra, Yellow Billed Storks and Ground Hornbills. On my drive I only saw a few other vehicles. At first the drive was pretty quiet. I was proud of spotting a dozen or so Yellow Billed Storks at the top of a dead tree. The hi-light of the drive was a breeding herd of elephants under a large tree. There were also a few warthogs and impalas with the elephants under the tree. I had the sighting all to myself.
There were a few dry, sandy rivers that I had to drive through and this caused me to stress. My 4x4 driving skills are non-existent,
02 River
The view across the Zambezi River. so I went with the option of driving fast and hoping for the best and being bounced around due to the lack of shock absorbers. At least this trip has taught me what role shock absorbers play on a vehicle. Luck was on my side and I didn't get stuck in any sand. I would have been pretty embarrassed if I had! And I would also have been waiting for a while for help as there is no phone coverage and hardly any other people around.
I was also lucky enough to see a couple of male impalas play fighting with their horns. As their horns hit each other it made a knocking noise. Further along, among the long dry grass I spotted a family of Ground Hornbills. I was really excited about having seen them in the wild, as they are an endangered bird. They walked about as I slowly drove closer to them.
At about 10:30am I returned to the campsite and it was at the same time as the guys arrived back from their canoeing trip. While we were away we were raided by monkeys. We had left a few black boxes out and the monkeys destroyed
03 River
Looking up the river. most of the foil and made a mess, luckily the food was with me in the car. They also tipped over our cooler boxes.
We enjoyed a brunch just like every other day, of toasted jaffles. Paul and Francois then did some fishing from the camp site. Paul was lucky and caught a small fish, the small fish was not so lucky as Paul used it as live bait in the hope of catching a larger fish, preferably a Tiger Fish. I daydreamed in between reading a book while sitting in a chair by the river.
At about 2:30pm Paul and I went for a game drive. We came across a small herd of elephants. Our next stop was to visit our new camp site that we would be moving to the day after tomorrow. It was also right on the river, but none of the other nearby camp sites were visible. It was very isolated. We continued on and stopped at a small stream.
Here there were quite a few animals - impalas drinking, baboons eating and birds standing about. Further along we came to another part of the river, here we enjoyed elephants walking about and hippos out of
05 Walking Away
The two elephants that were hiding and eating behind the bush are now walking away. the water. On the way back to the camp site we had a close encounter with a small breeding herd of elephants and this enabled us to take some really great, close photos.
We spent another evening chilling by the river, listening to the sounds hyenas and hippos.
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