Sat. 8th June ‘24
Today is our last full day in Namibia before we cross the border into Botswana. Besides the predictable wondering what has happened to the last 4 weeks, we had some decisions to make as to what best to do with our full day here in Nambwa Lodge. The advice from Keenan, the manager, was to go for a boat ride in the morning and then an afternoon game drive. As this had the benefit of meaning that we had an extra hours sleep, as the boat ride doesn’t leave till 7:30. Even better, there was hot water waiting for us when we woke so we could even make some coffee to start the day.
The boat trip is out on a branch of the Kwando River – which flows into / becomes the Chobe river in Botswana. Five of us climb on the top deck of our sightseeing boat – we’re joined by the three Germans who we helped rescue from the sand yesterday. Before heading off, the skipper / guide explains that we’ll be heading to where this branch meets the main river where we should see a big bloat of hippos. However, on the way, we’ll pass a couple of smaller groups which we won’t be stopping for as they have babies and can be quite aggressive.
With that health & safety briefing out of the way (again, what lifejackets?) we’re off – and we immediately doubt the wisdom of taking the larger double decker boat as it clearly is scraping along the bottom of the river in several places and there is much revving of the outboard to get us over the sand. It’s not just the roads where you can get stuck in the sand! As we potter along, peering at the banks, it is mostly birds that I am interested in. Of course, there are various flavours of antelope wandering about but we have seen so many of them. I really want to see an African Fish Eagle – preferably catching it in the act of fishing – but the jacanas, various storks and even the little swifts who dash about low over the water zigzagging around the boat are endlessly fascinating.
As forewarned, we get past the two separate hippo families as quickly as possible (which is not very fast) and eventually get to the main Kwando River where we pull on to a mudbank just short of a large bloat (I love that word!). Whilst the main group are all in the river and so not very visible or photogenic, there is a young male, with quite a few scars on his back, only semi-submerged at the other end of the mudbank. The guide explains that he has become a threat to the alpha male and so has been kicked out of the bloat. He will eventually wander off and start his own family – and this is what happened to the other two families that we passed on the way here.
As the day is warming up, there is no better time to have a coffee, parked on the mudbank and just watching the activity of all the various animals. A pretty good place to be. After coffee, it is time to head back. Not all bad news though as breakfast is now served and after that we are free until our game drive this afternoon. Of course, freedom is a relative term as, as ever, there are photos to process and blog work to be done. At least the lodge has decent WiFi so I’m also able to catch up on the backing up of photos into the cloud.
It’s very poor of us, I know, but neither of us are quite sure whether the driver/guide for this afternoon’s game drive is the same as our guide this morning. Poor show! Anyway, he intrigues us by immediately slagging off the Germans we helped rescue yesterday (rude, impatient and not understanding that the game does not arrive to a script), along with various other tourists he has been guide for, including the Italian who just jumped out of the safari truck, and the unknown nationality on a walk who wanted to follow the fresh lion tracks until they actually found the lions!
Goodness knows what he will tell future guests about us, but at least he was:
- happy to stop when we wanted to stop and photo some bird or animal;
- delighted to spot a Sitatunga Antelope, which is apparently quite rare; and
- made a very convincing effort to track down some lions for us.
We had an engrossing couple of hours just been driven around the concession area and I am very happy with the photos that we took. For example, catching the saddlebill stork as it speared the shallow water, and catching the water drops from the impact of his beak.
It was inevitable that we’d come across some elephants, and I was absolutely, positively, definitely not going to take any more elephant pictures until a family went into the water and the little one did a face-plant. Janet later reminded me that I had been a bit “yeah, whatever” about visiting Africa on our RTW trip. So, absolutely, I was wrong to think that Africa isn’t very, very special and part of the reason is that whether you are on a game drive in a concession or just driving along a public road, you never know what sort of animal you’re going to come across. Even the Eland or Springbok that we are just so bored with now would be astonishing if you came across them as frequently in the UK.
One of the things that we learned on this drive is that the antelope love being with the baboons – because the baboons are experts at spotting when there is a big cat around. If the baboons are allowing their little ones to scamper, jump and mess about in the trees, the coast is clear. We chose to take advantage of the warning system to stop an have our sundowners. As a bonus, we also had the variety act of the baboons to keep us entertained – though as Janet will explain tomorrow, there is another side of the baboons.
With the sun touching and then dipping below the horizon, it was time to head back for dinner and the joys of packing to be ready to move on tomorrow. We really had a great game drive (and boat trip this morning) but we’d really hoped to see a cat – at one point, we came across a bird who apparently only ever makes a noise when a leopard is nearby. But we couldn’t find the leopard. We couldn’t even find the African fish eagle I’d been hoping for. Until, that is, with the sun fully below the horizon and the light nearly all gone, there was my fish eagle perched on a tree looking disdainfully down on us. I’ve been really, really happy with my new camera this trip, but here with almost no light other than a torch held by the guide, and ridiculous camera settings, it was able to capture all the detail of this beautiful bird. Truly, what a fitting finale to our time in Namibia.