Botswana Desert and Delta :- 2022
Our journey started with a late afternoon flight from Heathrow with British Airways to Johannesburg. Followed by an Air Botswana flight to Maun the gateway to the Okavango Delta. By now we’d met up with the remainder of our fellow Naturetrek travellers. Nelson and Stanley, our two local guides, who worked for African Big5 Tours the local agents, met us at Maun. They split the group into two vehicles for our journey north to the Khwai concession part of the larger Moremi Game Reserve. This is an area of protected wetland, Leadwood forest and open plains lying just outside the Western limits of the Moremi Reserve. The journey was to take four to five hours and apart from the first 20 miles of tarmac the rest was along dusty unmade roads and was essentially our first game drive.
Wildlife on route to Khwai
Very few other vehicles seemed to be using this route into the Moremi Game Reserve which was evident as enroute we came across elephants, giraffe, steenbuck and impala. However the highlights were definitely 7 wild dogs resting on the edge of the sandy track.
This was followed by 12 lions, 3 young males, lots of lionesses and one young cub. They crossed over the track and then walked along the edge before disappearing into the Bush. Next we encountered two hyenas who were walking through the Bush. We drove on through the Bush as the sun started to set arriving at our wilderness campsite in the dark.
Our campsite was situated not far from the Khwai River. On arrival we were shown to our tents and then wearing our headtorches headed for our evening meal. It was then straight to bed as it was a 5.00am wake up call.
