Dirk writes about his recent Botswana Wildside tour...he had an incredible tour!

"Having returned from our camping trip through the national parks of Botswana which is by far my favourite tour that Sunway offers, I can’t think where to start with this blog as so much happened on this trip… So I will break it down into 4 parts…

The Okavango Delta

On our morning walk with the head polers we started off by getting fairly close to a group of “Dagga” (Muddy) boys/Buffalo bulls which was truly special. Having seen giraffes, zebras and Gnu and with the temperature rising we decided it was time to head back to camp for a well-deserved brunch and break from the blistering sun. On-route we followed a hippo trail along the water’s edge with a thicket on the other side, all of a sudden there was a snort and to my right I saw him! A very large black steam train heading our way through the thicket! The buffalo bull had been asleep in the thicket and woke to our approach,( buffalo are renowned for not wasting time when it comes to a mock charge, they either run off or charge!) I got the group together and headed into the water behind a clump of palms as the head poler headed for a large knob thorn tree. The buffalo stopped on the other side of the knob thorn and stared the poler down. The stand-off felt like 10min but only lasted 5 seconds before the poler hit the tree with his stick and asked him nicely to bugger off, the buffalo decided he had enough of the polers words and turned to run off into the thicket and leave us alone… Thank you my friend for not following through!!

Moremi

Having had a great time in the delta we headed back to Maun for 1 night and then the next morning we headed off to the Moremi Game Reserve with our local guide Kenny. We arrived at our camp close to Hippo pools and set up everything before having lunch. I noticed whilst walking around the camp that there were a lot of hyena tracks and warned the clients we could have some visitors that evening. During dinner we heard a hyena call in the distance and I told them that it was on its way… Not 20minutes after I turned off the lights in the camp, our dear friend was there in the fire light moving around trying to find something to eat or destroy. As I had not left anything to eat, the hyena decided to destroy something and sank its teeth into a plastic water canister which we had forgotten to lift off the ground, 1 water tank down!! The second evening we heard lions, leopard and hyena calling whilst a hippo visited the outskirts of the camp.

Savute

Leaving Moremi on the long trek to Zwei-Zwei, which is on the other side of the Savute, we arrived in the late afternoon, set up camp and took some time to relax and watch the elephants coming down to drink at the waterhole ( which luckily still had a little water). Whilst watching the elephants I heard a Giant Eagle Owl calling in the distance and we all chatted about this amazing owl. We went to see if we could find it and take some pictures but sadly we were unsuccessful. I did however spot something move in the back of a large Leadwood and had a closer look, there against one of the large branches I saw a juvenile owl watching us. For the next 2 days solid, this owl called continuously and it was on the second evening I heard mom or dad calling in the distance. Early the next morning we managed to spot mom, dad and youngster all sitting in the same old Leadwood we had first spotted him in. After the morning drive down to the Savute Swamp having seen lions, elephant, buffalo and wild dogs we headed back up to Zwei-Zwei for lunch.  Whilst preparing lunch I heard some birds giving alarm calls from the thicket just behind the kitchen and went to see what was bothering them, in the middle of the bush was a yellow billed hornbill crunching down on something and with closer inspection noticed it was in fact eating a baby bird. Behind the hornbill were the parents of the baby black chested prinia furiously calling.

Chobe

Having got stuck a few times on-route to Chobe from Zwei-Zwei we arrived at our camp and set up the shower so we could all could wash off after all the digging and pushing of the cruiser. After lunch and a short siesta we set off for our afternoon drive. Having sat with baboons for over an hour and taken many a picture of the numerous fish eagles on the Chobe River we headed back to camp for what I must say was the quietest evening of the whole trip, almost eerie in a way with not even a hyena calling. Early the next morning after packing up the trailer we headed to Kasane with one last sighting of over 150+ elephants crossing the road in front of us! We finally left the rugged dirt roads and the smooth tar welcomed us back into civilization."