Tag Archives: Hwange

Africa’s Great Wild Places

When I left Specsavers in 2000 the lovely team I worked with gave me a perfect farewell gift: A book by Chris and Tilde Stuart: ‘Africa’s Great Wild Places.’ Right up my alley. If the Stuarts think these places are special you can bet they are. They have been all over Africa and they don’t flit in and out; when they go somewhere, they stay a while!

I had been to seven of the fifteen places they chose for the book and immediately set about getting to the eighth:

My eighth of the Great Wild Places – Luangwa in Zambia

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– We watched eles crossing the Luangwa as we ate. Little ones submerged except for their trunks! –

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I have visited the wondrous Okavango Delta in Botswana by plane and by land on about a dozen occasions, lucky me, thanks to having lil sis Janet living in Maun.

Okavango book June Kay (1)

We had this book at home growing up and I loved it. It describes the Okavango in 1958; Moremi and Chobe weren’t parks yet, but the story about two crazy loons driving a great lumbering gas-guzzling, wartime D.U.K.W amphibious monstrosity led to a fascination and – years later – many trips there starting in 1985.

The latest trip was in March 2018. While there I read her new book Starlings Laughing, under her new name June Vendall Clark. While there are challenges, I’m pleased to report that exactly sixty years later, the Okavango is still the amazing paradise June Kay loved so much.

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A magic trip in a little Suzuki to Tsavo East and Tsavo West in Kenya

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Kruger National Park in South Africa

First visit in 1968 – a school tour. Most recent in 2023 – three fun weeks in the park.

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The Kalahari – Kalahari-Gemsbok Park in South Africa and the Kalahari in Botswana

1969 school tour and 1996 with Aitch; In 2010 with Janet we saw the Green Kalahari and paddled the Nhabe River into lake Ngami.

Kayak Kalahari Ngami (28 small)

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Makgadikgadi Pans and Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana

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Etosha in Namibia in 1969 and 1986

Okakuejo camp
– Okakuejo camp –

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Hwange in Zimbabwe

Probably my favourite. In 1997 we went to Makololo and in 2010 to Somalisa

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The Namib desert

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Western Tanzania

Namibia Balloon (4)

This was one area I thought it unlikely we’d get to visit. Then friend Mike Lello got to go! His son Chris worked in wildlife safaris in Tanzania and arranged a fly-in trip. And lately, wonderful news: My bro-in-law Jeff and nephew Robbie have bought a farm near Iringa. I may not get all the way west, but I’d love to go to the Selous and Ruaha National Park! Time will tell!

More to see:

Uganda, the Serengeti, the Soda Lakes, the Great Selous. One day . . .

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Makololo 1997

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Aitch’s twin sister Janet and her partner Duncan were running Makololo camp in the wonderful Hwange Reserve in Zimbabwe. Duncan had just recently built the camp for Wilderness Safaris and now they were the camp managers. And they invited us to stay! We flew in to Vic Falls, they picked us up and we had a long slow ‘game drive’ to the village of Hwange; then into the park and a real game drive to the camp in the south-east Linkwasha corner of the huge reserve.

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The camp that Duncan built – stunning wood and thatch comfort with only the four of us in residence. One night a woodland dormouse fell into the soup, poor little bugger! He seemed alright.

– pic from wikipedia – thanks –
Fierce fella chased the LandRover with intent!

Sylvester the grumpy lion chased after us with seeming intent! We didn’t stick around to ask him what was bugging him! We accelerated away from his waterhole.

to our room
al fresco bath
Aitch watches

Saw two firsts, there – two lifers! A Red-necked Falcon and a Caspian Plover.

Red-necked Falcon
Caspian Plover

wikipedia pics – thanks

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Hwow! Hwange is Hwonderful!

One of Aitch’s list of ‘things to do’ once we knew she had cancer, was to visit her twin sis in Botswana. Janet quickly mustered her network and arranged a trip to Hwange, Zimbabwe’s wonderful big national park. We’d been once before – also with Janet. Her friends Beks and Sarah Ndlovu of African Bush Camps own a concession and run a very special camp at Somalisa in the south-eastern area called Linkwasha.

Beks calls it his Hemingway-style camp. We called it bliss. Unpretentious tents from the outside, luxury inside.

Hwange, Somalisa Camp
Hwange Cloudburst & Nightdrive (36)

The weather was amazing! Bright sunshine, then huge gathering clouds, then pouring rain and back to sunshine in a few hours. Repeated daily. Enough rain to bring out the bullfrogs – the first time I have seen them, not for lack of looking. They were out for their annual month of ribaldry: Bawdy songs, lewd & lascivious pixicephallic behaviour. Lie still honey, lemme love you! Also gluttony. Then hastily raise a bunch of different-looking kids, and it’s back underground for 11 months of regrets. I was a bit wild; I wonder if she’ll still respect me next season?

The rainstorms were spectacular!

We were dry under the Landcruiser canopy and enjoyed every minute of the downpour. Once, unbeknown to us, Janet at the back had water pouring down her neck and was getting freezing wet! She didn’t want to spoil the beauty and awesomeness so suffered in silence. When she told us back in camp we roared with sympathetic laughter as she turned the air blue with choice expletives!

After the rain there’s sunshine, and the bush telegraph page is wiped clean: New spoor becomes clearly evident. Aha! The lions and cubs passed this way!

There are cubs about . .

After a good soaking the animals would have to drip-dry. We could get under cover and have hot showers, hot drinks and warm dry clothing.

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– warm & dry ladies après le déluge –
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sable bull gif
Three-banded Courser
Hwange Ground Hornbill

I think Hwange has become my favourite of all Africa’s big parks. It is simply fantastic.

Hwange Somalisa Camp

Those sand roads are very special, smooth and quiet; a breakfast spread on a termite mound out on Ngweshla or Kennedy pans is special too.

male lion looks back

Prologue – I had dashed off an email to Aitch in February 2009:

Hi Aitch – As ‘they’ so crudely put it, we need to ‘shit, or get off the pot’ as far as a decision to get to Okavango and to Beks Ndlovu’s camps this year. Either soonish (March), or September / October (very hot). We must decide yes or no, and if yes, who could we leave the kids with? Dilemma – K

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So glad we stayed on the pot! The kids were fine; We got to Botswana eleven months after that email, in January 2010, then flew to Kasane, where Karen & Mike Bullock kindly hosted us; Then Janet trekked us on into Zimbabwe for Aitch’s last – great, unforgettable – Hwange trip.

We’d been before in 1997.

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