Wednesday, 4 June 2025
We woke this morning looking through our bedroom window (from our bed) as first light blushed over the horizon. As the sun continued to climb towards sunrise we continued to watch its splendor from our shower and then from the vanity basins until, finally, it rose to welcome another beautiful day in Africa. Wow!
I toted my Vegemite down to the restaurant deck for breakfast, happily sharing a scrape with Debbie. I mentioned to Wian that I had the Vegemite at the table, he only had to say if he wanted to taste it. I think he said it was too late … again, he’d already eaten all he was going to have this morning. Debbie insisted that he should try it and cut off a corner of her slice of Vegemite toast for Wian. He didn’t pull a face and claimed that he liked it. Should we make him an honorary Aussie??!
Today we had a full day exploring Bwabwata National Park. The park is famous for its many species of antelope and according to our itinerary we could also hope to see elephants, lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, hippos, crocodiles, warthogs, baboons and vervet monkeys on our morning game drive into the Mahango Core Area of the park on the western side of the Kavango River. The lodge’s open-sided vehicle, driven by our guide today, Tobias, headed out at the very civilised time of 8.30am!
We soon saw some female warthogs with their young, an ostrich, some southern ground hornbills and a herd of zebras. More birds, this time grey louries, before or first giraffe sighting for the day. More zebras and some steenbok. We turned around and re-traced our path, saw the ostrich again and some common impala, more zebras and giraffes.
Turning onto a new track, we saw more common impala. There’s a reason the word ‘common’ features in their name, there are plenty of them! Next a red lechwe, some juvenile buteleurs (birds of prey), an African fish eagle and a martial eagle.
Around 10.30-ish we reached a waterhole where we saw some vervet monkeys, more lechwe, lapwings, and white-headed vulture. The morning game drive continued with elephant, crocodiles, antelopes, hippos and a greater kudu (one of the larger antelope). We were seeing so much wildlife that I stopped making a note of EVERY sighting.
We stopped at a picnic stop where we were able to use the bush toilet and basically, let some fluids out so we could take some more fluids in. Water management is an issue, ha, ha. We need to stay hydrated BUT who wants to be doing too much bush toileting? At least our two recent trips to the Victorian high country have made me a bit more adept at going au la naturale.
After our toilet stop we saw the vulture again and then the call went up for buffalo. The second vehicle was slightly ahead of us and they had disturbed the herd which was stampeding across the road in front of them. I think by the time we realised, we saw the last couple of buffalo disappear into the bush in front of the other safari vehicle. Tobias turned in the direction they had disappeared and we tried stalking them for a while but they were really spooked and stayed well ahead of our vehicle. After one last eagle sighting it was time to head back to the lodge for lunch.
Toasted sandwiches for lunch again today. Trying to make lunch a modest amount, Mandy and I agreed to share a cheese toastie but asked for it with double the chips on the side. Ahem, something was lost in translation as we ended up with the sandwich with standard serve of chips on the side and TWO plates of chips. Oops! Despite the desire for a lighter lunch Mandy, Bernie and I polished off all the chips.
We had the option to go out on another safari this afternoon, on the other side of the river, in the Buffalo Core Area of the Bwabwata National Park. Hoping to see some big cats, seven of us opted for the afternoon safari drive. It was a hard call because the facilities at Ndhovu Safari Lodge we so beautiful it was very tempting to have a relaxing afternoon on the swinging day bed, listening out for hippos browsing in the river. In the end it was only Mandy and David who stayed behind.
We were motored across the river by boat and met two safari vehicles on the other side of the river. Our driver this afternoon was Sylvester. And the first animals that we saw were the common impala! We saw a brown snake eagle and … a whole lot of animals that we already saw this morning. We saw a bushbuck which was a new type of antelope for us.
Sylvester drove us through the military ruins of the abandoned Pica Pau army base. The base served the South African forces as a support point during their period in Namibia fighting against the freedom movement. As our game drive continued we saw elephants, vervet monkeys, red lechwes, a lappet-faced vulture, southern red-billed hornbills and a grey-headed kingfisher.
We stopped for another bush toilet opportunity and we were given water from the cooler to top us back up! As we started the drive back to the lodge we saw more elephants, black-winged stilts, a very cute baby elephant and an osprey sitting atop a tree being harassed by some smaller bird, who obviously thought the bird of prey was much too close to their home. And … more of the same, a waterbuck, reedbucks, even MORE elephants (so many elephants!) and, in the dying light, a sable antelope but, unfortunately, no big cats.
The sun had set by this time and we were making our way back to the boat in the twilight. We arrived back at the boat, clambered aboard and made the short crossing back to the lodge where Mandy told us she had enjoyed a pleasant afternoon watching and listening to the hippos in the section of the river near the deck.
No time to relax with dinner next on the agenda. Tonight we had some delicious, all too petite, beef tacos for entree. With main course being oryx stroganoff, I would have been much happier to have three or four more tacos because they were much better than the gamey stroganoff. I struggled through it but didn’t really enjoy it. First because it was game meat (not my preference) and second because, to me, it tasted quite a lot like last night’s butter chicken. Too spicy!
Steps: 8,024 (5.53kms)
