Moremi GR - Day 6

Best way to end the day is an open fire braai 

With the plan to get into Moremi as early as possible, we were up at 5am to try to get out of Magotho by 5.30am.  A quick stop on the way to the toilet gave us a sighting that we hadn’t seen in 20 years - a springhare! 

This strictly nocturnal creature looks like the African version of a kangaroo with powerful hind legs and a long black tipped tail. We’ve only seen them in the Kalahari at night so it was awesome to catch one bounding across the road, just a pity we weren’t able to get a shot.

The drive didn’t feel too long and we arrived at an unmanned North gate a little after 6.30 am, so straight through for the game drive with the idea to pay later.

There are 2 options to go from the gate - either go right and do the drive to hippo pools or go left and do the river drive.  We opted for the latter option as this would take us to opposite Magotho and where we’d seen the lioness and heard the lions roaring last night.

The drive is very pretty, through wooded areas and flood plains, but despite plenty of game, we couldn’t find the cats, although we did find a honey badger digging around in first light.

A couple of wattled cranes were a real highlight for us as we’d last seen them in Moremi years ago and this time they were close and in good light.

Wattled Cranes, we have only seen them up here. 

The place they were foraging for food is also a landing for animals to drink and from 1 elephant there, over the next hour or so a few herds arrived with probably 2 dozen elephants drinking at the water giving us some wonderful entertainment.

After the elephant show we meandered back towards the gate to pay. And the good news was that they could accommodate us at Khwai camp which took care of tonight.

Dru found out from the wildlife guys that the lions that usually hang out around the camp area were actually outside the park and had killed a buffalo.

We took a drive through the khwai village but by this time it was noon and lions were nowhere to be found so we headed back to our wooded campsite on the Khwai river for lunch with a plan to hit the hippo pools road in the afternoon.

The 12km drive on the main road to Hippo Pools is a bit boring though sparse mopane woodland but it does get a bit better close to the Dombo hippo pool.

Unfortunately, other than a big lake, there isn’t much there. Maybe half a dozen hippos popped up out of the water when we arrived and a few crocodiles were sunning themselves on the edge of the pool, but other than that there wasn’t much around so after a couple of pics we headed back, this time along the river byroads.

It was pretty hot in the mid afternoon along the floodplain and we caught a few plains game and elephants drinking at the waters, but we came across vultures in the air and on trees - there had to be something worth while.

Hooded Vulture, usually the last on a kill

And sure enough, under one of the trees with vultures were 3 lions eating. They must have just killed something and were still eating their prize, enough to attract the vultures.

It was a really poor position in terribly harsh light but it was great to find our own lions. We decided to move to the other side of the tree where there was a pool of water, hoping that the lions would want to drink after eating and that would be in awesome golden light.

Lechwe are usually in or near water

The plan was good but the lions didn’t play ball and in the end we had to leave without getting any better shots of the lions. But it was good to find our own cats.

We meandered back to camp where we had to put in our remaining diesel, get showered and sort out our dinner plans.

The African Fish Eagle is a legend around here

It was a really quiet night in terms of animals with only a quick look at a honey badger as he trotted by our camp. Unfortunately not as quiet on the man made side with a water pump and a generator running during the evening. Finally around 9pm they shut off and we had a quietly peaceful rest of the evening.