Chobe National Park - Day 9

Zebs on the flood plain. They seem to only hangout close to Ihaha. 

Today we leave Chabe National park so packed up and ready to go at 5.40 in the hopes of catching the resident leopard and her sub-adult cubs. She was elusive though so we changed tactics to follow up in the lions near to camp that had been roaring in the night.But they were also nowhere to be seen. The jackals were on the last of the zebra carcass along with a few vultures which told us that the lions were no longer around to guard the kill.

Plenty of plains game, just a bit far away

Back on the floodplain and we meandered slowly along the river looking for signs of leopards and lions but the river was quiet. Even the antelope hadn't shown up yet; only a couple of warthogs were around chomping on the plain grass. 

We decided to head back on the main road and back to camp to do a round looking for the leopards. No luck around the area but we did find a lovely herd of elephants that were drinking at the river in beautiful sunlight. Despite having seen elephants all around this was a special sightings in such stunning light and we enjoyed watching them drink.

Lovely herd of elephants near camp

After a while we heard a knocking sound and were trying to work out if that was a bird or something knocking on our car. Turns out it was a Namibian fisherman that was coming along on his mokoro knocking on the side of the boat with his pole to warn the elephant that he was coming. Even closer and he began whistling as well.

It's a dance I am sure they've been doing for years and the elephants moved off the river altogether. There wasn't much alarm but definitely they reacted, probably both parties wanting to keep out each other's way. With the elephants gone we left the area and started back down the river but by now it was getting hot and we could see more and more elephants starting to head down to the water.

Found the buffalo herd again

We decided that we were done with Chobe for the day as we planned to restock with a few provisions and then head to Senyati for the next 2 days in the hopes of catching the elephants coming to drink at the underground hide. 

We decided at the last moment that we wanted to go back to the park the next day instead of staying the whole day at Senyati so Dru quickly sorted out the paperwork at the gate for an extra day and then we drove to Kasane to restock. The cap for the water tank on Sudesh's car had gone missing so we headed to Kazungula to the car hire company to sort that out which they were able to do quickly.

  

The lead buffalo arrived with his own cleaning crew. 

We made good time to Senyati and arrived earlier than expected but luckily our campsite had already been cleaned so we registered, paid and pulled into our campsite to have lunch. We spoke to a couple of guys that we had met in the park but it seemed that the elephants weren't coming to the waterhole until after dark. 

That didn't leave much to do except chill out while it was hot and hope the elephants arrived while it was still light. Sudesh was leaving in the morning so he had some rearranging of the car to do which took him most of the afternoon, while we chilled out on one of the benches at the waterhole, watching nothing in particular but hoping that the elephants would come. 

Unfortunately the elephants were missing and we worried that we wouldn't see any despite the assurances by the receptionist virtually guaranteeing them.

Local Gin and tonic and local wildlife, Africa has its own formula. 

By now Sudesh had finished his repack and joined us. We decided to taste the local favourite - Senyati gin and Dru was just waiting for them at the bar when we spotted the first buffalo. And then another, and another and another...

They just kept coming

The herd was almost as big as the one we'd seen in Chobe, all plodding towards the waterhole. At first they didn't drink from the main waterhole where the hide is, but chose to drink right in front of us at the overflow, but eventually a few drank at the hide and Dru and Sudesh went down to take a few photos.

Buffalo by the hundreds in Senyati

Nice low angle from the hide

The herd kept coming, and then the front crew started leaving and the back of the herd just joined them so didn't actually drink any water. Still it was great to get something drink at last light.

Once the herd and our gin was gone, we headed back to the campsite to start the braai. Luckily for us our campsite had a view of the waterhole and it was only about an hour later when we saw the first elephant arrive. So of course we left the fire to go check them out, including getting a few nighttime elephants shots from the underground hide.

Up close and personal views from the under ground deck. 

And the elephant herds didn't stop coming. One after the other the families arrived, waited their turn to drink and then left. Eventually we had to get back to our braai but had our dinner while we could see elephants in the background drinking - quite a spectacular way to end the evening.