Where did all the water go…?!

What did I see on my trip to Muchenje Safari Lodge in Botswana? Well, not much—apart from lions, leopards, bateleurs, a grey-tailed mongoose, a side-striped jackal, an aardwolf, a spitting cobra, a swallow-tailed bee-eater and 20 male impalas chasing a single female!

Getting There

It was my birthday on 13 May, and I decided to have my usual party at The Queen Adelaide in Putney on the nearest Saturday, the 11th—which just happened to be the day I was due to fly out to Botswana.

I was so tired (and drunk!) afterwards that I forgot my AirPods case, didn’t change my shoes or shirt and almost missed my flight to Jo’burg! In the end , it was an hour late taking off, but we made up half of that during the journey.

Panos, the cabin steward, let me off the plane early so I could catch my onward flight to Kasane, and I even had time to buy the latest AirPods Pro (with a USB-C cable) at the airport. 

One of the guides drove me to the lodge, where I had lunch, moved in to Room 12, had my beanbag filled in five minutes flat, went on a game drive and almost immediately saw a leopard stalking an injured impala…!

Daily Life

The routine was pretty much the same as when I stayed at Muchenje in May and October, 2022. You can read all about it in my previous blog posts (here and here). The main difference was that the place was under new management. Toff and Kiddy had been replaced by a local woman called Evelyn.

She was perfectly nice, but I missed the previous managers. They were the nicest people in the world, and I loved chatting to Toff over a beer or being welcomed back from a game drive by Kiddy.

I also missed a few of the guests. I was lucky to meet some lovely people in 2022, and it’s always hard to go back to a place when so many memories involve people I’ll never see again!

On this trip, the same cycle started all over again. I made new friends, had a great time together and then had to say goodbye! Most guests only stayed two or three nights, but I was there for nearly three weeks, so I met a LOT of people…

The lodge was very busy, and there were enough guests to justify a boat ride almost every day. However, the disadvantage of going on game drives with other guests all the time was that I couldn’t spend as much time with the wildlife. Not many people want to wait 20 minutes for a lilac-breasted roller to take off—and a couple of guests didn’t see the funny side…!

This was my daily routine:

• 0530 Alarm

• 0545 Walk to main area for juice

• 0600-0800 Morning game drive

• 0800-1000 Upload and rate pictures

• 1000-1100 Drive to Kasane

• 1100-1400 Boat ride (including picnic lunch)

• 1400-1800 Game drive

• 1800-1930 Upload and rate pictures (over drinks and nibbles at the bar!)

• 1930-2100 Dinner (well, I skipped dinner most nights, but that’s when it was!)

• 2100 Walk back to my room to rate pictures

• 1000 Go to bed

Occasionally, I went on a night drive after dinner, a short trip to have sundowners in front of the lodge or an evening game drive. The light was great at sunset, but I couldn’t do the evening game drive and the boat ride, so I eventually decided to do the full day for the rest of my trip. Quantity over quality…

In addition, one of the owners, Shaun, had given me a long ‘shot list’ of everything he wanted me to photograph:

1. Breakfast/lunch at Ihaha Pavilion overlooking the jetty.

2. Boma dinner outdoors

3. Various activities, including early morning walk, early morning game drive, all day safari with boat from Kasane, afternoon safari, sundowner safari for afternoon latecomers, night time game drive and added Ihaha activities.

4. Tribal museum visit with Paramount Chief Sinvula III, Muniteenge (king) of the Vekuhane Nation (baSubia tribe).

5. Local fruit and vegetable farm

6. Mabele Primary School for pictures of the Head, Deputy Head, Secretary and PTA Chairperson

7. 500-600 pictures and 50 or more videos of animals, birds, lizards, bugs, butterflies, shongololoes (millipedes), dung beetles, grasshoppers, locusts, trees (muchenje tree/African ebony/jackalberry, wooden banana/mountain mahogany, bush willow, mopane, combretum, woolly caper bush, flat-topped acacia/umbrella tree, mangosteen, marula, teak, knobthorn, baobab etc)

8. New Toyota Land Cruiser game viewer, old Land Rovers

9. Staff (front office, guides, maintenance staff, laundry ladies, room ladies, bar staff, restaurant staff and waiters, Head Chef Shakes and his chefs, helpers and scullery, security staff)

10. Gardens and the two gardeners

11. Main lodge and chalet pics, inside and out.

12. Sunsets

13. Pod of over 70 hippos stranded in a pool at Kavimba

14. Sunset by firepit

Evelyn and Jost helped me cover all the bases, and I managed to get most of it done during my trip. The hardest part was meeting the king. It was the first time I’d ever had to speak to royalty, and I was a bit nervous! There was a lot of protocol involved, and I didn’t want to offend anyone or cause a diplomatic incident!

Jost tried to tell me when to kneel and clap, but I couldn’t quite understand what he was saying when we were in the king’s office, so I didn’t clap when I was supposed to. Fortunately, the king just smiled and indicated what I had to do. Phew!

It was the first time I’d met a Paramount Chief, so I had to be told to bow and clap at certain points in the ceremony. I was also the official photographer, so I was pretty busy…!

They’d put up a marquee in the garden, and there were about 30 or 40 guests trying to cope with the heat. Toff, Shaun, the Paramount Chief and one or two other Important People gave speeches while I snapped away, trying to be as discreet as possible…!

There was also some singing and dancing from a choir, some kids from the local school and the local staff. However, it didn’t go on too long, and I still managed to go out on game drives in the morning and in the afternoon.

Wildlife

I visited Muchenje at the same time of year during the Wet Season in 2022, but this time was different. Apparently, it hadn’t rained enough in Angola for the Chobe to flood, so the river was reduced to a trickle in some places rather than a five-mile-wide torrent!

As a result, there were fewer animals and far fewer birds than I’d seen on my previous trip. Game drives were pretty quiet, especially in the morning, and the white-faced whistling ducks had almost disappeared.

Predators

Although you hardly ever see cheetahs in Chobe, I was quite lucky with my other predator sightings, and I saw several lions, leopards and hyenas feeding on carcases.

When I visited Muchenje in May 2022, I didn’t see a single leopard, but on this trip, I saw them almost every day, either lying in trees or patrolling the riverfront.

I also saw quite a few lions and even a couple of young cubs. I saw vividly remember watching a male and female lion crossing the river at dawn in golden light…

Finally, I came across the odd hyena, and I saw a whole clan or ‘cackle’ of hyenas at a zebra kill.

Prey

There were also plenty of other animals to spot and photograph. The impalas were everywhere, as usual, and it was the rutting season, so there was plenty of action! On one game drive, I saw 20 males chasing after a single female…!

I saw elephants every day. The daily boat ride was a great chance to see them drinking from the river and giving themselves dust or mud baths.

There were also plenty of young calves, and I could usually rely on them to be cute and funny as they rolled in the mud or struggled to stand up.

One of the other most common animals was the chacma baboon, and the young ones were almost as sweet as the baby elephants!

The rest of the animals consisted mostly of greater kudus, southern giraffes and Cape buffaloes with the odd mongoose here and there…

Birds

There are usually more birds in the wet season than the dry, but the lack of rain had reduced their numbers considerably. I saw the usual collection of African fish eagles, African darters, reed cormorants and African jacanas on my boat cruises, but there were very few of them, and I didn’t see many lilac-breasted rollers or bee-eaters on the game drives either. Shame…

Verdict

It was good to go back to Muchenje Safari Lodge, and I met some lovely people, including Mike, Kayla, Marilyn, Chris and Gabriela. Crucially, I was also happy with my photographs. I managed to take 12 shots that made it into my all-time Top 100, and I can’t remember making too many howlers!

And that should’ve been it. I should’ve been home by now, playing tennis at my club and sorting out a mountain of Amazon deliveries. However, BA cancelled my flight due to brake failure, and I had to spend the night in Jo’burg at the Birchwood Hotel.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I realised that Kruger National Park wasn’t far away. I’d been planning to go there in September anyway, so here I was with a great opportunity to spend a couple more weeks on safari.

I spoke to Evans, the Transport Manager, and he agreed to drive me all the way there and also help booking all the lodges. I started off with three nights at Kambaku River Lodge near the Maleplane Gate to Kruger National Park, and then I booked a week at Arathusa Safari Lodge, which is where I am now, sitting by the infinity pool watching the hippos on the island.

I leave tomorrow (10 June) for three nights at Simbavati River Lodge and then move on to Kings Camp for two more nights before flying home on 15 June. If you read my next few blog posts, I’ll tell you all about it…!

Butcher’s Bill

1 x Sony Tough 160 GB Cfexpress Type A memory card

1 x Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses

1 x Emery board

Species List

Animals

Aardwolf

African bush elephant 

Ant-lion

Banded mongoose

Black-backed jackal 

Cape buffalo 

Chacma baboon 

Chobe bushbuck

Common warthog 

Common waterbuck

Greater kudu

Grey-tailed mongoose 

Ground squirrel 

Hippopotamus 

Impala 

Leopard 

Lion

Nile crocodile 

Plains zebra 

Red lechwe

Roan antelope 

Sable antelope

Scrub hare

Side-striped jackal

Slender mongoose 

Southern giraffe 

Spitting cobra

Spotted hyena

Steenbok

Tree squirrel 

Vervet monkey

Water monitor 

Birds

African darter

African fish eagle 

African hawk-eagle 

African jacana

African openbill

African pied wagtail 

African sacred ibis 

African scops owl 

African spoonbill 

African wattled lapwing 

Bateleur

Black heron

Black-winged stilt

Blacksmith lapwing

Red-cheeked cordon-bleu/Blue waxbill

Brown snake-eagle

Cape glossy starling 

Cape turtle dove/Ring-necked dove

Cattle egret

Coppery-tailed coucal

Crested francolin 

Eastern yellow-billed hornbill

Egyptian goose 

Fork-tailed drongo

Giant kingfisher 

Glossy ibis 

Goliath heron 

Great egret

Great white cormorant 

Greater blue-eared starling 

Grey go-away-bird

Grey heron

Grey-headed gull

Hamerkop 

Helmeted guineafowl

Honey buzzard

Kori bustard 

Lilac-breasted roller 

Little bee-eater 

Little egret

Little sparrowhawk 

Long-toed lapwing

Magpie shrike 

Marabou stork

Pale chanting goshawk 

Pied kingfisher 

Purple heron

Racket-tailed roller

Red-billed oxpecker

Red-billed spurfowl

Red-necked spurfowl

Reed cormorant 

Southern ground-hornbill 

Southern red-billed hornbill

Spur-winged goose

Squacco heron

Swallow-tailed bee-eater 

Tawny eagle 

Tropical boubou

Water thick-knee

Wattled lapwing

Whiskered tern 

White-backed vulture 

White-breasted cormorant 

White-crowned lapwing

White-faced whistling-duck

White-headed vulture 

White-helmeted shrike

Wire-tailed swallow 

Yellow-bellied greenbul 

Yellow-billed stork 

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

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