A Day of Rest

Day 7 Friday March 7th 2008
In Moremi Game Reserve

In the early hours of the morning we were woken by a loud snuffling sound. It was a hippo! He was huge and hungry and wandered around the truck taking an odd bite out of the few patches of grass around the area. Simon shone the light on him very briefly, and then he was gone. I tried to get a photo, but all I got was an excellent print of the mosquito netting of the tent. Grrrr... So you'll have to put up with this snap of one of the hippo's footprints that I took when we got up.

Simon wanted to clean up the undercarriage of the truck a little, so we decided to stay put and have a relaxing day. He removed all the grass and debris from the truck and undercarriage of the truck, emptied the water out of the headlights, and did some general maintenance. The truck was trashed, covered in mud and dirt and Simon removed enough muck from underneath to fill a horsebox! It was only days later that we realised the front number plate had been torn off. If you're in the Okavango any time in the near future, let us know if you find it!

We met a delightful British couple who were camping about 300m/984 feet from us, Jane and Adam. Fine British names! Anyway, they'd driven up through Namibia, then gone to Chobe before coming to Moremi. They had tales of bad roads and water hazards too! They said that they had seen no game at all in Moremi, apart from elephant and impala, and they'd chatted with a professional game drive from one of the lodges who had also seen nothing. It was a very disappointing visit for folks this time. We agreed that it was most probably a combination of the construction work and plentiful water that kept them in hiding. The Botswana booking office had also not told them of the construction work being done and we all felt that, at the very least, we should have been warned at the gate when we were filling out our paperwork! Very poor show! Boo to the Botswana National Parks!

Well, we may not have seen any large game, but we were kept entertained by some of the smaller animals. Two squirrels chatted and chased each other around us all morning, and then I spotted this little guy under the truck. He was totally mesmerised by the undercarriage, and I couldn't figure out why. I had just snapped this photo when another squirrel jumped down from the undercarriage and the two ran away! Simon said he had seen the other squirrel climb up over the tyre and into the wheel arch at the front of the truck. I snapped this photo just before the back wheels, so the little guy had had a ball running around the undercarriage! Only once we had loaded the photos onto the computer did I notice that I had managed to get two creatures into this pic. Do you see the second one?

We were also amused by feathered entertainers. There was a dove or pigeon, I couldn't get a clear view of it, whose call sounded like laughter - absolutely heaven! I chased it around a tree trying to snap a photo, but no luck. Later on, this cheeky fellow hopped around very close to us, even up to the door of the truck and peered in. I wondered if he would jump in for a look-see, but he didn't. Simon was eating pistachio nuts and he flicked a shell at the bird, who promptly grabbed it and flew off! I really don't think it would have made good nesting material, so I cannot imagine what he would have wanted it for, but he seemed very proud of himself when he nabbed it!

We also had a few LBJ's around us. I don't know what they're called, but in South Africa we call them Little Brown Jobs (LBJ's) and they are very cute and inquisitive. There were no crumbs around the camp and we weren't carrying bird seed, so had nothing to offer, but he checked us out thoroughly to see if we were possibly hiding some tasty tidbit!

I snapped a few other birds that were in and around the camp, but the photos didn't come out as well as I had hoped so I'm not posting them. Apart from that, we saw no wildlife at all. Until about 5pm that is ...

With loud roars and shouts, a troop of people drove into the camp. Shouting and swearing, they manoeuvred their trucks into half a laager, set up their tents in the other half, unpacked most of a forest off the roof racks, fitted fluorescent lights into the trees so that daylight lasted an extra four hours, and then settled down to some serious drinking. When they did finally all go to bed, to add insult to injury, the night silence was shattered by stentorian snores!

Unable to sleep, Simon and I were up before dawn and ready to leave shortly after sun-up. The British couple drove off just before we did, obviously as disturbed as we, followed soon after by the only other couple camping in the vicinity.

What an ignominious end to our ghastly Moremi experience!