Page 17 - Cape-Camera-July-August-2021

Cape Camera July/August 2021

After our three nights, we left after breakfast for Lloyds Camp in
Savute. The tar road passes through the Chobe Game Reserve
for about 50 km. Here we had to avoid a few elephants in the
road as well as warthogs crossing over from one side to the oth-
er. Just before the Ngoma Border Post and the bridge over the
Chobe River the road turned left towards Savute. The first 37 km
of this stretch of road is tarred, built by the Chinese a few years
ago. After that the nature of the route changes and an arduous
sandy track takes you to the last 130 km, through Goho Gate
and into the Savute National Park and finally to Camp Savute
Campsite, previously named Lloyd’s Camp, which is now an up-
market lodge in the same area.

River edge Northgate Campsite
got bored and sat up and brought the two testosterone driven
rams back to reality. I haven’t even mentioned the elephant
herds and zebra! We also traveled north regularly to Pump Pan
which is great for elephant and lion sightings, and further to
Harvey’s pans which is good for elephant and buffalo sightings.

Savute Roadblock
Camp Savute is simply fabulous and run by SKL Camps. One
has to remember where you are when judging. Spotlessly clean
and almost everything works. We had regular visits into our
campsite by a huge bull elephant during the daylight hours and
rather large and scary spotted hyenas after dark. Advice to the
unwary …. leave nothing vaguely edible out when retiring for
the night. The hyenas will destroy it if unable to carry it away! I
know this and so we were safe.
Deep conversation at Harveys
We were onlookers to a jackal having a long, deep and mean-
ingful conversation with an elephant skull, next to one of the
pans at Harvey’s.
Sadly, after all this excitement, we eventually had to leave for
Moremi (I would never have dreamed of placing ‘Moremi’ and
‘sadly’ in a single sentence before).
The route to Moremi and the Khwai River is a very arduous and
sandy 106 km. We had to rescue an unfortunate traveler who
had fallen prey to the deep sand, before we could continue on
our way. This is the rule of the bush, always stop to help because
you never know when it will happen to you, again!
Before reaching Bridge, aka Khwai River Bridge, the stretch
along the Khwai River, in the community area, is usually very
Visitor in Camp Savute productive but the river was in serious flood and the routes
were mostly inaccessible. We saw plenty elephant, zebra and
The area surrounding the campsite and the drives were fabu- bokkies but getting into a position from which to photograph
lously productive, both visually and for wildlife photographic them was challenging.
opportunities. There were plenty of drinking holes but luckily Our campsite was right on the river’s edge and for the whole
very little mud. The vegetation was lush and green and the grass four nights we had a pair of ‘dagga boys’ as company, wading
tall but we still saw the cats. André was completely captivated. through the water and eating water lilies and such. There was
Oh Yes! And lots of sand! And no people … What a joy! also a large bull elephant and his Askari (loosely translated into
We found the most productive area, photographically speaking, shield bearer or more accurately soldier or policeman) that
to be around Marabou Pan, where we witnessed a coalition of were regularly picking their way through our campsite.
two impressive male cheetahs hunt and kill an impala ram. The One evening, after the sun had set and darkness had fallen and
very next day we almost literarily bumped into a young leop- after the braai fire had been lit, André announced that he was
ard coming down to a small pond to drink. André was beside going to walk to the showers, some two hundred meters away,
himself with excitement and I can report that this young cat while I tendered the fire. While quietly contemplating the com-
is now officially the most photographed leopard at that water plexities of my brandy and coke, I looked up from the fire and
hole? Not to be outdone, on our last day, we found a small pride glanced towards the path to the ablution block and there she
of lions, a short-tailed male with a beautiful black mane, two was, a huge spotted hyena sniffing around the entrance door
bearded sub-adult males and two adult females drinking and to our caravan. I expressed indignation, as one does on such
lolling about Marabou Pan. We watched the two females stalk a an occasion, and without much hurry she shuffled off into the
pair of sparring impala rams, before one of the sub-adult males

Cape Town Photographic Society 16