EXPEDITION WILD
Okavango Delta, Botswana
The inland river delta and world heritage site.
Expedition Basics:
14 day wilderness trip into one of the private safari concession areas adjoining the world renowned Moremi Game Reserve.
180km traversed by boat and 100km on foot.
June 2019
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Our Destination:
Our trip departed from Maun, the main town and gateway to Botswana's northern wilderness, one of the most remarkable protected areas on our planet. This inland delta, unique as it is rare, where a major river terminates inland into a vast flooded swamp to form one of the great natural wonders known to man. A place known for its elephants and free roaming wildlife unmatched anywhere in Africa or possibly the world, a place where the people live everyday with wildlife, and have to compete for recourses just for survival, its a place to learn about what we all seem to have forgotten.
Our initial destination was Xakanaxa, on the northern boundary of the famous Moremi Game Reserve. This 5 hour road trip from Maun was longer than usual as we where pulling Grant's 7m aluminium boat that was being bounced around resulting in a number of short stops to re-tighten the strapping. At Xakanaxa we launched into the main Nqoga channel and we were off, heading west upstream to our destination Meekham Island 85km away. The Nqoga Channel is the main feeder to the Khwai River and the well know safari area it gives its namesake. We where heading away from Khwai outside the National Park into one of the main private safari concessions that bordered the park, hundreds of square kilometres of wilderness, no roads, no people. This is a rare and unique privilege to have such unrestricted access to this area.
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The Wilderness:
Our first camp was on a narrow treed island known as Meekam Island that extended into the main channel, which was quite unusual as it lacked the dense papyrus and reed beds normally separating the main channel from these islands. It later became clear that we where not the only ones who had noticed this and during our 3 day stay we had elephants passing literally through the camp and across the channel in front of us, it seems we had chosen a major elephant crossing point - which was not by accident! Meekham proved to be an awesome walking destination and our bird list shot up to over 120 birds with some local specials including Wattled Crane, Brown Firefinch, Lesser Jacana, Long-Toed Lapwing, Rosy-throated Longclaw.... on the mammal front we saw plenty of elephants, lechwe and reed buck which all seemed to be in good numbers, one loan Tsessebe that stood for a photo as we walk past and we where also fortunate to have two separate lion sightings, both times we unknowingly flushed them from their hidden mid day resting place.
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On the forth day we packed up camp and moved about 8km west along the main channel trying to get closer to the edge of the delta and “dry land”. We ended setting up camp just off the main channel after several failed attempts to get the boat closer to the edge of the delta. The current drought meant that the water levels where low and mainly concentrated in the main channel which just proved too much for our loaded boat.
Once settled into our new camp site we didn’t waste time setting off exploring the area on foot, walking from island to island through the many marshy swamps sometimes waist deep in water along worn elephant and hippo paths that connected these dry land islands together. After getting our bearings we embarked on a number of treks to reach the edge of the water, where the vast dry lands to the north meets the water. These walks proved to deliver all the challenges and rewards we had set out to find. Each day we would retrace our tracks working out the shortest, safest route through the swamp avoiding the deep dark water crossings as far as possible in order to reach the edge. This proved to be an adventure of a lifetime and we where rewarded by a breeding pair of Pel’s Fishing Owls with a juvenile, a lifer for Bruce who despite the many hundreds of hours in the bush has evaded him, so it was great to be part of this experience, and as it turned out we saw them a number of times each sighting being better than the last. I also have to mention our close encounter with the 3 male lions and the short standoff performance from one of the males who clearly was not impressed with our presence. We were also lucky to see Roan, waterbuck and yes impala the official welcoming committee of the dry land society.
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