Botswana July 19, 2018

Miles of topcoat stacked on the side of the road making passing oncoming traffic a bit dodgy in the dust.

Due to heavy rains a while back parts of the road were flooded.

Eventually it became impassable with a flooded river blocking our way. I wanted Gerald to walk across the water to see if it was to deep to cross, but he declined. Perhaps the crocs laying on the far bank were a disincentive. But clearly, we could not go any further.

We backtracked and took a track around the lake through deep sand.

As we found our way around the edge of the lake we came across a pod of hippo relaxing on the opposite shore. Had the road we were on not been blocked we would have missed this.

We finally got around the lake and back into the road to Mbudi. No sign of any human habitation whatsoever. Passed a lot of elephant and Zebra and saw a Black Sable bound across the road in front of us.

We stopped to take photos and did not notice 4 Elephants come down to the water and were standing looking at us from about ten feet away. It’s amazing how an animal that large can move so quietly. Neither one of us heard a thing. We took pictures and quietly left. We both had to climb into the drivers side as the elephant was so close to the car we could not get in. Note the edge of the window at top right.

A Fish Eagle keeping a wary eye on us as we trundle by.

How Gerald found it I have no idea but we turned off the road onto two tracks leading into the bush and after a mile or so came upon the Mbudi camp offices which is just an open shed with no walls. Captain bounded ahead of us like a rabbit and pointed is in the direction of our Camp Site on the river bank. About a mile and a half from the office and totally isolated. Awesome.

Our camp clearing, could not really call it a camp site, was next to a large swamp. On the picture on the left you can see the Hippo paths through the swamp that they use to come ashore. Fortunately they did not while we were there. We did not see any Hippo in this swamp, bot on the following afternoon there was a her of elephant grazing on the far bank.

We got the tents up, relaxed, made dinner and were ready for bed once it got dark