Our first night camping in the wild.  No fences, animals free to wander in and out of the campsite at will.  Now we were glad we had opted to take roof tents and not sleep on the ground.  There were no Lions or Leopards here (allegedly), but Hyena, Jackals and of course, Baboons are an ever present camp nuisance.



The animals are clearly well protected here.  While they are alert, they are not easily spooked, and the Impala allow one to approach to within 50 feet.



It was hard to get closer to the Rhino, and the most prudent distance we could manage was about 200 yards from this herd.  Still close enough to count the Ox-peckers on their backs.  The Rhino were totally oblivious to our presence, which, considering the formidable armament of those horns, was quite appropriate.



Late afternoon viewing rewarded us with this close encounter with an Impala ewe, who paused long enough for her portrait, before slipping off into the scrub.



This was one of the few Game Reserves to allow game viewing from the rooftop, testimony to the fact that the big cats weren't a threat here.  Needless to say, roof space was something to fight over.



One last vestige of civilization was still to disappear, the soda cans.  Little did they know that once their meagre supply had run out, there were no stores to buy more from, we would be relying on the water we carried with us in the 80 litre tanks on each vehicle, or maybe the sombre expressions had been triggered by that news.



Tomorrow we planned to cross the 100's of miles of arid Magadigadi Salt Pans and camp at Kubu Island.  Without GPS we were likely to have a difficult time of navigating through that terrain, so maybe the girls were visualising being lost, never to see a mobile phone or TV set again.


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Permalink | Posted by: Ian at Saturday, September 4th, 2004 20:34:50 | Location: Rhino Park, Botswana | Category:  Botswana Safari 

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