Chapter 3 - Into the Okavango

Early the next morning we bounced into town in the truck and split into two groups to fly into the Okavango Delta. The first group will fly in at 9am and we will go in the second group at 10. We while away the time drinking real coffee at the cafe over the road from the airport and watching the goats and people go by. Maun is a real outback town - it's dry, incredibly dusty, there are 4WD everywhere, people park all over the place and yet will sit and wait patiently for the goats to cross the road.

Finally the time came for us to go. Our pilots were two Kiwis who looked about 14.... and they were both only 18 anyway, getting their flying hours up. As I got in we were reminded to watch our heads -of course when they said this I lifted mine up and clouted my skull on an air vent - had an egg-sized lump within minutes! So a slight concussion to go with a severe feeling of trepidation about going on this little plane!! My fellow passengers keep patting me on the knee and asking if I'm ok... do I look that pale? do I look like I'm about to faint? probably...LOL

However once we're off and in the air it's all worth it.

The Okavango Delta is one of the world’s largest inland water systems. It's headwaters start in Angola’s western highlands, with numerous tributaries joining to form the Cubango river, which then flows through Namibia (where it's called the Kavango) and finally enters Botswana, where it is then called the Okavango.

Millions of years ago the Okavango river used to flow into a large inland lake called Lake Makgadikgadi (now Makgadikgadi Pans). Tectonic activity and faulting interrupted the flow of the river causing it to backup and form what is now the Okavango delta. This has created a unique system of water ways that now supports a vast array of animal and plant life in what would have otherwise been a dry Kalahari savanna.

The delta’s floods are fed from the Angolan rains, which start in October and finish sometime in April. The floods only cross the border between Botswana and Namibia in December and reach the bottom end of the delta (Maun) sometime in July, taking almost nine months from the source to the bottom. This slow meandering pace of the flood is due to the lack of drop in elevation, the rivers drop a little more than 60 metres over a distance of 450 kilometres. The delta’s water deadends in the Kalahari – via the Botetle river, with over 95 per cent of the water eventually evaporating.

During the peak of the flooding the delta’s area can expand to over 16,000 square kilometres, shrinking to less than 9,000 square kilometres in the low period. As we fly in we can see the delta below us, vast swampy areas with rivulets snaking through them. Utterly fantastic. This is what it looks like from the air.

We start our descent into the Gunn's Camp airstrip. I've forgotten how scared I was in the exhilaration of the flight. There are zebras to the left of the runway and as we make our final approach baboons and warthog scatter. One warthog remains, strolling along the side of the airstrip to greet us.

The plane reloads and disappears in a cloud of dust. We stroll across the airstrip to the water, where there are three mokoros, traditional canoes, waiting to take us to the camp. Two to a mokoro, we set off through the reeds and waterlilies. We feel like we're a million miles from civilisation, it's utterly peaceful and beautiful as we glide quietly through the reeds, with just the occasional comment from the polers as we go along, pointing out birds, waterlilies and frogs.

We arrive at the camp about 20 minutes later, where the rest of the group are waiting for us. We're next to the Moremi Game Reserve and the whole area is unfenced, so Craig explains the camp safety rules:

• watch out for warthogs in the toilets - they like to sleep in there and pull the pipes out to get water. Make sure the gate at the entrance to the toilets is shut well!
• If you need to go to the toilet in the night, wait on the balcony first and listen. If there's an elephant or hippo between you and the toilets, there's a gezunder in the tent!
• make sure all doors are zipped tight or the baboons will get in and ransack your room.

sigh. we really are in Africa!! We sit on the balcony after lunch, looking out onto the delta.
Michael spotted about 7 elephants off in the distance, probably about a kilometre away. About 4pm we set off in the mokoros again.

Our polers keep a watchful eye out for hippos or elephants, taking us through completely new channels if they see anything untoward. Although we were heading for the hippo pool, there are none there, and so we head towards the crashing of elephants. The hippos will have been scared off by the elephants, and will be hiding somewhere in the reeds.

We heard the elephants long before we saw them. As we came quietly around a bend, there they were - an older bull and a young bull elephant bathing and playing in the water, about 20m away from us. We sat and watched them - swinging their trunks across the water to splash the other one, just mucking about. There were three others on the left, one to the right on an island and two in front. It was a bachelor herd, so lots of beautiful ivory tusks gleaming in the afternoon light. After these two finished playing and emerged from the water, we poled over to a little island and stood watching the herd, with our guides telling us all about them.

A young male headed towards us - we bunched into a tight group and stood still until he decided we were ok and ambled away. It was a breathtaking experience. As we poled back to camp in the dwindling light, we could see where the elephants had been - it looked like a tank had been through it!

As the sun set over the delta, we enjoyed a meal prepared by the lovely cooks and sat chatting around the campfire. Craig called us into the kitchen to see the Spotted Genet - one of several that visit on a regular basis scrounging for food.