The famous SHOEBILL STORK!!!! My god it is the hardest trek I have ever done in my life - never to be repeated....

Okay I am trying something knew here so hope it works. I am keeping a diary of sorts or should I say an itinerary (after the fact) of where we have been and what we have been doing - fingers crossed!

09 Jul Early up at the hide in the mahogoney tree to watch for sitatunga – we see 6 in total and also spot Chaplins Barbet (NOT) turns out it is Black Backed Barbet. Go have breakfast and then go for a walk around the park for a couple of hours. Go check out the hide a few times during the day and also take a walk down to the weir. Go for a game drive in the afternoon – hear shots fired at one stage and make a quick retreat out of the area (turns out it was poachers and the anti poaching unit got onto it quickly).

10 Jul I have a horrible cold again, so stay in bed. Garth & Martin go to the hide and spot sitatunga again. Depart Fibwe Camp at 9.50am and return to Wasa to pay park fees etc. Takes about ½ an hour to finally pay – vehicle $15 US per day, Non-residents $10 per person per day and residents $7 per person per day. Depart Kasanka at 11.15am. Drive to Livingstone Memorial spend about ½ an hour there. Arrive Lake Waka Waka at 3.30pm. Go for a walk beside the Lake. 68.4 miles total drive.

11 Jul Depart Lake Waka Waka at 8.30am (50,000KW per person per night) and arrive Ian’s place at Chikuni at 2.45pm. Kids all along the route yelling give me my pen, money, sweets, googles and shades!! Go for a drive around the plains where there are thousands of Black Lechwe and Wattled Cranes – stunning! Last 20km or so before Ian’s place (he calls the Gazza Strip)!¬! Have a lovely braai with Ian & Polly. Roads are pretty bad top speed of around 15km per hour.

12 Jul Go for an early morning game drive out into the plains again – also jump out and take a walk see a herd of 15 Tsessebe which we think is great!! Get back to Ian’s and it turns out that there is usually a herd of around 1000!!! Get to the boat station in the afternoon for our Shoebill expedition (200,000KW per person per trip). Banana boats which are alot more comfortable than a moccoro – we have Cotton & Manuel (ranger/guide). Pole up to Shoebill Camp which to be honest is a dive! Have a drink and then continue on up stream. Stop at a village to pick up to local guides in their own canoe (Tarzan & ??). Continue up stream until the water becomes too shallow to use boats. Get down to the bare feet and begin the walk/wade through the swamps/marshes to find the elusive Shoebill. Wading through disgusting water at times and up to your thighs at times. Very hard work and have to get taken across the river by canoe at one point. Seems a fisherman saw one, but the villagers had scared it off at it chomped through the fishing lines/nets. Martin finds it difficult walking in bare feet and after about 1 ½ hours – no Shoebill. Start making our way back to the boat when Tarzen points out poachers (with dogs after the lechwe). We think that they start walking us that way before we tell them we came to see Shoebill not poachers. All very difficult, no one tells you what is going on – Dee has a bit of a tantrum. At one point my binoculars are taken off me by Tarzen and he tells me to wait here – I see him disappearing into the swamps (never to be seen again?? Who knows). But no he goes up a tree to try and spot another bird for us, but the sun is getting low – too late today. Get back to the boat and start our way back to Chikuni – dark by the time we get back (after telling them we don’t want to call in at Shoebill Camp on the way home. We will try again tomorrow. Polly makes a lovely pasta dinner for us all – fabulous!

13 Jul Martin decides that he will stay at camp (feet too sore for a repeat trip)! Garth and Dee get dropped off at boat station at 6.30am. Ian & Polly are off to Chiundaponde for a couple of days so say goodbye before leaving. Make our way up stream without the stop at Shoebill Camp this time ($370US per person per night – can you believe it)! Once again pick up the 2 boys who guide you to the birds (hopefully we will be lucky today)! It is early in the morning and still quite cold so when we stop the boat we reluctantly take off our shoes, long trousers and jackets and then have to step into the cold murky water – ouch its bloody cold! So the trek begins. Our guide takes his pole from the boat with him and I make the remark to Garth that he doesn’t trust the people around there!! We walk and walk in about up to knee deep water at times and then we are put up on a dry mound of grass and told to wait – they all bugger off and leave us, disappear into the swamps. They return and tell us that we now have to walk through very deep water to get to the other side of the river. We get to a deep part which is up to their waists and they put the pole over this area and we are told to walk along the pole! Now the mystery is clear and we pass the test of pole walking first up only to have me fall off the pole later in the trek (camera and all). We get to an area of swampy reed beds which are literally floating on top of the water – some are thick and others very thin. At this stage Tarzen takes Garth’s hand and leads him whilst I have Cotton take mine. They make motions of walking very fast over this region which we try to do. I can only describe the feeling as trying to walk really fast on a huge bouncy castle, legs sort of up to your neck and trying to walk fast over the moving beds before sinking through. At times when we do sink through our guides drag us out quickly and pull us along. At one stage I get the giggles, you know the type when you just can’t stop. Cotton turns to me and says shish madam, shish madam and the more he says it the more I giggle. It is all just such a surreal feeling... are we really doing this. They have told us that they have found a bird, when I ask how far away they reply is “it’s not far” famous last words! On falling off the pole at one stage I am then almost up to my neck in water, but manage to keep my camera above water. They start to try and pull me up, but I am yelling the camera, the camera so one of them takes the camera, another sees that my binoculars are almost in the water and he grabs them and pulls them up – to Garth looking back it looks like they are pulling me up by the neck with my binoculars (oh to be a fly on the wall with a camera)! Whilst walking, wading falling through these reed beds we hear hippos all around us and they are very close at times – not a nice feeling. Finally we are told to go carefully, slowly and quietly and then we see the Shoebill – my God it is even more prehistoric looking than you can imagine and big, but the big beady eye is very disconcerting and he really stares at you. A big bird up to 1.4 metres in height and related to the Dodo I believe. Tarzen says see fire, fire, fire (meaning take pictures), well after all that with legs like jelly, shaking hands and hyperventilating it is very difficult to keep the camera still for photos, but we manage somehow, I think we both stopped breathing so that we could get the first pictures. After being with the Shoebill for about 5-10 minutes it takes to the air and I manage to get some good pictures in flight as well. We both look at each other and laugh, but the hippos are not happy with us being so close and let us know very loudly. We are asked if we want to see hippo, but we politely refuse as its not the ideal situation to spot hippo in – almost in their pool!! Whilst walking back Garth gets the first leach on his ankle and Cotton says sorry sir wait and proceeds to pull it off, none of your nice painless sprinkle with salt or anything like that just grab and rip it off your leg. I also get one on the way back and it takes about 4 tries to rip it off and boy it hurts. We finally get back to the boat and upon looking down at our legs we have about a billion paper cuts from our toes up to where our shorts come to and the blood is seeping out – not very pretty I assure you. Who cares we saw a shoebill. When we get back we are absolutely knackered and a welcome hot shower is fabulous, but that is when all the cuts sting like hell and start to bleed. After applying antiseptic spray and cream it feels like you have the worst sunburn ever, but we saw a shoebill. It is a trek not for the faint hearted and my recommendation would be a pair of waders if you want to try to see this incredible bird. For me awesome and stunning, but a once in a life time experience and never to be repeated. Late that afternoon we go for a game drive on the plains and once again marvell at the herds of black lechwe and flocks of wattled cranes.

Will try and finish this off a little later - just going for dinner now. Love and hugs to you all xxx