Elephant crossing the channel in the Delta in front of us - awesome!

Well sorry I ran out of money yesterday! We are on pay as you go here in Botswana and it is proving a little more than we expected.

So anyway we got to the Mboma Boat Station after plenty of wildlife encounters, the interesting one a breeding herd of elephants when we came around the corner.. fortunately Clint was driving (as we were towing the trailer) and no incidents which was great. Had lunch at the station and then loaded our things on board for our second boat trip into the Delta for the night.

Shaba was our boatman/guide and we had a fabulous trip out to the campsite. He put up a tent for us with 'beds' in it and also dug a loo with a stool toilet chair which is a bit of luxury in the bush! We collected some firewood for our fire later that evening and then set off on a boat safari.

What a fabulous place the Delta is, especially when you get deep inside. The bird life is always spectacular and the wildlife stunning. Lots of elephants around this time which is lovely, also red lechwe. We had sundowners on a lagoon with hippos popping up in the distance. Just perfect!!!

Got back to camp and Clint started making a wonderful dinner as usual. We sat around the camp fire and were all mesmerised as one is. Had a lovely night and turned in for bed. Woke in the middle of the night to find an elephant munching the trees and bushes close by to our tent - fantastic.

Baines Camp at the pans - close to Nxai Pan fabulous campsite.

The lions were still following the herd, but had not made a kill at this stage. So all through the night they had just been letting the buffalo keep a few steps ahead and walking into the wind, the buffs still had no idea that the pride was there. The two males were missing we presumed off doing their territorial things or sleeping under a bush somewhere!

We went off to Paradise Pools to check out that area, loads of dead trees, small pools of water and just an amazing area. We saw quite alot of wildlife including hippo, impala, red lechwe, kudu and loads of birds. We started to head back to camp and were told by Brad (a friend of Clint's) that the 2 males had taken a buffalo calf at the side of the runway when the herd crossed. When we arrived they were lying down and one appeared to be sleeping whilst the other was eating - only one problem the sleeping one was obviously lying on his half of the kill! It was really interesting watching the one try and pull it out from under his brother, but to no avail and there was a bit of growling at each other.

We left and then carried on looking around the reserve. Moremi is a fabulous reserve and there are loads of elephants around, lots of bulls who was so relaxed and great to watch. Also some breeding herds that you have to watch more carefully as the Mum's are very overprotective of their babies - more likely to get aggressive and charge than the old bulls (unless of course they are in musth).

We had a fabulous time and started out early next morning to get to Mboma Boat Station as we were doing another boat trip, this time to the islands. It was a bit of a hectic ride there as the road is quite rough and a couple of bridges to cross. These consist of logs up and over the waterways a little hair raising when you weigh around 5 tonnes!

Will get back to you soon quickly publishing once the photos upload.

Meerkats in the Kalahari - we stayed at Deception Valley (yipee it did work)!

Well I am trying to upload some photos onto the blog at the moment, but it looks like it is not going to work so sorry for that and it seems that you are just going to have to have me prattling on about our trip.

We got back to Clint & Pieter's place and I was able to have a lovely hot shower whilst last minute things were being arranged. We then took off for Moremi Game Reserve where we were spending 2 nights at the Xakanaxa Public Campsite. We got into camp and set up and then went for a game drive.

We came across a huge herd of buffalo and following along behind the herd (unbeknown to them) was a beautiful pride of lions. We managed to get some fantastic photos of the 2 males and also the females and sub adults, I think in all there was about 14 of them - fabulous to follow and watch.

We had a fabulous dinner that night (lamb shanks in the potjie) and got up early to see how the lions got on during the night.

I will quickly publish this so that I manage to get at least one photo on.

We had a good old laugh on the way back as the beaters were driving the safari vehicle back ahead and every time we caught them up we had to stop for a beer. We also stood and admired the fabulous huge big sky above which is one of the things that is magical about Africa - so much bigger, clearer and full of stars than in the UK.

Well we had about 30kms to go along the cut line when the safari vehicle stopped and waited for us - they thought they were running out of fuel. Try as you like Martin was keen to show off some more of his gadgets, but to no avail as our car has an anti theft device on it so no fuel was able to be pumped over. Decision made to carry on and see how far it got.

Gauge probably faulty as we made it all the way to the main road and then onto Clints farm as well. A good day was had by all - thanks to all the Maun crowd who made it happen.

Next day was another early morning and Clint had a surprise for us - he wanted to do an exploratory to Chief's Island in his boat to spend the night at the campsite at the bottom tip - did we want to be guinea pigs ... you bet!!!

We drove to the buffalo fence and put in (James drove the vehicle and trailer home) whilst we took off up the Delta. Motor boats are much better than mokorro's (only my opinion of course), you get much further into the Delta, see more wildlife and don't have to worry as much about the wildlife encounters. What a fabulous trip up - loads of elephants, birdlife awesome of course. It took about 3-3.5 hours to get to Chief's Island, we did stop on the way and have lunch which was cool.

The camp had a fabulous big lagoon in front with loads of hippos around (we could only hear them at this stage), elephants and birds. We set up camp and then went to look around the other side of the island at the other campsites. We then floated around our lagoon for sunset which was awesome.

We had a great fire, only incident being two suicidal mice.... they must have been living in one of the pieces of old wood we had collected, but they were very reluctant to leave the fire - we found out it was due to the large amount of termites also living in the wood who were all desperately trying to escape being burnt along with their homes. The 2 (by the end of the evening) very fat mice munching them all as they appeared!!! Quite funny as these mice were so tiny and I was very scared that someone was going to stand on them - Clint even scared them away into the bush twice only to have them appear back about 10-15 minutes later.

What a fabulous night we had and then it was the return journey the next morning with another load of elephant, hippos and birdlife to be seen. When we got back to the buffalo fence there was a hippo right there where the village collect water, wash clothes and themselves - very interesting. Clint then took James & Morgan (Clint's workers) on a little ride in the boat up the Delta so that they know what it is like - they loved it.

We got back to the farm and left for Xakanaxa almost straight away. I will try and finish the update tomorrow.

Love to all xxx

Well it seems that I am still unable to attach any photos which is a real pain as there is so much to show you all! Oh well I suppose at least I can tell you about what we have been up to??

Now where was I...oh yeah the guinea fowl shoot - what an absolutely lovely entertaining day that was - certainly not to be missed! And the guinea fowl do very well as not many are actually shot!

We went with Clint, Mike Bullock and Albert along with about 12 or so 'beaters' all dressed in their blue overalls against the ever present thorns. It was an early morning with Mike meeting us at Clint's place. We then met Albert on route who had bought his son along Reece (or could be Royce) who was a lovely kid. We drove out on the same road to Deception Valley and once we reached the cut line we were on the look out for the elusive quinea fowl.

Mike was travelling in our car with us then Albert behind and Clint following with the beaters in the safari vehicle. We had been going about 30 minutes when Mike & I heard guinea fowl when we stopped for a pee. So we waited for Clint who took along time catching us up! When he arrived he was frustrated as we hadn't spotted a flock back further - said we must have been all talking too much.

Nevermind we all got ready for the first drive which was going to be the beaters going in on either side and doing the famous 'zulu' buffalo formation..... guns lined up on the road and waiting, waiting - only to see the flock fly off way too the left outside of the beater cordon - oops they had out smarted us from the beginning!!!!

Oh well back to where Clint saw the flock 'right by the road' but alas not to be found - so 2 nil to the guinea fowl. We came upon another group quite quickly and decided to go for plan B or was it C???? Where everyone walks up together into the bush - beaters in between the guns - why not? Only to be outsmarted by the birds again - God these birds are good!

Lots of laughter and scratches later all returned to the vehicles. Funniest thing is that the African beaters with us all think the white people are mad - why make the birds fly when they are so much easier to shoot on the ground - I ask you??

So we carried on and in the course of the morning I guess we had about 6 drives and bagged about maybe 8 birds. Plans B, C, D, E and F all got tried and then we decided to stop for lunch. Clint raced off to find the 'local knowledge' a couple of local farmers who joined us as beaters in the afternoon run.

My God I don't think I have laughed so much in ages (this was certainly one of the best days out for me). The other really funny thing was that the local guns:- Clint, Mike & Albert all wore shorts - Martin and I oopted for long pants and thought they must have known something we didn't.... only to be probably the only two at the end of the day that didn't look like they had been wrestling with the guinea fowl instead of shooting them - all cut to bits by the vicious thorns.

Well we had a magic day and one that we will remember for along time to come, although I don't think we will try any of these tecniques at Leighfield! We took a bottle of Sloe Gin with us and on sunset it was duly drunk by guns at a mighty pace I might add! I only managed to get a tiny bit... what a surprise to you all.

Loads of love and hugs to all xxx

Well my goodness - it has been a bit of a nightmare trying to update this blog for the last 2 days!! Only to find out that the credit had run out due to Martin downloading his emails from Outlook Express. Nevermind I finally think that it is all sorted and I can update you all about our marvellous adventures...

Kubu Island is in the middle of the pans and quite spectacular - everywhere you look you see the salt pans. The island is made up of kopje's and loads of baobabs which is pretty awesome. We spent the night and got up early to see the sunrise over the expansive pans which was an amazing sight.

After breakfast and packing up we drove across the vast pans and through mopane woods to our next stop which was in the Nxai Pan regional. We stayed at Baines Baobab Camp which was situated on another island and surrounded by pans although not to the extent of Kubu.

Clint was going to sleep out under a net until we saw some huge lion tracks right across the campsite which were from the morning. Needless to say he chose to put up his tiny tent instead! He arranged our meal out on the pan that night which was pretty magic including a fire. We had a drive over to some of the other islands to see the sunset and came back to a beautiful dinner.

The following day we went for a game drive to Nxai Pan which was very cool - it is a stunning area with alot of diffirent habitats - not so many animals around, but we had a great time. We had lunch in the Nxai Pan campsite and spent about 2 hours watching the birds around the campsite which for me was brilliant - so many different varieties in such a small space. We then went for another drive in the afternoon and then made our way back to our campsite. Another fab dinner was had and we sat and listened to all the night sounds - loads of jackals about.

We then made our way back to Maun and then I had to do the supply shopping whilst Martin and Clint went and arranged the gun licence for Martin as we were going guinea fowl shooting the following day. We had a fabulous dinner back with Clint & Pieter before turning in for the night. It was lovely to see Polly, Lucky and Kelly again (their most 'royal' beautiful dogs).

We then moved on to Kubu Island which involved driving across the pans, quite an experience. The drive was fab and we collected firewood on the way before crossing the pans. Clint has been teaching Martin the ways of the bush. What is good/hard wood for cooking with and soft wood for ambience! He is slowly learning and enjoying the camping more than he thought he would which is a bonus.