8 September

The day of the buffalo.

This morning we set out at first light hoping to catch a herd of buffalo coming to drink at the river in Mahango. We drove for a while without any luck and eventually stopped at a little rest area and walked down to the river. A german tour guide told us that we must have missed a big herd, so we retraced our steps and sure enough they were there – maybe 150 buffalo but far out on the floodplains. We walked to the edge of the floodplain and they spotted us before setting off in the opposite direction toward the bank. We sped quickly to anticipate where they would ‘land’ and succeeded. Eventually we followed their progress through the thick bush, but we would have better luck later. One interesting thing; one of the buffalo had an orange tag in its ear with the number 35, I thought this might be important so we noted down the coordinates and when we returned to the rangers station I gave them the details – they seemed very happy and told me research was being done to assess the migratory movements.

On the way out we spotted a herd of roan, a fairly rare antelope, before heading out to Divundu to refill and buy breakfast. We then crossed the bridge over the Kavango, which was under maintenance and passed a military checkpoint on the other side. A short drive across a tarmac road weaving through villages we turned off to the Buffalo (pronounced buffalo) core area of the Bwabwata national park. The gravel road led us past an open gate and a small ruined building which we thought might be the park office. Luckily we later found a real office with nicely dug parking lot in the sand. Permits in hand, we continue on. What followed was a straight gravel moving parallel with the river and dozens of 4x4 tracks splitting off. After pursuing a few of these without seeing much we decided to just follow the gravel road which would take us all the way down to the border with Botswana.

This gravel road eventually turned into a dirt road which wound through the thick bush and past an abandoned South African military base before descending to the floodplain. We literally were driving on the side of the plain with the watery grasses filled with hippos and egret stretching beside us. Later in the day the midday sun drove more animals towards the water and we had a herd of about 250 (we counted) buffalo in the water. However, turning the corner the path ahead was blocked by an equally large herd and we managed to approach quite closely before they stampeded off into the bush.

Two South Africans we met at the campsite were found stuck in the sand and we helped them out. Driving down we found the other two also stuck in the process of turning around. Some good experience gained there.

In other news I approached two elephant herds on foot.

As may be obvious, I am running out of ways to organize all the information I would like to write, maybe I will have to resort to bullet points in a few weeks. (just kidding)

Im sitting at the campsite watching a herd of elephants drink on the other side. The flies are really starting to annoy me. We have a relaxed afternoon.