…and I have been so fortunate to have been on safari with some really great people that have enhanced the whole experience for me, and I hope I have added to their experience as well.
So far this year I have been in Zimbabwe and Botswana for a green season safari, in my opinion one of the best times to see Botswana. I really hope the kids we had on the safari are now well inspired and looking forward to another adventure in Africa.
Then I went straight up to Tanzania for a migration safari on the Serengeti combined with Ngorongoro Crater and Tarangire National Park, it was such a fun safari with epic sightings including a successful Cheetah hunt which I don’t think my guests will ever forget.
From there I was in Uganda doing a safari focused on Chimpanzees and the other smaller primates, so we had amazing sightings and experiences as well as being a part of the habituation experience along with a few other fun activities like looking for Shoebills on Lake Victoria, which was very successful, saw 3!!
SOME GOOD NEWS
My last safaris have all been in Chad in the amazing Zakouma National Park. The park is really going from strength to strength and so interesting for me watching how the whole elephant situation and wildlife in general is unfolding there, a really positive story which is great to experience. As usual in a place like that I got a few new species of birds on my list and even managed to get some half decent pictures of striped hyena during a night drive.
We are now all set for bookings to Zakouma for March 2024. We can now include fly camping into some of the more remote parts of the park which will really add to the whole Zakouma experience. Please contact us if you’re interested in joining one of our group departures – 6 guests maximum, or having your own private safari, it is all possible. We can also discuss adding on the Enneddi Plateau inside the Sahara Desert to your itinerary as well.
Gonarezhou has had some really nice rains this year, so the park is in top condition and I am sure the newly introduced Black Rhinos are enjoying their new home, we had some excellent sightings of Black Rhino last season so we are looking forward to being able to see some little ones which hopefully wont be too long away now if all goes to plan. This is always one of the key parts of any relocation, is when the animals start breeding in their new home. You really need to add this park to your must-see list.
A LITTLE MORE GOOD NEWS
It seems that a few African countries are rethinking their whole tourist Visa plan which will make travel here that much easier – the latest countries to drop the Visa requirement for most visitors is Zambia and Mozambique. So in Southern Africa, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique all do not require visa’s for tourists. Let’s hope that this plan continues to ripple throughout Africa to make travel here even easier.
EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS
In Zimbabwe, Fastjet airline have now added some extra aircraft to their fleet and are at last adding in Kariba and Hwange to their scheduled route network – it was way back in the early 2000’s when this was part of the local network. So, it is such good news and will make life so much easier and safaris cheaper by incorporating these flights into your safari plans.
FROM THE CAMPFIRE
Here is a fun bit of science for you to think about – when you see a gecko climbing up the wall of your safari tent or home, seemingly oblivious to any normal rules of gravity, think about how it does this.
The basic reason is that it has millions of microscopic hairs on its feet that grip at a molecular level on to the surface it is walking on. It is therefore possible - if you have not much else to do - to calculate how much resistance or grip can be created if each one of those hairs was to be working all at the same time at their optimum.
I met a leopard researcher on a safari who actually did this calculation when he was at university and the end result was that if you get a gecko attached at its optimum with all those micro hairs to your ceiling it has enough grip that an average human can do a pull up off the gecko!!! – No geckos were hurt in the research, so I was told anyway.
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