GrassTrack Safaris: Moremi Game Reserve

A quiet morning in camp

When on safari, the morning comes early. It must have been 5 am, still dark, and being a light sleeper I was awakened by the sounds of Tosu preparing breakfast. The official wake-up call from Prince came about one hour later, around 6 am. Breakfast consisted of cold cereal, milk, yogurt, fresh bread, which Tosu cooked over our campfire the night before, complimented with a selection of jams, jelly's, marmalade, and peanut butter. Enough to satisfy every one's palette. Needless to say we all moved at varying rates of slow as we wiped the sleep from our eyes. Coffee and tea were much needed stimulants, assisting us into our day; a day that would be filled with incredible game viewing. I believe that travel in Africa truly is a life changing experience and our second day in Moremi Game Reserve would affirm those sentiment.

Chacma baboon - Carmine bee-eater - Cape buffalo

Burchell's zebra - Yellow-billed hornbill - African elephant

Breakfast was finished, dishes were washed, faces splashed with water, and teeth cleaned all within a few hours and we were out of camp by 8 am. Our first morning game drive in front of us, we were filled with excitement as camp disappeared down the two track road behind us. We were not to be disappointed and by days end we had seen so many different animals it's hard to recount them all. A troop of chacma baboons, lilac-breasted rollers, carmine bee-eaters, African elephants, impala, Burchell's zebra, wildebeest, great egrets, cape buffalo, giraffe, yellow-billed hornbill, saddle-billed stork, warthogs, red lechwe, blacksmith lapwing, and hammerkop to name a few. At sunset it was all topped off with what was to that point the most incredible leopard sighting I have ever had. A sighting that would be outdone by an event that awaited us only days in our future.

Wildebeest - Lilac breasted roller - Impala

Red lechwe - Hammerkop - Leopard or lion track

As the sun slid lower into the horizon, tired and looking forward to dinner at camp, Prince stopped short in the road and peered at the ground outside his driver side window. "Lion tracks!' He exclaimed in an excited voice. From our tired, zombie like states we all snapped to attention and began to scan the horizon for lions. Prince followed the tracks down a two track road until we came to a herd of impala grazing in an opening. We all looked wildly about the view in front of us until suddenly in my binoculars I spotted something in a tree a long distance off and exclaimed, "their it is." I thought I had jumped the gun because lions don't normally climb trees. They're ground dwellers. It wasn't a lion at all, but a leopard that appeared to be sleeping off a recent meal while splayed out, belly down, on the broad limb of a mopane tree. It was an incredible site and we sat watching the leopard watch us until the dim light of dusk obscured its image from our vision. Thoroughly satisfied with the days events we fired up the Land Rover and headed for camp, dinner, and a much needed night of sleep.