Chobe National Park

Chobe National Park did not disappoint!

After we finished our river safari we were picked up by a safari truck, we were taken to the front gates of Chobe National Park where we would begin our evening game drive. The game drive was expected to take about 3 hours getting us to our campsite within the park at about 6pm which is one of the better times to do a game drive because a lot of the animals are out and about at sunset or sunrise.

We were so lucky, I am claiming it is the 'luck of the pangolin' we saw but we were hardly an hour into the drive when we saw not one but two leopards! It was a mother and it's cub, the cub was sitting near the base of the tree and the mother was sleeping up at the top of the tree. I could not believe it.

We drove around for another hour or so, where we saw elephants, buffalo, zebras, giraffes, warthogs, kudus, impala and various other animals.

It was amazing how many animals we did see, when we first got onto the truck our guide asked us what we would like to see and the response was the typical big five animals. The guide told us that the big five was impossible because there were not rhinos in the park but he would try to get us what he calls the 'big four' - so far he has ticked of three of the big four with just the lion remaining.

The guide told us that he was heading back to camp and would only stop for the big four animals, we probably drove five minutes before we saw a group of lioness' walking around. The lioness in the front of the pack was calling out to the other lioness' as she walked straight past our truck. We parked there far ages just watching them before our guide started getting nervous because of the time, if they don't get to camp by a certain time then get a fine. just down the road we saw about six lion cubs playing chase by the water.

We continued driving back to camp, along the way we had to content with hundreds of elephants and then giraffes on the road. The roads were very bumpy and it was actually a reasonably scary drive, I was glad to make it to the camp that was for sure!

The next morning we did another game drive, we were lucky to catch a glimpse of a caracal and a honey badger which are both extremely rare to see. We continued driving around and I could see our guide looking around as if he was expecting to see something, turns out he was tracking a leopard. The leopard was stalking impala at the time and as we stopped behind it the impala have seen the leopard. I thought that the impala would run away but instead they started 'barking' at it, letting all the other impala know that there was a predator in the area and chasing it away. I have never seen anything like it before it was amazing.Read more