Third Bridge, Moremi National Park

Arrived at 3rd Bridge and after all the anxiety about water crossings etc. we decided to go around the water and take a longer, dry route to get here. We have definitely become, for the good, more risk averse over the years. The decision to add 85km to the trip was made after John had a discussion with another camper the night before who had just come through the ‘wet’ road. He described it as the most terrifying thing he has ever done and reported the water was hip high. Now we are here and have seen some others making one of the water crossings across 3rd Bridge and feel it is not too risky.
We were rewarded early this morning with an excellent sighting of 4 wild dog – also called the African Hunting Dog or Painted Dog? – absolutely beautiful! When we first got up, our neighbors in camp told us a couple of dogs had just walked right through the middle of camp. We were very disappointed as this is one of the animals we really wanted to see again after a brief sighting in Kruger. We quickly got the 4x4 ready to go, left camp and within 1 minute spotted 4 dog on the edge of a water hole. They stopped and we got a great view of them all before the ran off. We anticipated the direction they might be heading, and quickly drove down the road to see if we could intercept them coming out of the bush. We got it just right and they emerged on the road in front of us, one of them took a poop and then they disappeared again. We saw them one more time a few hundred yards up the road. Unfortunately, we could not get in great positions to get good pictures, apart from the one taking a dump – not very flattering. Two more nights here before heading north again to the top of the park. No doubt we will be having several discussions over a couple of gin & tonics trying to decide if we are going to get our 4x4 home wet – it probably needs a clean!Read more