Drive starts at 6 am. It is a bit colder this morning but we have our game drive gear well practiced at this point in the trip. We start slow, checking the camp lagoon for evening activity, stopping frequently to just listen and see what the bush is telling us while we enjoy the rising sun reflecting across marshy pools sipping coffee from our thermoses.

After doing a bit of birding, James starts taking us deep off road into the bush. He is trying to find the end of the flood (which is the southern most point that the waters that are arriving from Angola have penetrated into the delta so far, the water is late this year and still rising). Doing some very rough math, the effective speed of this water flowing from Angola some 1800km away is around 1 inch per hour. The water is flowing much faster but has to then fill up pools that then overflow into hippo highways that then allow the water to flow into other dried lagoon basins and repeat. Quite a slow process and quite a phenomenon. On the way we run across a hyena just lazing about in the bush. Seeing a hyena not running away or feeding on a carrion is a rare and pleasant experience.

We are mostly off-roading and still haven’t seen another truck or person since James picked us up. We got onto a main road and James warns us we might see someone else, so brace ourselves. Sure enough, another vehicle appears shortly but it turns out to be the John Barclay, of Barclay and Stenner, who is taking guests from their other site to the airstrip. Since it is in the same company, James doesn’t count it as other people🤣.

Back in the bush, James somehow stumbles upon a pride of 8 lions. It is still pretty early, so they are still on the move looking for prey and a shady place to wait out the afternoon heat. They are a good looking bunch of lions. A bit skittish of the truck a sure sign that they aren’t used to human visitors and we are well off the beaten path. One young male, about 18 months, is particularly curious and keeps turning around to stare at us wondering why we are creeping along behind. I can’t imagine what they think of this loud metal monstrosity bristling with cameras and strange noises.

We follow them for about an hour until they head into some dense bush, probably where they will spend the afternoon. So much adventure, breakfast has been postponed until 9:50 am, so we finally pull over at the edge of a lagoon that was completely dry a week ago and you can see the slow current of the flood continuing to fill it and spill into other areas downstream. Absolutely mind blowing that this water fell only 1800km away 4 months ago and has been slowly, slowly, slowly finding its way across Botswana to reach this point. After breakfast, James encourages us to go for a wallow in the water. Because it is freshly flooded, there aren’t any hippos are crocodiles that have made there way down here yet. James leads the way, wading around up to his shorts. We follow most of us going about mid-shin and Tom going as deep as his clothes allowed. Wading barefoot in the Okavango is not on any normal guided tour. What a unique and delightful experience.

After breakfast, we relocate the lions who are right on the other side of the bush that we watch them enter. They have a very nice spot picked out in the shade of a tree. As we drive around the other side of a lagoon from them and look back, they are utterly invisible. You’d never suspect driving by that there are 9 lions laying there. Is a good reminder of just how rare and lucky these types of sightings are. And not another human for many kilometers! It is a couple of hours back to the camp with lots of enjoyable scenery and wildlife. Back in time for a rest, lunch at 1pm, and a siesta through the heat of the day. Showers at 3:30, tea and a snack at 4, and then a tour of the camp kitchen before heading out for our evening game drive. The minimal nature of the kitchen is quite remarkable. A grill, a steel drum for heating bathing water, and an iron baking box. All wood fired. This chef has some serious skills, pumping out French pastry, breads, sauces, salads, and perfectly roasted meats all from what looks like your average blue tarp camp in the PNW.

We have a short afternoon drive observing some more elephant digging and waiting at a lagoon where James briefly spotted a super rare skimmer bird and wanted to see if it would come back. Sundowners at the lagoon is beautiful with hippos snorting. Derek and Diane sit on the giraffe seat (on top of the roof) on the ride back.

We aren’t particularly hungry, but dinner goes down way too easy: garbanzo bean soup, braised lamb shanks, and pavlova for dessert. Then we set out for a night drive. James is planning on doing about an hour, but his specific goal is to find the hyenas that have been calling all around the area. We search for about an hour and a half and are starting to get pretty tired, it is 9:30 pm, when we finally find them. This is a perfect opportunity for James to try out his new night vision binoculars and we all get to take a pass at looking at the hyenas running around in the dark. There are 10 of them in total which is quite a large pack. Something is going to get eaten tonight. Super cool find, we follow them for another 45 minutes before finally heading back and turning in for the night.

Tomorrow we are headed to a remote island several hours up the Okavango channel for our final night.