Khutse Game Reserve Botswana

Khutse is one of my most favorite places on earth. It is LION country. We have photographed countless lion activity in Khutse along with Leopard, Caracal and Wild cat. Khutse requires an overnight in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Then it's 4 hours of driving narrow tar roads and sand tracks. It isn't fun but well worth the effort.




This male lion was stalking another lion just for fun. The pride consists of 2 males, 4 females and 6 cubs.

The front entrance of the reserve.

The stare in his eyes tells the whole story.

The cubs are a blast to watch. They never stop playing. Constantly stalking and attacking each other in mock combat. They are practising for the day they will become providers for the pride.

This Leopard needs to keep his eyes open. Lions kill them on sight.

 This male caught the scent of a female in season.

No entry means ---NO ENTRY!

You can walk in Khutse, but you need to do it carefully. A lion can disappear in a foot of grass or appear right in front of your face without making a sound.

Kudu are one of the most majestic antelope in Africa. Big, bold and beautiful. It's always a treat when one of these guys steps into the view finder of your camera.

The park is full of Giraffe. It is not unusual to see 20 or more at one time in one place. The waterhole is a great place to sit in the late afternoon. Take care and I'll post more later on.

Zambia Trip

Well it was a rough trip. We drove 14 hours from South Africa to Chobe National Park in Botswana. From there we crossed the river by ferry into Zambia. Chaos would describe the border crossing. It took us almost 2 hours to clear immigration and customs.

That's us in the Toyota Land Cruiser towing the trailer. The guy in front needed some help. No problem, there was plenty of it around.


We did beat the smugglers over, probably because their boats were much harder to paddle laden down with products to avoid the heavy Zambia duty. 

Then it was 14 hours to a small town just west of Chipata. We stayed at the luxurious ZULU KRAAL CAMP GROUNDS. Thank god we arrived after dark and couldn’t see anything. The photos are self-explanatory. 

Chinese toilet with a touch of Africa. No extra charge!

Our hot water tank!

  At least the wiring was done to code.

 We arrived in South Luangua the next afternoon. 

First stop, the market place. Friendly people. Nice selection of produce. Just like any modern supermarket you would find at the end of a dirt road in sub Sahara Africa.

After some haggling we found enough fruit and vegetables to keep us fed throughout our stay at the park.
 
We set up camp then headed for the park first thing in the morning.

It was less than we expected but interesting. Plenty of lions, birds, hippos and elephants plus a multitude of plains game.

 We were charged by an elephant that didn’t like the fact that  I couldn’t find reverse in my SUV fast enough. 

Never wake a sleeping HIPPO!

They are very fast and not the most even tempered animals in the bush.

Then we learned we broke our trailer axle on the way to the camp.

Well no problem. We will just drive back to Jo’berg a short three days of 14 hours each day and buy a new one.

We took a short cut to save a few hours. NEVER TAKE A SHORT CUT IN AFRICA!

This was what the road looked like for 6 hours of driving at 20 MPH

 After telling my young friend all about it he had that look of skepticism  on his face.

I don’t blame him. I can’t believe it myself.

Next trip Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe! Wish us luck.

Trip to the kalahari

It started off like an average trip to the Kalahari! (Is there such a thing?) Well, after a short 14-hour drive that felt like 13 hours we arrived at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. It was just about sundown so the guards asked us (told us) to park overnight near the front gate and continue on in the morning. No problem. We were tired anyway. So a quick shower and a nights rest were easy to accept. We no sooner hit the sack than we heard the noise! Someone was trying to get into our vehicle. I grabbed my spot light and went out to investigate.

Honey Badgers!!

Rule number one: Never leave roasted chicken inside your Land Cruiser!

It is impossible to dissuade a honey badger from stealing roasted chicken. They do the impossible. Like climbing on top of your vehicle. In the end they got what they wanted. We handed over a portion of chicken (a bribe not unheard of in Africa) for a nights sleep. 

 After a quick snack they decided to look elsewhere and we retired for the night.


The following morning it was off to Sunday Pan. That is a camping area near the Sunday waterhole. Nice view. Clean. Well organized. Well, what could possibly go wrong here!

LIONS that's what!!!!

It was about 3 AM when we heard another noise. What was that?? Somethings trying to get into our tent. No problem, I have my night vision goggles. I’ll check it out. I unzipped the corner of the tents window and shoved my night vision out of the opening. All I could see was a nose and two eyes. Too blurry to be exactly sure what it was but I knew it was a LION! I gave Pepi a quick look. She quickly commented, “There are two lions out there”. Then it started. Chairs being knocked over. Dishes falling of the table. We were under attack!

There goes the rest of my chicken, as well as Pepi’s coffee pot. Our friends that raise lions told us lions will not eat cooked food. WRONG!! They also drink coffee!

They started running around snarling and snapping and carrying on like a bunch of lions. I stuck my night vision out the hole in the window again and started counting. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 lions running by my window. I had no idea at the time they were running around our tent and I was counting the same lions twice. Well what do you expect from a foreigner!

We decided to slip down inside our sleeping bag and wait for daybreak. About 30 minutes before day break everything went silent. Maybe they thought we were armed, or maybe after seeing those night vision goggles they thought we were military.

WRONG!
They just fell asleep alongside our tent. 

It turned out they were just cubs having a fun night at the neighbors house. When I stood up in the tent the male started to stalk me. I shouted at him to stop and lay down. He obviously was never spoken to like that before. 

He stopped, looked at me with this sorrowful look on his face and walked away. I obviously ruined a perfectly good hunt.

Except for a few Gemsbok and other plains animals the rest of the trip was rather uneventful.

The game in the Kalahari are rather easy to approach. This grouse approached us and refused to leave without a snack.

The worst you can expect is a sand trap. This photo was taken in Linyanti a part of the Okovango. This was one a several times we had to dig ourselves out.   

So much for Botswana. We leave next for Zambia. I’ll write more soon. Take care.