Chris Brooks

Zimbabwe Part 2 - Matobo and Hwange National Parks

2026-09-14T06:54:07-04:00

After our short stay at Nata, Botswana, we made our way to the border crossing into Zimbabwe at Plumtree. This was easier than the crossing at Beitbridge, but still far from easy.

Between the fees and a process that is so obfuscated that it encourages the touts to shake down visitors for extra fees to navigate, it doesn’t feel like Zimbabwe is trying to welcome tourists. Took about 90 minutes in total to exit Botswana and enter Zimbabwe.

Entrance to Matobo National Park

Our overnight stop was near Matobo National Park, in the central western part of the country, at Big Cave Lodge and Camp. The weather on arrival was cool and overcast with some wind making for some not-so-great birding but possibly other opportunities. We found the manager of the lodge (and guide) after navigating to the campsite and asked for some tips and he suggested a loop through the national park to possibly see some rhinos and definitely see some cave rock art.

On arrival at the park entrance where we paid our entry fees, we inquired about getting a ranger to assist with finding rhino per the guidance from the lodge manager. She got on the phone and arranged a meetup down the road a ways from the entrance with a ranger guide, who also happened to be her husband. He jumped in the vehicle with us and took us around to the north end of the park to meet up with some tracker guards.

Karen up close to white rhinos in Matobo

This was a cool experience as we were able to quietly walk up to two young rhino bulls for some closeup photos. These white rhinos were chill and mostly comfortably with us being around, if a bit shy. We hung out about as long as we were allowed before tipping the guards and returning to the ranger camp. As far as we can tell these guards are assigned to follow these rhinos everywhere to prevent poaching. Extreme measures in place to protect these vulnerable creatures.

White rhino at Matobo National Park

Ken mentioned on our drive today that we’ve seen more rhinos (at least 9) on this trip,including two black rhinos, than we have lions. Given we struck out completely on rhino sightings two years ago this has been an ok compromise. Still hoping for more lion activity.

Climbing trail to Nswatugi Cave pictographs

After some mis-guided navigation by me trying to find some newer rock art, we made our way to the well known Nswatugi Cave paintings, near the top of a hill towards the southwest part of the park. We parked in a way that allowed us to take the longer hike in, a welcome opportunity to stretch our legs.

San pictographs in Nswatugi Cave, enhanced with iDStretch

Some research I’ve done since visiting the San rock art in Tuli and now the Nswatugi site indicates that some folklore claims on the age of the pictographs are exaggerated: we’ve heard 20,000 years, 15,000 years, etc. The oldest directly dated rock painting is about 5,500 years old, but some of the art may very well go back 10,000 years. The panel in the cave was massive and beautiful, though often confusing as it looks like some more modern painting had been done over parts of the old stuff.

The chaos of A8 from Bulawayo to Hwange

After chatting with Ken’s friend Wolf while in Gonarezhou we were nervous about the drive north from Matobo to Hwange National Park. Wolf claims it is the worst road he’s been in on all of Africa, and he’s been all over. Indeed it was awful, and it astonishing to think that A8 is the primary logistics corridor from Victoria Falls and Hwange down to Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe. It is a mad free-for all as big trucks carrying loads, public buses, and private vehicles all try to make their way along the “tar road” that is littered with nearly invisible potholes. We called them pothole trenches: they run the entire width of the road, are sometimes 2 feet deep, and 1-3 feet wide. They sneak up on you and your only option is to slow to a stop and take your poison, or divert to the sand tracks on the side. As a result you see scenes like the photo above: remember this is a “drive on the left” country. We have a lorry taking up the sand on the left coming straight at us, another one on the right side going our same direction. This lasted maybe 100-150 miles. We can only imagine the economic toll this takes on the country - we saw a broken down bus with passengers, burnt out shells of trucks that were abandoned, and quite a few truckers pulled over with their vehicles assessing damage.

Entering Hwange National Park

With relief we turned off to the entrance road to Hwange National Park, a standard African dirt and gravel road with periodic washboarding. We came in through the camp main entrance on the southeast side and were greeted by friendly park staff where we paid our remainder fees.

We heard of some lions near a pan a bit off our track to camp, but we had plenty of time so we diverted there to have a look-see. We climbed up into the hide overlooking the pan and took note of the birds and some other common critters in the area. Eventually we noticed a park game drive vehicle parked across the pan near a tree, and after some bino scanning and telephoto photography we noticed three lionesses laying in the shade of the tree. We jumped in our vehicle to try to get closer, but the road just didn’t cooperate and our vehicle was not allowed to approach like the official game drive truck. It was good to see lions again but we are still awaiting our “lions lounging around a kill” sighting.

My navigation skills were a bit off after this stop; not directionally but taking into consideration length of travel and sunset. We had to be in camp before dark and I could tell soon after we started a bigger loop to get us around to camp that we would miss the mark. Using Gaia I was able to find some cutoff roads to get us close to on track.

Trinity and her three wild dog puppies

A fortunate side effect as we closed in on our camp at sunset: 4 wild dogs in the road. It was the injured female Trinity and her three ward puppies (might be her pups, might not). Trinity was fairly spooked by us (and some other noise that she heard in the woods to the right), but the puppies kept coming towards the vehicle to sniff us out.

Sharing information with Painted Dog Conservation

We told the camp host the next day and he immediately got the local wild (aka painted) dog conservation group involved. Two reps from the team came to meet with us, get exact coordinates on where we saw them, and get the photos for identification. This is how we know the adult is Trinity; she hadn’t been tracked by them in over a year and had previously had a leg injury on the same leg. It was too late in the day by the time we talked to them, but they planned to go out the next morning in search of her (and her VHF collar) to dart her and provide some medical care.

Camp at Guvalala Pan

All three of our camps were “exclusive” (basically buying out the camp) and not inexpensive: $150, $200, and $200. The first camp was on a pan and was beautiful and truly isolated - we never saw another vehicle. Elephants descended on the pan at dusk creating quite the show, and one stood between us and the pan just staring us down. For a long time. Maybe 2 or 3 hours later Ken and I looked out of our rooftop tent to see the same elephant staring right at us.

Camp at Masuma Dam

The next night was at Masuma Dam, a beautiful camp but sort of a highway lay-by for Hwange. It is a very popular hide to visit with a large number of hippos and likely elephant activity. We were spoiled by Guvalala thinking we’d have the place to ourselves, but at about 4-4:30pm a group of maybe 10 folks staying a nearby lodge moved into the hide: food, drinks, chairs, and lots of loud-ish conversation that had nothing to do with the wildlife we were seeing. To make matters worse, because of some assistance the lodge is giving to the park they allow their guests to stay at the hid until 7pm (well after dark). So we had a crowded hide at our exclusive camp until darkness fell.

The spectacle for the evening was a hippo giving birth, and the newborn dying. Lots of speculation and opinions about what was going on but all I saw was this: almost every hippo in a circle around mom witnessing the birth, a very young hippo circling the rear end of mom as she swam and turned in tight circles as the baby emerged. The young hippo was chasing and putting its mouth on the newborn.

Apparently a similar process occurred the day before. I have no conclusions to draw from this other than that I never saw an adult male involved in the process at all.

Sunset elephants at Masuma Dam

I mostly stayed away from the hide as I was tending the fire and making focaccia to go along with our pasta dinner. I did come back to take some nice shots of the elephant family that came to drink from the pan and the water trench nearby.

Enjoying solitude at Mandavu

Our final night was back to seclusion at Masuma Dam, a fairly dilapidated camp towards the north of the park. Their solar power is down (the two staffers asked to use my solar to charge their phones, which of course we supported), they have to run a petrol-powered pump down by the water to bring non-potable water into the camp, clogging the plumbing lines with muck. Lots of birds throughout the large lake formed by the dam, and it was fun watching our two camp staffers go out fishing for bream along the shore before sunset. The two women have learned to stay far from the shoreline when fishing. Big crocs everywhere.

Nata Bird Sanctuary

2026-09-11T10:33:30-04:00

Our morning started with a breakfast with our full crew at the Waterfront Lodge in Maun. We made a quick provisioning stop then proceeded to Bushlore in Maun to return one of our vehicles.

Farewell to Warthog

Julie, Karen, and I spent most of the time in this Land Cruiser, named Warthog by our companions. We wore the moniker proudly. Sad to see it go as it meant the end to this phase of the adventure and a return to the states for four of our crew.

Construction work on A3

Karen, Ken and I left the group at Bushlore to hit the road going east and south along the A3, a road we knew could be troublesome at times with potholes. The potholes are still there, but we saw a significant amount of road work in progress - maybe 3 or 4 separate crews - doing what appears to be solid long-term work on the road. Throwing 4 inches of asphalt on a sandy dirt bed won’t cut it with the amount of heavy vehicle traffic.

We made it to Nata Lodge, a place we stayed at and and loved two years ago. Not bothering to even claim a site, we immediately left the camp to head to Nata Bird Sanctuary to see the state of the preserve and the adjacent pans. If you check the post from two years ago you’ll see our vehicles parked at a viewing platform looking out over a massive dry pan bed.

Ostrich in plains with lesser flamingos

Things looked much the same as we entered and made our way to the pan, but as we approached we knew something was up: massive groups of white pelicans and lesser flamingos were present! I was confident there would be more water, but doubtful that these birds would hang around past their breeding season. They clearly decided to stay after the big rains earlier this year. The last time I saw flamingos in the wild was a distant view while in Galapagos.

Viewing platform over pan in Nata Bird Sanctuary

The place was vibrant with bird activities and I saw several new-to-me birds: lesser flamingo, red-knobbed coot, and cape shoveler. I walked into the pan water in a safe spot to see how deep it would get and it fell off regularly, reminding us that when we drove in two years ago it was a deep descent to get to the pan basin.

Wildebeest with flamingos

The mix of the usual suspects like wildebeest and ostrich combined with the massive groups of waterbirds made for an incredible experience. We roamed around until sunset loomed, revisiting all the corners of this park.

Cruising the Okavango Delta

2026-09-10T11:00:04-04:00

Leaving Khama Rhino Sanctuary early left us an open day in Maun before four of our party departed for Cape Town and then the USA. I immediately enquired about a possible river cruise when we checked into our hotel.

I was hooked up with Timothy at Temogo Safari and we back-and-forthed about our wishes, cost, meeting place, and so on. Like other parts of our trip so far, there was much more water in Maun in the Thamalakane River so we were excited about the prospect of getting into the Okavango Delta - a place two of our party hadn’t visited and didn’t expect to experience on this trip.

Embarking on our Okavango adventure

We met at their office at 8am the next morning, discussed specifics, then made the short drive to their boat launch. We met our river guide, walked the plywood pallet gangway and crossed two boats to board ours, then got underway. Our path took us from the river into the fingers of the delta and the NG-32 concession, a place we spent time at 2 years ago.

Nile monitor

Being on the water was such a nice change of pace - cool breeze, no bumps, so many birds and other critters. After about an hour we made our way to the community NG-32 concession where we had to stop, pay some entrance fees, and maybe do some shopping.

Shopping at NG-32 gateway

There were beautiful examples of the local woven baskets here and they were purchased.

Elephant enjoying the water weeds

One of our big hopes was to encounter elephants moving through the water, and this happened a few times. Very special to be able to approach relatively closely in a boat and watch an elephant eat, play, and move through the water. We had a similar close-up encounter with a pool of hippos.

Squacco Heron eating frog

Tracked over 30 birds on the trip, none new to me but great to see nonetheless. So many African openbills and white-faced ducks.

White-faced Whistling-Duck and Openbill take flight

They seemed to be lurking together quite a bit on the journey, and I got this photo as a group of them were scattered as our boat approached.

The cruise was great but marked a bittersweet point on the trip: Scott, Jeanne, Tenya, and Julie all boarded a flight from Maun to Cape Town the next afternoon. And then there were three: Ken, Karen and I will roam Zimbabwe and back into Botswana for another week or so before returning to Maun to say goodbye to Karen.

Birds Part 2

2026-09-09T13:52:00-04:00

More birds! These are all photos that I took, a few from Zimbabwe and the rest from Botswana.

Some commentary inline below.

Southern Ground-Hornbill

These guys are hard to find by somehow we keep managing to stumble across a small group. Even driving into the middle of Zimbabwe yesterday we found a group of four crossing the road in a farming community. They are ugly and beautiful.

Spur-winged Goose

This goose was sitting perfectly still in the leafy water where we sat and watched elephants for over an hour.

Southern Cordonbleu

These little guys (known locally as southern blue waxbills) are ubiquitous yet we never tire of seeing them. This one was at our camp at Chipinda Pools.

Golden-breasted Bunting with pool reflection

One of the many great photos I got at the pool hide at Lone Tree Camp. The buntings would visit like clockwork around 5pm each night and pop in and out for 30 minutes.

Red-billed Oxpecker

These are not AI generated cartoon birds - these are oxpeckers that normally are found on antelope, buffalo, domestic cattle, etc. The red-billed oxpeckers have the distinctive yellow eye-ring.

Crested Francolin

The ground birds, Natal and Swainson’s spurfowl and the crested francolins, have been our companions for most of the trip so far. We hear them calling in the morning and frequently scurrying across the road in front of our vehicles.

Speckled Pigeon drinking

This beautiful pigeon returned to the hide pool two nights in a row, standing out very distinctly from all the ring-necked, laughing, and Namaqua doves lurking around the pool.

Meyer’s Parrot

Two or three Meyer’s parrots were always hanging around camp, and it was almost as if they followed us to the pool when we would migrate to the hide before sunset.

Small Buttonquail chick

We spotted this tiny buttonquail chick at Tswehe - the little ones are often tough to identify.

African Hawk-Eagle

This hawk-eagle presented himself perfectly to me as it flew from a perch, and I got a few nice in-flight photos. The feathers all the wqy down to the toes are a good ID diagnostic.

Western Barn Owl

We arrived a baobob tree for a picnic break at Tswehe and discovered two barn owls perched in the tree. Sadly one flew away and I wasn’t able to get an in-flight shot, but this perching owl hung out for the duration.

Helmeted Guineafowl

These beautiful and noisy ground birds are everywhere in southern Africa, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t beautifully colored.

Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl

Another owl! This one at Khama Rhino Sanctuary. This is the biggest owl in the region and has distinctive pink eyelids.

Malachite Kingfisher

One of the many beautifully colored kingfishers in southern Africa, this one hung out perched on a branch in the Okavango Delta for us. This is one of the true aquatic kingfishers in Africa - quite a few are in the terrestrial family and go for insects rather than fish.

Squacco Heron in flight

I love this photo because it shows the range of colors on the squacco that are harder to see when it is standing near the shore hunting. This is a breeding adult with the distinctive blue bill coloring.

Lesser Flamingos in flight

A big win for us at Nata Bird Sanctuary in Botswana: the pans were still flooded, and the flamingos were still there. Ken and I thought we’d have to return during rainy season to see them (which might make the roads into the pans inaccessible). The heavy rains throughout the late summer and fall left the pans full and the bird-life was wide-ranging and super abundant. We saw so many colored adult flamingos leading juveniles through the water and teaching them to feed and fly.

Khama Rhino Sanctuary

2026-09-09T00:16:05-04:00

From Tswehe we cruised northwest to Khama Rhino Sanctuary, a long-established community-based protective reserve for black and white rhinos.

Camp at Khama Rhino Sanctuary

Ken suggested a visit to Khama to me late last year as a “let’s make sure we get to see some rhinos” option as a concluding activity for the larger group. I took care of the booking arrangements for the sanctuary: two nights with an evening guided game drive on the arrival day, a morning drive the next day, and the opportunity for self driving before we bolted for Maun.

We arrived at camp by about 2pm, giving us plenty of time to setup camp and prepare for our game drive. Tee would be our guide and he came by camp just before 4pm to take us out on a 2 hour rhino-seeking expedition.

Black rhino hiding in the bush

In 2024 we struck out on seeing two species that mattered to us: rhinos and secretarybirds. Leaving Gonarezhou, Scott had an incredible sighting of a black rhino in the bush and we were able to get a few evidence photos taken, but nothing of any quality. But at least we saw a rhino in the wild! Within 15 minutes of our game drive at Khama several group members and our guide simultaneously saw a black rhino in the bush, giving us a slightly better view. Our guide let Karen and I creep out of the vehicle for a few steps to get low and get a better photo. As you can see these leaf-browsing bush-hiding smaller rhinos are elusive and rest open, high quality photos.

White rhinos in the plains

Soon after this we started seeing more of the massive white rhinos: bigger horns, wider lips for grazing the grasses, and simply huge. They often wander the open plains giving more chances for great photos.

White Rhinoceros baby

We were staring at one of these in the distance when our guide quickly started up the engine and started driving away, saying “we’ll come back to see this guy and get closer”. Ok… and soon after we pulled up near another guide vehicle where a mom and baby where cruising by the road, about to cross. We got some great photos and sat for a long time watching how the two behaved together.

White Rhinoceros butts

An interesting note: our guide was very reluctant to share any information with two different vehicles self-driving - he had noticed one of them making excessive noises to try to flush a rhino from the bush, and another speeding around the park (and passengers drinking beer). “They are naughty” he said. We quickly learned to keep our mouths shut and not point at the rhinos we were observing as the vehicles passed us by, oblivious to what we were monitoring.

Flip 7 with headlamps

We had dinner at the restaurant that evening, bracing ourselves for a limited menu and poor service based on the reviews we had been reading. We weren’t disappointed: I had to fall back to my fourth choice on the menu, a barely-any-meat t-bone steak. Service was slow, food was generally poor, and the power went out about 8pm. Still, we had a blast, filling our time playing Flip 7 with our headlamps and celebrating Ken and Tenya’s wedding anniversary.

It is possible the power was out because of a massive storm that hit us that evening: thunder and lightning, some rain, and very high winds. I got about an hour of sleep that night because of the gusts constantly rattling our tent, and it got cold overnight. The game drive the next morning was an exercise in endurance as we roamed around with gloomy skies, bitterly cold wind, and animals mostly hunkered down. We did see some more rhino, giraffe, and a lot of ground birds who seemed less impacted by the wind and cold.

Back at camp we made the quick decision to bolt north to Maun. A day hanging around camp with the winds increasing throughout the day (steady 25 mph, gusting into the 40s) wasn’t high on anybody’s list. The weather forecast in Maun: sunny and 93. We booked rooms for all of us and left the sanctuary.

Overall the visit was worth it: our guide was excellent, the rhino sightings and birds were fantastic. And our first springbok antelope sightings of the trip happened there. The apathy of the hospitality staff and the poor quality of the restaurant are concerning. This is a management and leadership problem - with a captive restaurant audience like this they have an opportunity to increase staff, make the menu as printed actually available, and provide a level of service that attracts day visitors and overnight campers like us to come back for a second visit.

Lone Tree Wilderness Camp at Tswehe Wildlife Reserve

2026-09-07T14:39:24-04:00

We crossed from Zimbabwe back into South Africa at Beitbridge and stayed overnight at Mapesu Wilderness Camp as a stopover before crossing into the Tuli Block.

Mapesu Wilderness Camp

We were all thankful for a short drive from our resupply in Musina, even though this reserve wouldn’t allow for any game self-driving. At least the road into the camp from the entrance gave us 30 minutes or so of viewing, seeing antelope and giraffe along the way. The camp and property were very nice and possibly worth a two-night stay in the future with some guided drives from the lodge.

One highlight here that I didn’t witness but others did: a small group of wild dogs passed by our camp, running through a mostly dry wash that bordered our space. Thankfully Scott and Jeanne (our first-timers who had never seen wild dogs) were able to see them.

Landscape near confluence and South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana border

As we made our way from camp to the next border crossing, we noticed some beautiful landscape on the right as well as some well-constructed buildings. Turns out it was Mapungubwe National Park, a SAN Park that covers the South African side of the Limpopo and Shashe confluence, and also the South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana border. The visit was included in the Wild cards we had already purchased and was worth our time - some antelope including klipspringer, some beautiful terrain, and a fun one-way 4x4 downhill rocky ride.

Lots of birds at the confluence overlook picnic area and a great stop for lunch and filling our water tanks with our newly acquired hose.

We made our crossing at Platjan then drove the 20 km or so off-road path to Lone Tree Wilderness Camp at Tswehe Wildlife Reserve.

The common area at Lone Tree Camp

This was a unique experience for us that will unfold as I describe our stay. The camp itself is glamping style: walled tents with attached outdoor (but floored) bathroom and cold shower. The centerpiece is the common area: a beautifully designed covered and open on three sides space where you hang out, have meals, nap, and so on.

Viewing birds and game from the hide

They only offer a single game drive each day, in the morning, so our afternoon / early evening option was to walk out with our guide Israel to the hide, about 100m-200m from the common area. This is an in-ground bunker with two rotating shutters the open up to give a viewing angle just above water level. You also put up bunjee-style mesh blocks to make it harder for the animals to pick up your eyes, but it was clear to us that the smarter animals absolutely knew when we were present.

I got some of the best bird photos I’ve ever taken while sitting in this hide, which I’ll share soon in another post.

Elephant family watering at the hide hole

The highlight for everyone was when an elephant family would saunter onto the plain and confidently stroll over to the watering hole. It was clear that they knew we were in the hide, and further clear that they did not care. They would drink, rinse off, fight over position to get to the cool water jet refilling the pool, and sometimes interact directly with the hide. Once while sitting on the common area patio we saw a large adult bring water into his trunk, spray the water all over the top of the hide, then rub their trunk all over the top for a watery cleaning massage.

Exploring the rocky hills above the Limpopo

Israel warned us that our game drives might not have a lot of game. With a three night stay we would have three opportunities for driving, and on the first day we decided to trek down to the Limpopo for a bush walk along the river, stopping along the way at one of the rocky peaks (kopjes) for some grand views. The bush walk was pleasant along the river with most of the activity revolving around the birds converging in the still strongly flowing Limpopo.

Viewing game from patio at Lone Tree Camp

I enjoyed the slower pace, dipping in the pool, napping in a hammock, catching up on photo work and some tasks from school teaching, and just hanging out on the patio watching the animals come and go from the pool.The zebras were especially fascinating, and skittish: they would stand in the plain about 50m from the hide and only come to the water once they were confident that the shutters were closed and nobody was there.

Lloyd talking us through the Tswehe origin story

On our final night co-owner of Tswehe Lloyd joined us for about an hour to discuss the origins of Tswehe. He and wife Isabel started their lease about a month before COVID, with a plan to build a different sort of wildlife reserve. They want to keep it open (unfenced) to allow game to wander to and from the greater Tuli Block, and emphasize a sustainable approach to safari with smaller built infrastructure, less driving, and enjoying what the landscape offers. This in contrast to focusing on big 5 (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, and rhino) transactional viewing. There are specific tactics, for example, for attracting and desensitizing leopards to human contact that they prefer to avoid. They also want to avoid building a vast road network in the wilderness.

Sadly some new road construction is required: the nearby town to the north is constantly threatening the reserve with illegal snares for poaching (indiscriminately) for food. Their guide Israel has a background in anti-poaching and insisted that a north-south road to the northern edge of the property (which is closest to the town) is necessary for patrolling purposes. Much of this road opened for us on the second day of our visit and we were able to explore that part of the reserve, the opposite half of where we were on our first day.

This strategy presents some serious challenges to their business model: booking traffic often comes from influencers posting stories of leopard or lion sighting on social media. The struggle is real for Isabel and Lloyd and our group offered as much feedback as we could on our views of the value proposition: beautiful terrain, a peaceful setting, and the awesomeness of the hide for animal viewing and photography.

Guide Israel describing some ancient pictographs

On our final morning before departing for the interior of Botswana we did a short drive with Israel (Tenya stayed back to sit in the hide) to see some ancient (20,000+ year old) Bushman pictographs. They were beautiful and of a quality level (in terms of realistic human depiction) that surpasses what we’ve seen in the SW USA. Before we head back to the Kalahari I want to do more research on the scholarly work done on this rock art that is wide ranging throughout southern Africa.

Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe

2026-09-07T00:27:45-04:00

Your road is bad; pave it. Better yet, build a paved road to every corner of the park; better yet, pave the whole damned place so any damn fool can drive anything anywhere—is this a democracy or ain’t it?

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness

After a challenging border crossing into Zimbabwe, we knew we still had a long drive ahead of us as well as a sunset hitting about 6pm. Three hours to make the Gonarezhou entrance gate that might be 5 or even 6-7 hours away. Fortunately Ken had a WhatsApp chat already established with a staff member in the park because of some double-booking issues that happened a while back, and we were able to communicate our delay and arrange for a late arrival and adjust our campsite to a different spot. Just in case I had bookmarked a lodge hotel about 90 minutes from Beitbridge (possibly the only option for us if we couldn’t get to the park) but given the confirmation from the staffer we decided to go for it and get into the park. We were surprised by this exception as night driving is explicitly forbidden in the park.

Navigation to our target gate, Boli, was going to be a challenge. The A4 highway that runs from Beitbridge all the way to Harare turns away from the park about 200 km from Beitbridge so you either need to cut over on a side road or go all the way up to the A10 and take it to Chiredzi before dropping down into the north entrance of the park by Chipinda Pools. The Chiredzi route didn’t make sense for us because our adventure was starting at the southwest end of the park at Rossi Pools.

The Boli gate isn’t on any maps we had - Google, Gaia, etc. It is on the official park map PDF, but is given without much context. Still, we could find the village of Boli on the map and I could see a road that went directly south from there along the park boundary. So we set our nav to take us to Boli village and would find our way in from there.

Entering the Nuanetsi Conservancy

About 32 km past the last-chance lodging at the Lion and Elephant Lodge we turned off onto a dirt road that would begin our cut-off to Boli. Almost immediately I was concerned that this was a bad route as we hit a security gate. The guard was kind (every single local we interacted with in Zimbabwe was nice to us) and just took down our plate numbers and confirmed that this was a route into Gonarezhou (maybe not the route, but a way). This would be the first of three gates we would pass through as wandered through the Nuanetsi Conservancy, which on later research we learned is likely a big and dangerous game hunting reserve. We hit the first gate while still daylight at about 5:30pm.

We had doubts all along the way as we rambled on this road, which included a river crossing on a dam, but on reflection (and seeing other roads) this might have been the fastest way into Boli and the subsequent gate. We finally found the Boli gate at 8:15 and made our way down to Mabalauta Rest Camp, about an hour south from the gate.

Camp at Mabalauta

The camp was unoccupied and outstanding, sitting on a bank over the river and having excellent ablutions. After a long day of driving we took a well-deserved slow-start morning to re-organize, observe the local bird-life, and make a plan for the day. We had to wait for the reception office to open nearby before departing so that we could formally check in. At check-in we got two physical maps and made our plan: continue further south to Rossi Pools (where we were originally supposed to camp the night before) then work north on some 4x4 roads to our next camp.

Looking out over Rossi Pools

Rossi Pools was spectacular: a wilderness camp with a pit toilet and a large shelter sitting over the cliffs looking down on the river. We hung out here for an hour, having breakfast and observing the wildlife: crocodiles, plenty of birds, lizards, and antelope across the river including a pair of klipspringer.

Working our way north from Rossi to the Runde

Another long driving day was ahead of us as we traversed about 2/3 of the park going south to north through the interior. We took an explicitly designated 4x4 path that wasn’t difficult for us, but it is worth mentioning right now: none of the roads in this park are to be taken lightly. The only tar road we found was a slab near the refueling spot near Chipinda. And that’s just the roads – we’ll talk about the river fording shortly.

Karen and Jeanne looking at Runde from Chinguli camp

We were all excited to have three consecutive nights at Chinguli Camp, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever overnighted. The community around us (other overlanders of course) was fun to chat with, and Ken’s friend Wolf and wife Barbara joined us the first night. Ken and Wolf went through the Ecotraining guide certification field training together last fall.

To fully explore the park requires river crossings, and other than a nice causeway bridge just downstream from Chivilila Falls this means fords. Don’t be fooled by the “causeway” label: these are simply marked ford locations, and two of those were closed (without marking - you had to learn this from staff or other visitors) because of high water.

Our two Land Cruisers had zero issues with the fords, but as we returned on the first day after exploring the north side of the Runde River we noticed some fellow campers (they were in an adjacent site and were in Gonarezhou to fish - locals from Chiredzi) struggling with the ford. Two of them were walking across the river, presumably scouting for their vehicles. We would learn after chatting with them that one of their vehicles (a 2WD truck) was stuck in deep sand.

Starting our rescue

Karen, Julie, and I hatched a plan to cross and try to pull the truck out of the river sand to give it a fresh start, then possibly tow it across the river. This was ill-advised as we then became mired in the deep dry sand. This wasn’t a difficult recovery but we needed a plan B. Another group of overlands (mix of South African and UK) folks arrived at this point, and one of the vehicles crossed over to us and we discussed options. One of the gentlemen in this vehicle was very experienced and hatched a plan: we would lay down recovery skids one in staggered fashion as we rolled the truck forward inch by inch to cross the river. So with two skids on a side for the two active wheels, and with all four of the locals pushing their own truck and our expert driving the truck, we started the process of laying the tracks as we went. After 20 minutes or so we worked the vehicle all the way across the river.

Chris and Julie getting transport back after rescue complete

It was a great team effort and a source of much amusement for the folks waiting on the other side of the river. Julie and I hitched a ride on one of the other vehicles after it forded to rejoin our party.

Chilojo cliffs at Gonarezhou

Our evening drive that first day was up to Chilojo cliffs, the most dramatic landscape feature of the park. A great place to watch the coming sunset. Again, not an easy drive to get there (major washboarding) and it was a race to get back to camp by the presumed 6pm deadline.

Elephants coming to the pan

On day 2 we did the “big loop”, crossing the same ford to travel along the Runde to the east on the north side of the river. Amazing birds, antelope, mongoose, and more. Sadly for our party no big cats or wild dogs. We crossed the river again at Chitova Causeway (hah, ford) to do a lunch stop at Machaniwa Pan. This is where we had the most amazing elephant experience of the trip so far: 3 or 4 large families all converging on the pan to eat, drink, play, and refresh. One group that was directly across from us decided to cross the pan to a big mud puddle very close to our picnic spot, forcing all of us to nearly freeze and move behind trees so as not to disturb them. So much amazing behavior to observe and we got plenty of exciting video and photos.

Elephants crossing the Runde

We stopped at a different Chilojo overlook on our big day of driving the park and had a great view of some antelope down in the valley and elephants crossing the Runde.

Refueling at Chipinda

You burn a ton of fuel navigating around this park and while we had 8 jerry cans of fuel available to us, we happily stopped at the staff fueling location near Chipinda to fuel up. This was near our final campsite at Chipinda Pools where hippos and shorebirds played in the river below us.

Scott and Karen look out over the falls

Our evening drive took us out to another pan then to Chivilila Falls, a shockingly beautiful and unexpected stop. We had been on the river just below and just above this area and couldn’t believe our eyes. Because of heavy rains and flooding earlier this year the river is running strong, and apparently earlier this year you couldn’t even make out most of the rocks in this falls area. A great place to spend our final sunset.

Back to the Abbey quote at the start of this post: this park reminded me of what he had envisioned and prayed for at Arches National Park. Make the park accessible but not too accessible. The payoff seems greater when the work to get there as harder. This is Gonarezhou today and I hope it stays this way.

One final note about the challenge of driving to and through Gonarezhou: we ran into a couple in the mall parking lot in Musina that have an overlanding trailer; a bigger one with two axles. They were part of a group of six overlanders with trailers, and every single one of them sustained permanent damage that will require repair. The couple we talked to had worse than that: a bent axle and completely ruined wheel that would subsequently require a tow back to Johannesburg. If I were headed into that park with a trailer I would only want to do so with a lighter single axle overlanding model.

Three border crossings, 1 for 3 so far

2026-09-03T06:04:43-04:00

We’ve now completed three driving border crossings: South Africa to Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe back to South Africa, and South Africa to Botswana. The first two were not-so-good. The final was a breeze.

Welcome to Zimbabwe Sign

Our original plan to get from Pafuri / Return Africa was to take the Pafuri border gate exit directly into Mozambique, drive down river a ways, then ford the Limpopo. Alas the Limpopo is running deep and swift for the first time in many many years (for this time of year) so fording wouldn’t be an option. Our second option was to take a ferry further down river, but inconclusive communication with the dude that runs that private ferry gave us enough doubt that we fell back to the “safe” option at Beitbridge.

The good news: this gave us a very good re-supply and re-fuel location in Musina SA. The bad news: this is an extremely busy crossing as it is directly on the Harare to Johannesburg route.

I’m mostly responsible for our first big mistake. As we approached the border from the SA side, there was a massive lorry turning wide past us, blocking our way into the normal vehicle routing. Heavy traffic all around us. It was hard to determine where we go, but the answer is usually to the left (we drive on the left side of the road) and as the nav of the lead vehicle I pointed Karen that way. This lead us to a typical large parking area for lorries, possibly waiting to clear customs. As we were conducting our u-turn, a helpful gentleman with his lorry told us we could just go out this convenient side exit towards the bridge.

By doing so we missed the main SA exit border station, and thereby missed getting our exit stamp on our passport. On arrival at the Zimbabwe side, we parked and entered the in-processing station where we’d have to process our two vehicles (and by 3rd party insurance) as well as clear passport control. Right away we were stymied: no exit stamp means no entry. In addition, we had a tout glom onto us right away, claiming “official status” but in fact his badge just showed him as a long-range taxi driver.

Walking across the Beitbridge bridge over Limpopo

The agent advised us that the best way forward would be to walk back across the Limpopo bridge, get through exit control, then return to resume the process in Zim. That we did, and the process on the SA side took over an hour. There was a shift change in process, which apparently means they shut down processing completely for about 30 minutes. The line was long when we got there, and much longer by the time it started moving again.

After clearing we returned across the bridge to resume our entry process. Maybe the tout was helpful? We’ll never know but he got a small tip out of the process. All-in it probably cost each group member about $60-75 for the entry process, and about 3 hours of time.

Waiting for vehicles to be cleared for re-entry to South Africa

Returning across the border after Gonarezhou we were determined to do things proper-like and we mostly did on the Zimbabwe side. The signage isn’t ideal in terms of guiding us through the steps, but after a short quizzical period when our vehicle license numbers weren’t showing up on the board we realized we missed two early steps and after getting those done we drove across the same bridge we had already crossed three times (once driving, twice walking).

The South Africa entry side was going to be a brutally long wait. Two or three busloads of mostly (we think) Zimbabwean nationals had just unloaded and there were maybe 200 people ahead of in line in a small courtyard area with serpentine lines. The sun was beating down hard.

Another tout approached us: he could help us jump the line for $140. Out of the group I was the most steadfastly against it, not so much because I didn’t think it would work but because 1) The ethics of it concerned me and 2) I’ve seen this sort of routine before and felt this would be the first of several required exchanges of cash. We were going to stick together as a group so it was all of us or nobody.

A German couple in front of us in line took his offer, and he escorted them inside the building and bypassing every other person waiting in the courtyard. I could see the looks of longing and despair in our group: this might be a 6 hour process. The line wasn’t moving at all. They would empty the queue inside the building, then let just enough people in to create a new queue inside. I caved and said that I would go along with the group if we all decide to pay the guy off and jump the queue. Some faux negotiation (faux because he got the original offer in the end) proceeded then we were escorted into the building. The folks outside, especially those near the door, were none too happy. I still feel a bit sick about the whole thing. We guess he pays off the contracted security guards that man the entry door to the building, and the official staff turn a blind eye. Or the staff boss is on the payroll too. This crossing took about 2 hours.

I should mention that everybody we encountered was friendly and helpful. We never felt at risk through any of these challenges. And we still can’t believe the amount of goods (and sheer size of the goods) being carried from SA to Zim across the bridge on peoples’ heads.

Re-routing sign to Platjan Border

Our re-entry to SA was for just one night before we had to cross again to visit the Tuli Block at the far southeastern corner of Botswana. This is remote country, and the designated crossing was more remote than we even imagined. The final 10-15k was all off-road on washboard dirt and gravel road, and 100% of the driving after crossing was the same.

Bridge over Limpopo at Platjan border

The border crossing itself was a magical experience with friendly folks on both sides, eager to process our paperwork and move us along. The border was a mini oasis along the Limpopo with nice toilets. And banded mongoose! This crossing took us about 45 minutes.

We are in Botswana right now in the final leg of the journey for four of us. More on our outdoor adventures coming soon.

Mammals of Kruger

2026-09-02T09:32:56-04:00

As a companion to my collection of bird photos from Kruger, here are some mammals.

Leopard

Same disclaimers apply - a few of these are from Karen (thanks!). Bonus leopard photo (different take, same leopard) from my Skukuza post. Missing elephants? Don’t worry, plenty to come on that front.

Common Hippopotamus

Northern Bushbuck female

Hippos at the cascade

Steenbok

Blue Wildebeest

Northern Giraffe parent and child

Plains Zebra

Nyala female

Common Eland

Common Warthog

African Buffalo

Vervet Monkey

Black-backed Jackal

Birds of Kruger

2026-09-02T07:35:45-04:00

The birding has been excellent so far, with over 35 new-to-me birds (lifers) so far. My newly developed photo management app with species detection and organization is helping immensely.

African Darter

Some of these photos are from Karen’s Fuji kit and were probably taken by her, though I did spend a morning on the Lebombo trail shooting with her camera to better familiarize myself so that I could coach her a bit.

We are getting better and better photos lately with our gear as we learn more and get quicker on the draw with focusing (sometimes single point, sometimes dynamic / moving, sometimes manual). That said, a few of these photos are catalog shots of long-sought-out birds (I’m looking at you Mr. Secretary) and are below my standards but worth sharing.

Also, if you see any mis-identification of species let me know! Some the LBJs (like the larks) are very hard to distinguish,

African Pipit

African Green-Pigeon

White-bellied Sunbird

Secretarybird

Greater Blue-eared Starling

Purple Roller

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill

Laughing Dove

Hamerkop

Red-crested Bustard

Zitting Cisticola

Sabota Lark

Black-backed Puffback

Lappet-faced Vulture

Pied Kingfisher

Saddle-billed Stork

Southern Yellow White-eye

African Hoopoe

Giant Kingfisher

Freckled Nightjar

White-crowned Lapwing

African Spoonbill

Golden-tailed Woodpecker

Yellow-billed Stork

Common Greenshank

Two Dark-capped Bulbuls at bath

Trumpeter Hornbill

White-browed Robin-Chat

Southern Cordonbleu

Burchell’s Coucal

Kori Bustard

Return to Pafuri and Baobob Hill House

2026-08-30T08:43:42-04:00

We returned to Baobob Tree House at Return Africa for the second time, third time for Ken and Tenya (and their fourth trip to Pafuri). We greatly anticipated the visit and it exceeded every expectation.

Baobob Tree at Sunrise

It was a needed break for all of us after the frenetic driving schedule on the Lebombo Trail. We would be sleeping in beds, each of us with our own shower and bathroom, and no driving required as our guide Andile would lead us on several game drives and two bush walks.

Baobob Tree House

The house is part of the greater Return Africa concession that includes traditional safari lodges and remote trail camps. For a group of 4-5 or up to 8 the house is an ideal place to stay: a dedicated guide for the stay, your own cooking team (Wendy and Pheonah have been the team there for 11 years now), a pool, and plenty of game viewing directly from the house.

Sundowner by the river

A typical day is:

Wake about 5-5:30am
Coffee and quick snacks (and malaria pill)
Game drive or bush walk starting at 6:15am, returning to house around 10-11:30am
Big English breakfast
Relax: catch up on work, swim in the pool, nap, watch birds playing in the bath
Quick lunch or high tea at about 2:30pm
Afternoon game drive starting at 3:30pm, sundowner (snacks, beer, cocktails) near sunset, then a night drive back to the house looking for nocturnal critters
Dinner at about 7pm

I love everything about the routine, but the late afternoon activities are always my favorites. The air is moving from warm to cool, we always stop at an amazing view for the sundowner, and there’s always excitement on the night drive back home.

Fever tree forest bush walk

Ken was adamant about wanting two bush walks which can be a logistical challenge - in addition to our guide (who is certified to lead a game walk) we have to have a “second rifle”. Return Africa worked it out for us and we started on our first morning with a walk through the Fever Tree forest, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.

The Limpopo basin had massive flooding earlier this year, and it had a huge impact on Return Africa. Several of their riverside lodge buildings and boardwalks were washed away, and some routine roads are now impassible. There are some pleasant side effects though: the forest has significant water basins leading to substantial game and bird life wandering. The walk was magical.

We had a second walk directly from the house on our final full day, exploring the dry mopane forest and cliffs to the west and north of the house. We had done a similar hike before, but again the increased water presence made the hike much more enjoyable: buffalo, elephants, lots of antelope and birds.

Bird bath

Hanging around the house is always a joy for the birder and photographers. The giant baobob near the house is home to at least three varieties of weavers, and other birds love to come in in the late afternoon to play around in the bird bath. While taking these bird bath photos, an injured male nyala wandered into the area, walked directly by me to the bath and drank up all the water.

Vervet Monkey

The wildlife viewing was excellent as usual, and I’ll share more in some upcoming posts as I review birds and mammals of Kruger that we’ve seen. No big cats

Return Africa group shot

After a brief morning game drive on our final day we said our goodbyes, driving away to the west and north to cross into Zimbabwe for our next adventure. Our original plan was to cross into Mozambique to the east then ford the Limpopo river to enter Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe via the back door, but the Limpopo is still too flooded and we did not have certainty that a ferry would be operating. More on that in my next post.

The Lebombo Eco Trail

2026-08-25T07:00:44-04:00

On Wednesday morning we embarked on the Lebombo 4x4 Eco Trail from Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp at the southeast end of Kruger National Park.

Ready to roll on the Lebombo Trail

This trip has been on Ken’s want-to-do list for a while: a way to engage in a challenging offroad adventure, getting access to roads in Kruger that are not normally accessible, with the “safety in numbers” aspect of a caravan of vehicles and a national park guide. We didn’t know what to expect in terms of road challenge, animal sightings, pace-of-the-day, and so on.

We were joined by 3 other vehicles plus our guide’s Hilux truck; two of the tourist vehicles had overlanding trailers. One pair of South African brothers from Pretoria were in one vehicle plus trailer, while a mixed UK and South African group were in the other two vehicles (one trailer between them). Eight others plus our seven made for a tourist crew of 15 alongside our guide EJ.

The overlanding route involves four camping stops with three possible re-supply spots at official Kruger rest camps. We knew from the get-go that our route would change because of the heavy flooding in north Kruger and the Limpopo River: much of the national and park border overlanding trail near the fence line was washed out.

Waterbuck in the meadow

We spent our time partially on the tourists roads (which are often dirt/gravel), usually as a means of getting to the designated roads for the tour (and other park functions). The animal sightings were frequent and when a major find was encountered the group was happy to stop and share the experience. Much of the smaller sightings (mostly birds for me, plus the usual antelope) had to be enjoyed and photographed on the move or with a quick stop.

Spotted hyenas blocking our way

Our other vehicle (second to last, we were last) had a great encounter during the golden hour of the first day: two spotted hyenas casually jogging up our road, likely hunting. They were very unconcerned with us as we crept along for 20 or more minutes, maybe for a mile on the road. Julie, Karen and I were behind them and kept getting glimpses of them in front of their vehicle.

Giraffes at sunset

The driving portion of each day was usually long and exhausting, partly because of the detouring required (and partly for another reason that I’ll explain below). This meant for the first two nights we were pulling into camp right after sunset. Camp setup in the dark isn’t a problem for us, and created some opportunities for amazing viewing and light as the sun set over the lowveld.

Meal prep at camp

I love traveling with a group this size as we can share in resources and duties: meal prep, fire starting, cleanup, morning hot water, etc. Everyone is always eager to pitch in. With the long days of driving, then setting up camp and preparing food, finally some fireside chatter, we were all exhausted and ready for tents well before 9pm.

Vehicle recovery

The driving was mostly easy but gnarly at times: deep mud crossings, stream crossings with surprise deep holes, boulder fields, and so on. Our Bushlore Land Cruisers never had an issue other than maybe needing to back up a bit for some traction and momentum. We did often engage the diff lock and 4wd low, usually cruising around in 4wd high. We had a few vehicle recoveries from mud, and one precautionary tow of a partially disabled vehicle through a mud bath. We continue to be very happy with our rigs.

One of our private crossing bridges

I love seeing Ken smile about the unaccessible roads, bridges, and dams we were able to be on, plus the use of our team to recover the others in the group (including the guide!). Add to that some requested navigational help provided from Ken and this turned into his dream trip.

Black-backed Jackal

I’m loving the camera setup so far but learning that there reach limits with my lens configuration. The 2x extender will likely only be useful with a tripod (I’ll experiment with that) and I’ve got to be in a situation where the subject nearly fills the frame at high zoom to get quality shots. Karen’s Fuji gear might be performing better but I need to do some pixel-by-pixel comparisons.

Army staff walking down to recover ambulance

Poaching and border security remain a problem in the camp and by traveling alongside the Mozambique border we encountered a few army and park ranger bivouacs. Always saw smiles from the folks we encountered.

Guide EJ sharing botany knowledge

Our guide was solid and a long-term Kruger guide staffer; about the same age as Julie and me. He has strong expertise in the ecology of the park and botany in particular, giving us a different perspective than we’ve had before. He lives in the Skukuza staff village and has been playing the golf course there for a long time so it was fun to chat about our experience there a few days prior.

Rest break with extra solar charging

We had to be on issued radios for the journey so we could communicate with the guide and each other, and sadly that radio took up the one and only 12v cigarette lighter spot in the vehicle. We regretted not bringing a male to two female splitters as this would have made it a non-issue; we have heavy charging needs throughout the daily driving (batteries for CPAP, Starlink, our phones, laptops, etc.). My new solar panel helped a lot during the mid-day stops, and we played radio repeater for the other vehicle so they could use their socket for charging.

Chocolate cake in dutch oven

I continue to bake in the dutch oven: one loaf of bread, chocolate cake, and chocolate brownies. I was rushed on the first two and didn’t have my best showing, but round three (brownies) were cooked perfectly. More of this will be coming in Zimbabwe.

The full Lebombo crew

Overall this was a great experience. Highly recommended, especially if you have a desire to do some challenging overlanding but don’t have a crew to go with for backup. Our guide gave great advice on what modes to use when and we definitely felt like we pushed things.

Still, don’t think of this as a great game drive experience. There’s a timeline to adhere to and, especially with the detours as we moved further north, we had to ramble faster than usual to make up for the extra distance and get to camp in time.

Every night the overall group of 16 were talking and collaborating more and more, which is want you want for an experience like this. Very glad to have met everyone and share the experience.

Johannesburg into Kruger

2026-08-18T21:55:51-04:00

We have safely made it to the bush in South Africa and are just finishing our second night in established public campgrounds at the south end of Kruger National Park.

After a 14 hour flight from Newark to Johannesburg we arrived at OR Tambo airport at about 6:30pm on Sunday. Again we stayed at the Protea hotel near the airport, with shuttle provided, making for an easy first evening. The seven of us discussed logistics for the next few days, including how we would manage the vehicle pickup and provisioning. We had a tough day ahead of us with a requirement to get to Skukuza Camp before they close reception at 6pm.

Inspecting vehicles at Bushlore

The challenge was getting through vehicle pickup (and our inspection) at Bushlore, about 45 minutes from the airport, then making the 6 hour drive to camp. We expected some surprises and were all concerned about the timing.

Our two Land Cruisers with double ten toppers were new models than two years ago: low-ish mileage, automatic transmission, and (for now) reliable Apple Carplay. We learned from our last trip that you don’t take shortcuts on acceptance: testing the tents, or winch, on one vehicles doesn’t satisfy the same test on the other. So we were thorough and everything took time.

At the moment we arrived at Bushlore we had a driver take three of the group to a nearby shopping complex for provisioning, thinking that we could parallelize some of this earlier time. Very thankful that we did as we had to work through a few issues:

An air compressor that had to be replaced (for airing up tires after airing down)
Extension for one of the rooftop tent ladders (the front tents sit higher on the Land Cruiser than the back tent and Hilux tents)
There weren’t extra fuel jerry cans as we requested
The biggest problem: the house battery for the fridge and galley lights was showing low charge and ultimately had to be replaced

Even with all this checking, we were still missing a key item from both vehicles: a lighter for the propane stoves. That was easy to fix later. The parallel shopping paid off significantly - if we had waited to shop until after vehicles were ready to go, we would have missed our timeline.

The drive was a grind but beautiful as we transitioned from the high veld to low veld; Johannesburg is close to Denver or Albuquerque elevation and we were headed downhill most of the time. We stopped once for bathrooms and snacks about 2.5 hours into the drive but that was all we had time for.

We drove through an agriculture belt that was spectacular: banana, citrus, macadamia, and blueberry orchards, vast valleys with rivers, and lots and lots of lorries to slow us down.

After passing through the Paul Kruger Gate at about 5:10pm, we made it to reception around 5:35pm. The campground was crazy full and finding a spot where we could park both vehicles near each other was a challenge. It isn’t trivial to “setup camp” then drive away (we ate at the Cattle Baron restaurant - highly recommended).

Julie holes a putt on 9 at Skukuza (photo by Tenya)

Another very early morning because we had to break camp for… golf. Ken scheduled 9 holes for us at the wildest golf course on earth. I agree: hippos, monkeys, plus the usual assortment of third tier Africa animals.

The golf was just fun. Rental clubs, rambling around a challenging course, carrying my telephoto lens for bird shots.

Lilac-breasted Roller

Working our way to the start of a 4x4 tour we would start on Wednesday, we hit the road from the golf course to drive to Berg-En-Dal camp. This was a great first game drive for our newbies, with plenty of antelope, beautiful African birds, and Karen spotting a leopard stalking a herd of impala.

Leopard on drive from Skukuza to Berg-en-Dal

I can’t stress enough how hard this is to do. These creatures are designed to hide from everything that might notice them. It is one thing to detect a leopard in a tree eating their prey, quite another to catch it stalking through tall grass where across the road is a small herd of impala. A great first-day treat for our Africa first-timers.

White-fronted bee-eater

Our drive continued until about 4pm when we arrived at Berg-en-Dal, reserving our space then heading back out to squeeze in some more viewing before the gate closed. Dinner out again, delaying cooking dinner because of the restaurant in camp. Tomorrow we start the Lebombo 4x4 trail from the southeast end of Kruger up to Pafuri at the northeast end.

Preparing for Nine Weeks in Africa

2026-08-15T12:11:41-04:00

I’m the car with brother-in-law Mike driving Julie and me from Keuka to Rochester airport. Julie’s trip is three weeks long, mine is 9 weeks.

Gear for Africa

Travel buddy Ken and I started planning for this trip almost immediately after returning from our last trip in 2024. My planning involvement was mainly raising my hand and saying “yes I would like to return for as long as possible.” Ken carries the bulk of the planning burden.

The big desire for this trip was more overlanding and self-guiding. Plus Ken had a list of countries and parks to visit based on his extensive prior travel there and guide training. We will land in Johannesburg Sunday evening, Monday morning we pick up two Land Cruisers from Bushlore then head to Kruger National Park.

I won’t go into the full itinerary here; instead I’ll direct you to a site I built (with help) that we are using for route planning, accommodation documentation, birding target lists, etc. The adventure has three phases: three weeks with seven of us (three couples plus Karen), another 10 days with Ken, Karen, and me, then a month with just Ken and me.

We will mostly be in tents on top of the vehicles, but have some periodic stays in lodges. The big highlight will be a return to Baobob Hill House in Pafuri after driving a 4x4 trail the length of Kruger from south to north.

Spraying our clothes

Julie and I did the usual round of vaccines, started our malaria pills today, and sprayed our clothes with permethrin. The equipment list is more extensive this time - redundant Starlink Minis, a solar array, and “real” photography gear. Last time I had a nearly worthless Canon Powershot. Looking forward to higher quality photo output. Karen went a parallel path with a nice Fuji setup, optimized for in-camera jpg production. I also have my newly created PhotoLoupe app for library management, species identification, and post processing.

Album Club: Purple Rain - Prince

2026-08-10T09:44:33-04:00

Discussed on August 10, 2026. Picked by Jim.

Song Ratings

#	Song	Jim	Chris
1	Let’s Go Crazy	—	—
2	Take Me With U	—	Cut
3	The Beautiful Ones	—	Bench
4	Computer Blue	Cut	—
5	Darling Nikki	—	—
6	When Doves Cry	—	—
7	I Would Die 4 U	—	—
8	Baby I’m a Star	Bench	—
9	Purple Rain	Starter	Starter

Legend: Starter = would start a playlist

Bench = solid

Cut = would skip

Jim’s Notes

This really is, start to finish, a great album. Are there any perfect albums? I don’t know but this comes awfully close.

Had no idea the title for Purple Rain came from a lyric in Ventura Highway by America until reading the Wikipedia article about the album.
Let’s Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, I Would Die 4 U and Purple Rain could all be starters.
Computer Blue was originally 14 minutes. Edited to 7:30 for inclusion on Purple Rain and further edited down to 3:59 to make room for Take Me With U. The album and Hallway Speech (12:18 in length) versions are the only released versions. Would love to hear the 7:30 edit originally planned for the album as a comparison to the other versions. Hallway Speech version is an improvement over the album version IMO.
Watching the movie again lends context to the tracks when listening.
I’m only cutting Computer Blue because I think a longer version would be better. As it is on the album, it’s too short. No 2nd verse, no ‘human / computer’ interaction. We might have gotten a better version had CDs been further along in adoption.
Other notable releases from 1984: Born to Run (Springsteen), Like a Virgin (Madonna), Reckoning (REM), The Unforgettable Fire (U2), 1984 (Van Halen), Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads).

Chris’s Notes

My bench is usually going to be the “best song that wasn’t a hit” for popular works like this. I love “Let’s Go Crazy”, “When Doves Cry”, “I Would Die 4 U” but “The Beautiful Ones” is the best of the non-singles.
“Purple Rain” is my all-time Prince song. Evergreen. Quote (from first article below): “It’s like country-rock, it’s white music. You should write a ballad like Bob Seger writes and you’ll cross right over.”
My cut is “Take Me With U”. The song is OK, just the weakest of the ballad-like songs on the album.
Thank you Jim for pointing me to “Hallway Speech” version of “Computer Blue”. Moved it off the cut list.
“I Would Die 4 U” is just an awesome pop song.The most conventional 80s style song on the album.
Not talking about Doves and Let’s Go because they are obviously right up there with PR. Such different songs! All amazing

Good follow-ons: