We went to Moremi Game Reserve today. It is not far from Maun but to get to South Gate you have to travel about 40 kms to the turn toward Moremi and then another 30 kms to get to the gate. The first 15-20 kms are on tar road and then you’re on sand roads the balance of the way. I say sand and gravel because it really is sand. After we got onto the sand we let our tyres down to about 1.5 bar as that makes it a smoother ride. It did improve but the road is really rutted so you don’t get a smooth ride at all.
Once you turn toward Moremi we had read you could view game from that point onward and they were right. On the 30 km stretch before the gate we saw Elephant, Giraffe, Kudu, Impala, Buffalo, Steenbok and numerous birds. When we stopped at the gate everyone remarked at how much we had seen and we weren’t in Moremi yet. Once inside Moremi the roads are single track and at times they were very sandy. No one got stuck though I suspect everyone’s cars were scratched as the thorn bushes are pretty close to the road. We saw everything we saw outside the gate (including quite a few herds of elephants and some with very small calves) as well as Tsesebe, Zebra, Baboon and most importantly another lifer for me taking my tally to 400!
We had hoped to get to Third Bridge but there was no way we could do that and get back before dark and you don’t want to drive on those roads in the dark. While Helen concluded that she had seen enough of Moremi roads to know she didn’t want to come back unless it was a plane bringing her, I think I would definitely like to spend more time in Moremi and in fact would like to stay inside. I suspect the game viewing could be incredible if we had more time (that said even though we didn’t see any predators). Stephen felt similarly to me – maybe because the birding was incredible and maybe because he drove from midday through the rest of the day (he did extremely well given the roads). I gave up the driving seat because of a splitting headache which I have unfortunately not yet shaken (I am lying on my bed typing this blog with one hand while everyone else is at dinner in the restaurant).
We do have some pics which I just don’t have the energy to post right now but will do so over the next few days. WiFi has been none existent and cellphone reception also not great.
Until tomorrow … S (he really does deserve to be first today because of his driving – he did a great job and the R200 I paid for him to join me on the 4×4 training course paid off today), C (for putting up with the very back seat which is way worse on those roads), H (for also being in the back seat and letting me have the front seat even though she said she wished she’d worn her sports bra today), M & P