Instead of an early morning and then evening game drive, we had a full day boat safari from 9am - 3pm which meant we could sleep in.
Heather and I had the morning planned out, which then went out the window when Michael (our ranger) came back from the early morning game drive (with other guests). Michael had seen a herd of 30 elephants and was hoping to show them to us before the boat safari.
So we bundled into the safari vehicle and drove off to where the elephants had been. We found a few stragglers, but not the full herd. One elephant stood in the road and held us up, so we were a little late getting to the boat. Yep, late due to elephant.
On the drive over a rather large dung beetle smacked me in my shoulder and fell stunned in my seat. I was concerned that it would start flying about my face so moved over to Heather. Tristan rescued it and kept it up front until it regained its senses. Dung beetles are very important to the ecosystem and if they put the dung beetle back out while it was stunned, it could be eaten by ants.
The boat was captained by an older gentleman, Warwick. He was really nice and knew the water systems like the back of his hand. Michael and Tristan (a new hire at the lodge, tagging along for training) joined us on the boat.
Unfortunately due to recent rains and water management, they had yesterday opened some dams and so the water level was two feet higher and very muddy. This impacted the favourite sand bars of the hippos as the sand bars were now much deeper.
We saw a few groupings of hippos, although none out of the water. I did get a pic of a baby hippo yawning!
There was lots of bird life. We got up close to the weavers and saw nests in progress. I tried tracking the big birds flying and was getting the hang of actually having the bird in the frame fully zoomed. I was in burst mode, without refocus, so I had to focus, then track within the same focal range. Luckily I got a few in frame and in focus.
We docked back on shore where we had a picnic lunch, as well as a couple craft beers that Michael had packed.
We were back at the lodge by 3pm, with lots of time to relax and lounge around the lodge. I caught up on my blog over tea and chocolate cake.
It had been a very hot day (over 35C) and so the boma was too hot with the fire. We had a drink at the bar inside while the evening cooled down.
Dinner was good. The owner dropped by our table to chat and then sat down for a beer, so we ordered another round. It was about 10pm by the time we headed off to bed.
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