30th June - On the House Boat

An African sunrise, across the Chobe National Park, greeted us through the bedroom window. As the sun rose higher the Baboons again swarmed to the beach to enjoy the morning sun. Elephants and Impala began to meander down and it all began again.

Our selected morning activity today was to go Tiger Fishing.  We know that this was one of the options, so were looking forward to it. Then someone showed us a picture of a Tiger Fish. They are the ultimate trophy fish in Africa and look like a cross between a Piranha and a Tiger.  Teeth much too big and savage then any fish has any right to have.

Raina caught one very small fish, though its teeth were vicious and best avoided. Sarah was the champion of the day, catching four. Her last a fairly decent sized one. 2Kg to be precise.

During lunch our view of Elephant Bay got entertaining. A large herd of elephants came down to drink as well as a herd of Impala. The elephants must have bigger eyes then stomachs because they seem to think that there is not enough water to go around and get rather territorial about the river (which is massive). The elephants had split into two groups at the riverbank and the Impala were making mad dashes to get to the space between the elephants to get a drink. And they really were in a bit of danger. The elephants were chasing them, swatting at them with their trunks, running at them with flapping ears and even trumpeting. Like full blown classic elephant trumpets. 

We then backed away from our mooring and headed up stream for another few hours. After our arrival it was back into the speedboat for another game drive.

This trip showed us Monkeys, more Baboons, and even a den of four Porcupines. They are so big and are very interesting. Being huge rodents they are huge pack rats and will steal whatever they can. There was a den of then at Ant’s and they would sneak up at night and steal shoes (but only one), cans, cameras etc. On a horse ride we found a wine bottle at least one kilometer from the camp- taken there by a porcupine.

A small troupe of Baboons (only about 200 in this group) had come down for the evening so we went and watched.  At times the boat was only two meters from them. Having a sundowner drink, sitting in a boat, watching Baboons – awesome.

The sun was almost gone so we started heading in – that is until we saw a herd of Elephants crossing the river.

Elephants swimming from Namibia to Botswana – without passports. It was amazing. In a neat little elephant line. Big ones up to their shoulders, small ones walking on the bottom with their snorkels up, then bobbing up and down, swimming with their trunks raised just a little to use as a snorkel still.  Once again we got really close, which was fine in deep water, but as they reached shallow water a big girl turned around a swore at us. Ears up and all!  Sarah who was sitting on the nose of the boat made a hasty retreat to a back seat.

It was magic!!!!!!!!

Back to the boat for a fun night with the six other guests on board. Raina stated that she liked ‘Youth Hostels for grown ups”.