You can find the rest of the posts in this series here. Caution, quite a few photos after the jump!
- Dates: 18th – 20th
- Distance: 55.1 km (34.2 mi)
- Cumulative Distance: 3,608.5 km (2,242.6 mi)
- Accomodation: Camping, except for last night where we slept in the kitchen building!
- Shakawe – Popa Falls
We left Shakawe fairly leisurely, got stuck in the sand once, and hit up the local supermarket for supplies. Which was in iteself a surreal experience. Sitting next to the 50kg bags of mealie meal, and bulk packs of Chinese long life milk and cooking oil were tinned muscles, Simonsberg camembert, great red wines and assorted other luxuary goods. Truely bizarre. We thought it was because of the upmarket lodges and camps in the area but it was still very strange! We stocked up on mussles, wine and fancy cheese (as you do) and headed the 2km up the road to the border. The border crossing (our second) was painless, let’s hear it for tiny out-of-the-way border posts! The whole drive was only about 50km so we were in no great hurry.
We were staying at the government run Popa Falls campsite, the cheapest, closest campsite to Mahongo Game Reserve. Mahongo was one of those places we decided to stop at thanks to our guide book. There are apparently over 400 species of birds in the reserve and the Big Five as well. It’s also one of the few reserves where you can get out and walk around if you want to. Though with all the tall papyrus, thick bush and the one lion sighting we didn’t do that much. Oh and it rained for almost 2 days solid. Did I mention that?
- Our view for two solid days
Ok not solid for two days but enough to make it feel like it and make us sick to death of the tent and each other. But I’ll get to that. Popa Falls are not so much a waterfall as a series of rapids on the Kavango River (which is what the Okavango is called in Namibia). The campsites was gorgeous with great bathrooms and an awesome kitchen. It was just very wet.
We set up in the empty campsite next to a gorgeous little stream and pool. I’m not sure why we didn’t swim in it; probably we were quite damp enough and anyway, it was more than likely against the rules! The best part of the pool was the Paradise Flycatcher that came down to bath everyday. He, (we knew it was a he because of the silly long tail!) would dive bomb into the water and then fly up to a convenient branch and fluff and preen and then repeat the whole sequence. It took him about 15 minutes. We tried to get photos but alas…he was just too quick!
- John trying to capture the dive-bombing Flycatcher at the pool in front of our tent
We also had Giant Kingfishers visiting and a multitude of other tiny and not-so-tiny birds. It was really fabulous!
- Giant Kingfisher
We spent the three days we had here driving around the little park spotting birds and animals and relaxing. The rain was incredibly frustrating though. We only had a little 2-man tent that we could not stand up in. So we played a lot of cards. Talked a lot. And got on one another’s nerves. I think that constantly being wet. Sandy thanks to the sand covered camp-site and stuck either in the car or in the tent was getting to us in a big way. We got out as much as we could, but thanks to the rain, we didn’t see much game on our game drives. It wasn’t a dead loss though!
- Sable
We came across a heard of about 12 sable on the main road. Such a special sighting! These antelope are not all that common and they are so beautiful!
We also saw an enormous legavaan …
- Curled up and sluggish in the cold
Some shy bushbuck…
- A female bushbuck peers through the foliage
A squirrel at one of the viewpoints gave us a wink…
- Yeah…so what?
Or is that a stink-eye?
And a wet and very grumpy-looking White-browed Coucal.
- White-browed Coucal
It really is a superb little reserve. I can highly recommend it; even if the accommodation options in the area are limited.
Finally on our last night we were sick and tired of the damp so we broke down our tent, packed up the bakkie and set up our mattresses in the kitchen. We were the only people in the campsite so it wasn’t an issue. We slept soooooo well that night! The next morning, after coffee and rusks we were busy packing up when the security guard (who had obviously been sleeping somewhere sheltered instead of patrolling) stomped up to us angrily yelling about not being allowed to sleep in the kitchen. Whatever dude. You just miffed you didn’t think of it first!!
We headed up the dirt road and turned west on the Caprivi Highway (B8), heading for our overnight stop via Rundu (where we had an almighty fight!)…stay tuned!
