Time for our second blog post on our time in Kafue. The Tsetse flies remain intense, but we must remind ourselves that without the mighty tsetse these huge wildlife reserves simply wouldn’t exist. So we must enjoy it for what it is.
Temperamental Zimbabwean wifi mean there will be few photos posted. Check back later for the full experience…
Kafue River Boat
Our second night at Bongololo was certainly less eventful than the first. The Mozhi boys calls were absent from the night air as they had clearly moved on. The odd hippo stalked the grasslands around camp, noisily chuckling away with their friends.
We drove the four hours back to the M9 tar road, stopping for breakfast along the way overlooking a magnificent lagoon on the Lufupa river, filled with Hippos and crocodiles, we also spotted some basking turtles.
A kudu quite literally making a meal out of a Euphorbia cactus tree was a highlight, she was regretfully snacking on a huge chunk but felt too embarrassed to spit it out in our presence.
McBrides camp is an hour and a half north of the M9 on the opposite bank of the Kafue river. The drive there was filled with enormous amounts of Tsetse flies. When the swarms of tsetses reached their peak density, the fires began. Huge swathes of grassland and forest being burnt. The flames licking around the edges of a blackened expanse, grubby and ashy. The trees don’t burn, only the grass, so what is left is a forest with little undergrowth and no insect or reptile life. This is done to preserve the ecosystem, it’s just unsightly. Grass fires are part of the annual cycle, but if left too late in the dry season they can become much more dangerous and uncontrollable.
Driving through walls of flames looks pretty cool though.
McBrides camp occupies a spectacular bend in the Kafue river. Here the watercourse is wide and slow, lined with trees, and host to incredible sunsets. The river was full of hippos, which grazed on the grassy bank outside the camp by night. We treated ourselves to an evening cruise on the double-decker boat. We watched birdlife and sipped Mosi beers as the sky turned deep orange. Our special sighting of the evening was an African finfoot, to us, a duck without a beak. Fish eagles, Goliath herons, openbill storks and other water birds were present in abundance.
Sarah and I were slumming it at the campsite, a kilometre away from the main lodge. A beautiful piece of riverside where we were left completely to ourselves. The lodge itself occupied the prettier location, plus Jacqui and Clare were treated like royalty with plenty of great food and drink. The price here is very very reasonable when compared to the more exclusive lodges in more popular Zambian destinations such as South Luangwa or Lower Zambezi but will the wildlife stack up?
Wildlife:
Kudu
Hippos
African finfoot
Openbill stork
Hadeda Ibis
African fish eagle
Distance: 187km
Cumulative Distance: 4,570km
McBrides
Our morning game drive was uneventful. Sarah and I self-drove but didn’t manage to see any big game. We did come across a herd of alarming Puku alongside the Kafue river, and heard roars of a lion very close by, but we could not get a sighting. Further east there were tracks of a solo lioness and cub, but they too had melted into the bush. Jacqui and Clare’s guided morning drive was even less eventful, so it wasn’t just us.
In the afternoon the part-owner of the lodge arrived in his bright yellow plane. We spoke about his plans for the lodge and how Kafue National park can be improved in general.
In the evening we headed to the hot spring in search of a malachite kingfisher, but even he wasn’t at home. Perhaps tomorrow will be luckier.
Wildlife:
Puku, Defassa Waterbuck
Distance: 42km
Cumulative Distance: 4,612km
Walking with lions
Lion calls woke us just before our alarms. They were close by, just to the north of our campsite. At 6:30 we would depart for our walking safari, but at the moment we were unsure how safe the campsite was. We carefully checked, and decided the lions were on the move on the opposite side of the small woodland we were camped beside.
We were collected from our camp by the scout Sylvester and Kennan, the trainee guide. As we left camp the lions let out another call, only a few hundred metres away. We walked up to camp where the staff, guides, and guests were preoccupied with an elephant in camp. Jasper is apparently a regular visitor, but he treated us to a show. We watched from afar as he pruned the trees around the thatched huts of camp.
After a few minutes it was time to set off on our walk, Jasper would be around later. We mentioned the lions near the campsite, and were briefed that we would walk around them to look at them with the sun and wind on our backs. We headed due east into the rising sun, across the dry waterhole surrounding camp, and out into the grassland where a herd of Puku were grazing.
As we set off a Puku let off a single alarm call, it’s a high pitched whistle which can either be a territorial call, or a warning to others in the herd of danger. We continued as a group, walking towards the herd. None of the antelopes were looking at us, every single one had their eyes and ears fixed to the north, the whistles became more frequent. Birds were making a racket to our left, just behind a small copse of trees. Such a cacophony only follows a predator, and we continued to walk forwards.
We knew the lions were there, now no more than a hundred metres away and coming from the direction we’d heard them earlier. Eventually Simonga, the lead guide, called on the group to stop. We bunched together tightly, to form a bigger mass, and were finally instructed not to run. Our group consisted of 5 guests, the four of us who had been on a number of walking safaris, and Hedder a young Dutchman on his first safari. He had never seen a lion before, so perhaps the brief should have covered the ‘no running’ part a little earlier.
Whatever was just around the corner was getting closer, the herd of Puku decided enough was enough, and most of them decamped to a safer position behind our group. Then, right on cue, a lioness strolled out from behind the copse into plain view. Maybe only thirty or forty metres away from where we were stood. She didn’t care about being seen, and was walking purposefully southwards.
Two more lionesses emerged from behind the trees, one skirted around the edge of the grassland, further away from us and keeping to the shadows, as if encircling the antelope left in the middle. The third came closer towards us, following the route of a game track until she was well within thirty metres of us. All three barely gave us a second glance as they marched on past.
Au puku’s defence is its senses. Excellent eyesight helps them watch and track predators as they approach. If they get too close, then the puku has the speed and agility to escape, it’s only if they are caught by surprise that they are in danger. The lions know this, and they obviously weren’t on a hunt, but one puku did stay a little bit too still for a little bit too long. The lioness made a halfhearted attempt at snatching a free lunch. The puku easily avoided her lunge, but perhaps could have followed the warning of the rest of the herd.
Finally a male lion rounded the corner and lazily followed his female companions towards their chosen resting spot. Again he paid us no attention, and we got a good look at him as he negotiated the long grass.
Setting off again to cross the path of the lions we asked the guides how many lions were in the pride. There had been seven. Two males and five females. One old lioness hasn’t been seen for a while and is presumed dead, another has just had cubs and is keeping away from the pride whilst nursing. That left the three females we had just seen. Naturally Sarah asked the question if the rest of the pride always travel together, to which the guides replied yes. Of course it was a leading question, and I’m sure dear reader you don’t need a maths degree to work out what was coming.
We crossed the lions’ path and headed into the woodland to look at a the hippo toilet. Sure enough the message came through on the radio that the final male lion had just strolled past camp, exactly where we had been just minutes earlier.
The rest of the walk was comparatively uneventful. As was our drive out of Kafue and east towards Lusaka. We stopped for the night at Fringilla farm and butchery, arriving just after dusk, and in time to catch some of England’s opening Euro 2024 match against Serbia.
Wildlife:
Lions
Distance: 230km
Cumulative Distance: 4,842km
Small Holiday Big Dream 
Leave a reply to Ortelius Cancel reply