Chobe National Park

We wanted to drive from Maun, up through Chobe to Kasane, before crossing to Zambia but were unable to secure a booking for the only place it is permissible to camp in the park - it seems they are booked months ahead and although we checked twice, and had flexible dates, there were no cancellations.

So then we considered driving up the old cattle track through the Nxai Pan national park but considerable internet research indicated it was a bad idea so we plumped for the long way on the main road.  8 hours, many, many potholes and a roan antelope sighting later we made it to Kasane just as it got dark thankfully.   I've heard too many horror stories about elephants on the road to want to drive at night and we saw our fair share grazing along the highway as the afternoon wore on.  We spent today cruising about Chobe National Park along the riverfront of the Zambezi.

Game parks are funny.  Kruger and Etosha reminded me of the game Pacman - think of it from above - lots of cars driving randomly along a limited number of roads stopping, turning around and reversing in search of some game to view.   Chobe was a bit different in that many of the roads are deep sand and require 4WD to pass so apart from a few game drive vehicles from the local lodges in the afternoon we really only saw a couple of other cars. 

Chobe is packed with all sorts of wildlife.  Pretty much all the animals we've seen in the other parks but in huge numbers.   Pods of more than 30 hippos, troupes of 200 odd baboons, hundreds of buffalo and countless impala.  There were herds of elephants around every corner and the ransacked flora shows it.  Elephants spend 24/7 eating and much of the park had very little foliage left. 

One herd of about 20 elephants we were watching at the river got a fright from a passing boat and took off en mass.  Elephants move quite fast when they're in a hurry, but they're so graceful they somehow still manage to look like they're in slow motion - this group reminded me of that scene in Reservoir Dogs when all of the Mr Colours are walking together to the coffee shop to plan the heist...