Day 1 – Johannesburg / Maun / Chitabe Camp, Okavango Delta
Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 08:09AM We left Joburg this morning on Air Botswana with no hiccups, as usual. The flight is an easy to do 10am flight, which allowed me and my guests to get a good night’s sleep after a long journey to this side of the pond. After our 2 hour flight from Joburg to Maun, Botswana, we grabbed our bags and hopped on our bush plane flights to Chitabe Camp in the Okavango Delta. I normally arrange for an extra plane for additional weight allowances, and this trip was no exception.
The bush plane flight only took about 15 minutes from Maun, and we landed, met our guides BB and Phinley, and headed off to camp. There is much water th is year in the delta, and the normal road back to camp was still underwater. This year has more year than last, and last year had more water than the year before that. I can only anticipate what it will be like in 2011. It isn’t really a bad thing, but it can be challenging when you are trying to take the quickest road to somewhere.
We arrived in to camp, said hello to Dawson the manager, grabbed our rooms and met back in the main area for tea and cookies. Game drive time! Since it was late in the afternoon, we didn’t have a long game drive today. We saw some great congregations of greater kudu, as well as ostrich. What a great day to go from a big city to the wilderness in only a short period of time.
We stopped for a sundowner drink after sunset, in front of a beautiful acacia tree. Wine, beer, sodas and gin and tonics were served, and there were smiles on faces, happy to be in the wilderness of one of Africa’s greatest wildlife gems: the Okavango Delta. After some time jib jabbing away, we headed back to camp, freshened up, and gathered around the campfire in anticipation of a wonderful dinner. After dinner, I am sure it didn’t take long for people to fall fast asleep after a long journey. Tomorrow we will be up at 5:30, and will head out for a morning game drive after a quick breakfast.
Joe and Joan Johnson from Really Right Stuff, excited for their first game drive
Phinley and I take a second to say cheese.
Acacia sunset shoot and time to stop for sundowner drinks.
Palms and Cranes
...and finally, drinks by the campfire before dinner
Botswana, Chitabe, okavango in Safari Reports
Reader Comments (5)
looks like the satellite is working great -- looking forward to following along. good luck. kirk
Ah, the wonderful people behind RRS! How exciting!! :)
Sounds like a perfect first day on safari! Is that a prototype RRS gimbal head Mr. Johnson is using?
Hi Andy,
Nice to see a different kind of blogging with a day to day update and image which looks like a better version of tweeting :)
Also what camera head or support is the one which Joan is using in the Image #2 ?
I tried to look out for in his site but nothing like that is seen there :)
The item looks really promising for safari photography.
Cheers,
Shiv
Looks like everyone is having a great time; wish I could be there.
@ Richard: That gimbal head made it past the prototype phase and is in production now, but it is new. It is called the PG-02 LLR.
@ Shivakumar: If you are talking about the rig that Joan is using where she is to the left of Joe, then it would be a leveling base for a monopod specifically for when you clamp down the monopod as shown. It is currently being prototyped as is the rest of the system you see in front of Joan in that picture (clamps, support arm, etc).
Hope everyone gets some great shots!