We arrived in Johannesburg after our 10 hour flight from the UK on board a new British Airways A380 airbus - which due to the upcoming Easter holiday was full.
After a relatively smooth flight we landed at a bright but cool Johannesburg @ 0630; we were quickly off and through immigration, aided by the fact that they now have a 'no visa required' queue, we collected our luggage, made our way to departures and checked in for our 1115 flight to Maun. As we had lots if time to kill airside, we perused the shops and drank several cups of very good coffee. The propellor driven flight to Maun was about 30 minutes late leaving so we arrived @ 1350 and had to queue at a very slow Botswanan immigration - which thankfully speeded up when another section was opened- making 3 in total!
As we emerged from customs we saw welcoming sign for Moremi air with our names on it, Spence x 2, and were quickly whisked through domestic departures and off to our small plane, which was taking, just John and I, to Tau Pan in the Central Kalahari. We had a very smooth 45 minute flight over very flat but green landscape - because we were in the aptly named green season - but at the end. We could see rain showers around us - most we skirted, but on one occasion with rain on our left and sun on our right we were surrounded by a rainbow - something the pilot had never seen before.
We arrived at the airstrip at about 3.30 and were met by our guide Daniel and tracker Gaston - we were taken along with the pilot, who was overnighting with us, back to camp......enroute our wildlife sightings started with a group of red hartebeest and a lone steenbok.
After a quick cup of tea and a piece of cake we headed off for our inaugural drive and introduction to the Botswanan Kalahari......the only obvious sand being on the vehicle tracks. The scenery resembled that of the Masai Mara and the Southern Serengeti - flat grassland dotted with trees and bushes - when we reached the pan itself it was a vast open grassland which looked like cheetah heaven particularly as it had herds of springbok dotted over it - they were joined by the desert adapted oryx and migratory wildebeest. On our way to the pan we had some excellent sightings of a family of bat eared foxes and later saw a family of black backed jackals. There were a lot more and a greater variety of birds than I expected - we saw a lilac breasted roller with a cricket, ( today's photo) grey and yellow hornbills, red capped lark, marico flycatcher, capped wheatear, black chested snake eagle, pale chanting goshawk, white browed sparrow weaver, secretary birds, cape glossy starling, sitting cisticola, crowned lapwing, scaly feathered finch, ostrich and lots of Kori bustards patrolling the plains.
Back at camp we had nice hot showers before being collected for dinner, as by 1920 hours it was very dark and you never know what lurks in the shadows. We joined fellow guests from Belgium and Germany along with the guides and managers for a very enjoyable dinner.
We departed for bed at 9 ish instead of sitting around the fire - my eyes were giving way and I was definitely in need of a good nights sleep after only getting a few hours on the flight down.