Hilton Kotze Safari Blog

Zambia ,Kafue national park

The next leg of our trip takes us to  kafue national park some 225000 square km big ,it is an hour and a half’s flight from Livingston into central Africa , you literally fly the hole time over bush veld, not one town just un-spoilt bush.

Vic falls leaving Livingston

We landed at Lufupa camp , our first stop in Kafue. It’s a lovely semi luxury tented bush camp situated on the confluence of the lufupa and Kafue rivers, more or less in the central part of Kafue. I say semi luxury as there is no electricity , there is however lights and hot water powered by solar pannels and camera and laptops can be charged at the office from the generator which runs while guests are our on drive. Although there are no air cons the evenings were not hot as there is a constant breeze off the water that blows through the tent ,I found it very comfortable even though we were there in the hottest time of the year (oct)

The mighty Kafue river at sunset

The activities are mixed between game drives and boat cruises .The size of the Kafue and Lufupa rivers is mind blowing ,this is definitely an undiscovered secret of Africa. A great advantage in Kafue is that you can follow animals off road, some thing not often possible in national parks.

The rivers are at times 80 -100m wide and teeming with game ,  from the boat there is brilliant birding with tons of African fin foot, malachite kingfishers ,half collared kingfishers ,African skimmers ,western banded snake eagles just to mention a few, there is also the lovely senic images of sunset that get imprinted in your brain.

sunset silhouette on the Kafue river

Game viewing from the boat was also good with leopard elephant hippos crocs and various antelope sightings.

dominant male lion in Lufupa area

The game drives were interesting from the point that you had to fight off the tsetse flies for most part of the drive, this can be some what annoying, but we had good game viewing , saw Rhone antelope eland elephants and lion.

Next we are off to the Busanga plains of northern Kafue

Tags: Add new tag, Kafue national park, Kafue river, Lufupa camp, photographic, photography, safari, wildlife, Zambia

Zambia photographic trip

My Zambia trip starts at Livingston ,more specifically Toka leya a wilderness safari camp on the Zambezi

This is camp is well suited for those looking for comfort and style in the bush

The camp is on raised decks overlooking the Zambezi river ,a perfect setting for an African safari experience.

Boat cruise on the Zambezi

The afternoon activity was a boat cruise on the Zambezi, were we are expecting to find the African fin foot and the African skimmers( two big ticks for birders a must for any photographers portfolio).

We had a wonderful time here and saw some awesome sightings, a special one for me was an elephant swimming across the Zambezi river .

Elephant swimming the Zambezi

The river was a hive of activity but sadly on the Zimbabwe side all was quiet,our guide mentioned that is apparently because of no fuel for boats to go out. Its such a shame the someone can cause such a beautiful country to almost come to a standstill.

My next stop is Kafue national park

Tags: Add new tag, photographic, photography, Toka Leya, wildlife, Zambia

Botswana Photographic 2009

Hi all , well we are off on our next photographic ,this time we are venturing into Botswana to photograph the beauty of this wonderful country.

This is a joint initiative between Outdoorphoto,   4×4 mega world ,and  digital-africa

We will spend the night at  Kwa Nokeng lodge just on the Botswana side of the Martins drift border post, this is the perfect meeting place for the various parties going.

From here our trip takes us to the western side of the Makgadigadi pans were we will hopefully photograph the zebra and wildebeest that migrate down to the Boteti river from the Savuti marsh at this time of the year. Usually the Boteti is dry at this time year with selected water point the are pumped , but this year it will be very interesting as it is the first year in about 50 years that the Boteti river is flowing and is apparently 30- 40 meters wide in certain areas.

Our next stop will be the unique town of Maun , the gateway to the delta, where there is a indescribable excitement in the air as the safari vehicles wiz up and down on their way to or from the Delta, and a small censer planes take of and land just about every minute carrying guest to and fro from the lodges in the Delta. It is so contagious you can almost not sit still and you have this urge to get out there and discover the mighty Okavango Delta .

After picking up last supplies we head north into the delta to the Khwai river were we will spend the next 5 days photographing the abundant and diverse wildlife.

Tags: Add new tag, Botswana, camping, photographic, photography, safari, wildlife