Victoria Falls to the Okavango

After two short visits I wanted the real thing: a journey planned properly, from start to finish. It began at Victoria Falls at the end of October. On the first evening a sunset cruise on the Zambezi, with elephants wading out to a small island and hippos surfacing in the last light. The next day a tour of the falls themselves, low at the end of the dry season, with the bare rock walls of the gorge on show.

From there I crossed the border to Kasane, and a small plane took me to Camp Savuti in Chobe National Park. Savuti at the start of November is hot, dry and grey, and the animals gather where there is still water. In two days I saw lions on a kill, leopards resting in the shade, a lilac-breasted roller on a dead branch, a lioness who made it very clear we were close enough, and kori bustards and ground hornbills stalking through the dust.

Then deeper in, from one small airstrip to the next. Three nights at Motswiri, where I found a pack of African wild dogs on a kill at dusk. Two nights at Xobega Island Camp, an island in the heart of the Okavango Delta, where an elephant grazed on the reeds, knee-deep in the channel. And finally Tuskers Camp, before the long road back to Maun and the flight home.