Dear Friends,

I have just returned from many happy days in the sun. Days of blue skies, billowing white clouds and great open spaces. Botswana is truly a beautiful country.

I returned from the area around my camp at Santa after a really wonderful five days there - and 12 days before that. We have sat with breeding herds of elephant, got right up to a big herd of buffalo, saw a mating pair of lions in the golden light of an early morning sun and seen stunning scenery of palms belts standing tall and elegant. Elephants will be starting to shake these palms for their fruit come August September when they ripen and drop more readily. Wattle cranes called as they always have, across the river from where I was camped. I don't recall ever being in that area and not hearing them call - always from the same place - for years !

I returned from the area around my camp at Santa after a really wonderful five days there - and 12 days before that. We have sat with breeding herds of elephant, got right up to a big herd of buffalo, saw a mating pair of lions in the golden light of an early morning sun and seen stunning scenery of palms belts standing tall and elegant. Elephants will be starting to shake these palms for their fruit come August September when they ripen and drop more readily. Wattle cranes called as they always have, across the river from where I was camped. I don't recall ever being in that area and not hearing them call - always from the same place - for years !

The big herds of buffalo move around our main bridge at Twin Palm Pan and at the bottom lagoon where we regularly catch fish. Lloyd was camping near the bridge when he heard the distant hyenas announce that lions had pulled down a buffalo way across the floodplain. The deep pool just below the bridge is now 'dicey' as high water levels have made it deeper yet. I still have night mares about standing chest deep there fishing with Lloyd and a couple of others (safety in numbers I was told) I felt very uneasy and not at all very brave !!! Lloyd flew over that area the other day and saw a 14 ft croc lying on a submerged sandbank just a few meters from the bridge. Grant's Corner is deep now and just too unsafe to swim. An elephant died in the channel up from Alistair's lagoon last year and the dozen or more large croc that could be seen feeding on it was a frightening sight!

Deception Valley was out of this world over Easter. My camera worked overtime and as we had a very good cook to organise everything, I was able to go out on most of the game drives. What a treat - not much fun being stuck in the kitchen all the time ! We saw lion (big black maned Kalahari lion), cheetah and so many oryx, hartebeest and springbok. The landscape was lush and green from the recent rains. The Kalahari is at its best in the early months of the year (Feb, March and April). Its early in the season and there are very few visitors around, thus lending a quiet magical quality to vast open areas of grazing Oryx and springbok. The cry of the Kalahari is silent and beautiful.

While at Deception it was still quite rainy, with big black clouds in many directions. We realized we were only just getting out in the nick of time as those clouds were seriously heavy with rain. The day we left to go to Moremi (thank goodness) they had 3 inches of rain with howling gusts that just about flattened tents. It rained too, in Moremi and it was one of those days when one asks - "shall we go out on a game drive or stay and sit it out"? It looked like the heavens were about to open up but we all said what the heck and went out anyway. It rained a lot but we got super shots of lions hunting in the rain. They climbed up an anthill to have a good view above the long grass and must of been eight or ten feet up on an old dried tree. Another lioness joined the first one so both were looking out. They were quite far off the road but I still got a fairly good picture of them. We went out the next day towards 3rd Bridge and found a lone wild dog hunting impala. It ran right past our vehicle and off after the buck. One ram took fright and just froze under a small tree - the dog never even saw him. He stood absolutely motionless.

We watched these goings on for a while until they were all well out of binocular sight then headed home. We came around a corner and found two lionesses lying in the cool sand just after sunset. Following behind them for a way we noticed one dart off into a small Motsibi tree that was growing right against the road in front of us. It was a multistemmed 12 foot tree with no branches thicker than my arm. Somehow, she managed to balance herself and get a good look out at the same time. She was just like a big teddy bear with a furry head and brown eyes, in this sea of green leaves. Her sister lioness slunk through the long grass parallel to her on the road and got all the impala worked up into blowing their typical alarm snort. We had to drive past the lioness up the tree - three foot from the top of our car and I was sure she would see the canvas top as a good viewing platform to jump on. After a lot of commotion from the impalas below, I think she thought she was missing out on too much excitement so jumped down inside the tree and took off after her sister.

I continue to do Camp Relief Management in between safaris with Lloyd and Storm, and my son Grant who owns Okavango Voyagers. I have a varied and busy life, but I see nature at its best, wild and beautiful. Lloyd continues to give clients the best of game viewing with the cunning anticipation of every movement of any animal. He reads lion like we make a cup of tea, knowing exactly where their next jump will take them. He once tracked lion on the Savuti Marsh for five days in a row, following the movements of the zebra migration. A lone wildebeest would stare intently miles across the marsh and only a trained eye would pick up the crowned plovers defending their nest as the pride of lion walked to a small rain water pan.

Storm still produces meals in the bush that one would find in top class restaurants in Johannesburg. She has a flare for taste, turning out flavours that mingle so well. Her starter of good blue cheese creamed over a pear half and de`cor'd with a triangle of Bavarian blue, is to die for ! Her roast chicken is served with a swirl of wood smoke lingering in the crispy brown skin. Balls of feta cheese contrast with the red shells of piquant peppadew capsicums on a bed of lettuce and one's mouth starts watering as it is put on the plate !!

The annual floods this year will ride above the already swollen levels of the rain filled Okavango Delta, giving us swamped islands and lengthened flood plains. I look forward to my next mokoro trip around the islands, sleeping under a milky way of a million diamonds. Far away, if you listen, you will hear the alarm calls of many creatures as a predator walks his nightly perimeters. Hyenas whoop to keep in contact and the ever attendant Scops owl call tells you all is well. The smell of wild sage will take you back to the bush time and time again. Be warned !!!

With love and best wishes,

Lloyd, Daph and Storm