Work in progress, Makalolo and Kwando photos
 

Hi all,

Just some photos from Makalolo and Kwando for you all to see. I have only just got back, so briefly scanned through a few to post. Still have about 50gig to just have a browse at!

My itinerary was:

Makalolo 9 nights
Lebala 2 nights
lagoon 2 nights
Kwara 4 nights

Will try to add more soon
Ciao

sorry, and the link is

http://www.pbase.com/backtoafrica/africa_2007

Some wonderful photos here.

I am just curious to hear your thoughts about Makalolo.

Kind regards,

Johan

What you have there so far is really excellent. You made wonderful use of the late-day light, and you have some great shots of animals interacting (like the zebra foal and the two elephants greeting each other). The post-processing looks really nice too -- the images don't look "messed with." I look forward to seeing the rest of the collection when you finish with it, so I've added you as one of my PBase favorite users.

Chris
www.pbase.com/cwillis

With 9 nights, you could get a real feel for Makalolo. Great pics. I especially liked the frisky zebras, trotting lion, and drinking elephant.

Very nice gallery,specially the worm lights in the subjects.
I really enjoyed and wait for the rest.

Thanks for sharing.

Paco.

Did you stay in Big Makalolo or Little Mak?

Mike

Hi all,

Thank you for you compliments. Just to answer a couple of your questions. I stayed for all the nine nights at Makalolo's main camp. As a solo traveller, I found this slightly more preferable at meal time etc, though with a vehicle to myself, it made little difference to the activities.

Johan, as for recommending Makalolo. Personally, I really enjoyed my stay there. The wide open Vlei's surrounded by mixed woodland. As there are only pump pans in the dry season, game viewing must be excellent. As the pans dried up, I saw large elephant and buffalo herds most afternoons. There was also excellent sable viewing too. As a destination for April, I would certainly look at it as a very favourable option with the need for boreholes. This could be slightly off putting however. There is the drone from an engine as water levels are maintained. It didnt bother me too much, though it does detract from the 'wilderness' factor. That aside, I am heading back in September, again for a long stay. For me, that says it all.

Ciao
Russ

Russ,,

Thank you for your answer - I was thinking to visit Makalolo in September 2008.

Best regards,

Johan

I too stayed at the main camp and it was a great experience. Nothing like waking up to find you have no water because elephants whacked into the water supply. The staff there was great and they made you feel at home. The only downside was I didn't see too many big cats. Also at the the time I think they were limited on their time of driving at night (but this may have changed). It was a great experience.

Mike

Mytoss,
How about your sable viewing? I've never seen such large herds anywhere else. That's good Russ saw them.

If I recall, I saw some sable there, especially around the water hole near the camp. They are magnificent. On my first trip I did not have the good camera equipment I have now, so I did not get any good shots of sable.

Mike
www.pbase.com/mytmoss

lynn,
i visited makololo in jan 04 and had by far the best sable and roan viewing of any places ive seen them (vumbura, kings pool, lebala). there were large herds of both and they come out to drink around lunchtime at a pan near camp so u could get great photos and have the camp in the background. its got to be the premier camp to view them. the only negatives of the camp were you are in a national park so you stay on the roads unless following predators. but the rare antelope viewing combined with eles drinking at the pool and when we were there, having the entire main camp to ourselves made makololo one of my favorite camps. also its arguably the best camp i have visited in terms of wildlife viewing from camp itslf. the pan in front is huge and produced sightings of over 20 different mammal species including wild dog in only a 3 nights stay in what is not the high season (jan).

scott

sry i was there jan 05, not 04

Russ,

Thanks......Makalolo sounds very nice and Hwange has always been on my desire wish-list.

Will wait with baited breath re:the game viewing at the Bots camps, especially Lebala and lagoon.

Thanks,
Hari

Lot of nice photos. Would like to just suggest though that it might be even more interesting if you just pick and show only one photo of a series. For example; jpg 4550 or 4551, one of 4801, 4819, 4823, one of 5167, 5185, 5189. Just my 2 cents, thanks for showing us these.
regards - tom

Hi Russ,

Looks like a good collection underway. Really looking forward to your Kwando images.

John

Another update,

I have put some photos up from both camps. I know there are lots of lion photos from Kwara, but i cant help what one sees. In eight drives, we saw lions on 7 of them. I did also see cheetah, in harsh mid-day light. There were two seperate prides, and the fact there was a 'honeymoon' couple for three days kept most of my attention. This meant sitting with them for the duration of the drive.

I did have an amazing sighting of a baby serval though. Lebala sightings were quite low on the ground, with the Lagoon dogs being on my other hard disk along with pics all the other camps. Will be sorting through that at next week at the earliest.

Must get back to sorting through..........

I'm sure one of those prides consist of the two huge males, the young male and 4 lionesses? i saw them on every drive almost last year. There were two small cubs last year end August, any updates on that?...also, noticed you saw the kwara leopard cub.

Nice pics, so far.....

Hari,

Chatting with the guides, it appears those young males also mix with the Shinde Pride, whom you may have seem them with. They had a young male male and female if I remember correctly. The female that the male was mating from was from another pride. As for the leopard, yes it is the kwara cub. Now nine months old!