Binoculars in the Backcountry: Zimbabwe - Victoria Falls and Camp Hwange

Victoria Falls

We birded our way from Chobe to the Zimbabwe border and continued on to Victoria Falls. It was time to play tourist, and look for a few specialty birds near the falls. Victoria Falls is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The falls are huge - not the widest, nor the tallest, but the combined height and width make them the largest sheet of falling water in the world. Visiting can be tricky. In low water the falls aren't too impressive. In high water the spray can be so overwhelming that you can't actually see the falls. As with everything else so far on this trip, we hit it perfect. We had high water, but not too much, and reasonable spray. We only got a little soaked at a couple of the overlooks! Fun stuff. And we got some new birds too.

Vic Falls bird list

The next morning it was time to say goodbye to Charly and continue on the rest of our Zimbabwe journey with local guides. Let me take a moment to comment on Charly and the tour he led us on. As I mentioned in the first post, Charles Rhyn is a birding and tour guide from Namibia. Our friend Tim worked with Charly to put together this amazing tour. Charly pulled it all off without a hitch. I've been with a lot of birding guides world-wide, and Charly rates right up there with the best of them. If you ever consider birding Namibia, Botswana, or South Africa, and want to use a local guide who specializes in small group sizes, we really recommend Charles. Unfortunately his website is temporarily off-line due to a hosting issue (I will update this post when he gets his site back up), but for now just shoot him an email: charles.rhyn@gmail.com. Thank you so much Charly for the outstanding trip through your home country. You do Namibia proud and we're so fortunate to have gotten a chance to be your friends. It was epic!

Charles Rhyn, Namibia birding guide extraordinaire

The last 5 days of the trip were all in Hwange National Park in the northwest corner of Zimbabwe. Hwange was founded in 1928 and encompasses over 5,600 square miles. We were transferred by mini-van to about 50 kilometers from Camp Hwange where the camp guides picked us up in a 4WD safari vehicle for the rest of the journey to camp. These remote camps in Hwange NP are truly isolated but not exactly roughing it. The accommodations were spectacular and the staff fantastic. Our guides Adam and John were fantastic birders and great animal spotters as well.

Getting loaded in our safari vehicle

A nice overlook of this part of Hwange NP on the drive in to camp

We birded our way to camp, had a nice lunch and a siesta, then went out for a relaxing evening game drive. The next morning started our big day at Camp Hwange, an all-day birding and game adventure with all the intent of doing a nice bird walk in the morning before it got too hot. That all got blown up when the pair of male lions walked past camp while we were having breakfast. One of the adventures of these remote camps is going on a tracking of wildlife in the bush with the intent of getting close enough to see the animals without the protection of the vehicle. Our guides asked if we were interested in tracking the lions and we went for it! The lions were on the move, and by the time we got loaded up we were over a mile behind them. We drove to a spot where two other guides had followed the cats then took off on foot. It was amazing watching the professional animal tracker doing his work. We stayed just behind the lions for about an hour but just couldn't catch up. Our guides think we were within 100 yards several times, but the bush was too thick there to see the cats. We finally gave up with a little disappointment, but other adventures awaited. It was certainly exhilarating knowing we were following lions and trying to catch up!

Getting ready to track lions

Two of our guides carried protection

Tracking through the bush

Cat print in the sand

Our guides talk it over and decide to call off the tracking

The rest of the day we toured by safari vehicle, checking out good bird and game spots, especially water holes. We had an excellent day with over 100 species of birds and saw lots of game. We even had lunch in a really secluded spot that required some serious 4 wheel drive adventuring.

4X4 adventuring

Waterhole

River bottom

Grilling sausages in the bush

African Openbill with snail

Grey-crowned Cranes

Grey-crowned Crane

Klipspringer

Little Grebe

Rufous-naped Lark

Saddle-billed Stork

Three-banded Courser

As the sun went down we hustled to get to a beautiful spot for sunset but got severly distracted first by a family of Bat-eared Foxes and then by a Leopard just yards from the edge of the road. The Leopard let us drive right up to him while he watched us from the grass. Amazing!