Erynn's Travel and Food Blog: 26 August 2025

The alarm was set for 4:30am and we were off for another early morning game drive. Our meeting point was the car park which fortunately was opposite our room, and tea, coffee and muffins were set out for a bit of sustenance, as breakfast would be when we get back at 9am.

As I said, our room was opposite the car park, and we found out later that when they went to set up the tea and coffee at 5am they had to chase away a honey badger. Cute as the name sounds, they are actually quite an aggressive creature. Lucky he wasn’t there when we walked home from dinner the previous evening.

I say our room, but actually it is rooms. Yesterday when we arrived we unpacked and did some stuff and went to go for dinner. I was in the lead, and I am directionally challenged, especially indoors. I got to the small corridor and opened the large wooden door on my left only to see some bunk beds! I quickly closed it thinking that maybe I had entered an adjoining room. But on inspection we have a small spare room with bunk beds and a desk! The front door is to the right!

Off we went on our game drive, there was a chill in the air but nowhere near as cold as our last morning drive. And this time there was no two hour bumpy drive to get there. The Sedudu gate at Chobe National park is a ten minute drive from Chobe Safari Lodge.

Driving for an hour or so in the park we saw only some giraffe, impala and birds. Impala are everywhere! We were starting to feel a little sceptical about this morning drive, I had expected loads of animals to be out and about in the cool air.

Cape water buffalo

Mongoose

Bat eared fox

Ground hornbill

And then we came across some elephants. We noticed on the previous evening’s drive that the animals here seem to be much closer to the track and much less concerned with our presence than the animals at Moremi.

We were told that they see the vehicles as something like a tree that moves and that it poses no threat.

These elephant were crossing and some had babies, but they just wandered around our trucks. One even stopped to have a poke around in the truck in front!

And then we found them . . .

A pride of lions sitting in the shade just watching the world go by. We were quite close but surrounded by other trucks. We felt so lucky to have come across them as we were starting to make our way home.

They just took my breath away!

We had been hoping to see a mature male lion, but he was nowhere to be seen.

As were were leaving the park we came across two male giraffe having a bit of a tiff. It is quite a controlled way of fighting and a lot of wait time between blows.

Back at the lodge reakfast was welcomed with gusto. They had everything, even someone carving off smoked salmon from a large fillet. We ate like kings and just had some cheese and crackers for lunch while we watched the warthogs outside our room.

After a very welcomed restful afternoon we set off on a game sighting cruise. This was our very last event on safari and we were hoping to see some good stuff.

The first hour or so was a bit of a non event. Load of birds and we did get closer to some water buffalo. and of course elephants.

These were all on a Long Island fluvial island in the middle of the Chobe river. The island has some floating parts and has water running through it, hence the abundance of life.

The Chobe river runs between Namibia and Botswana at this point and there was some confusion over who should own the river. It was decreed that the Namibian side had the deepest water, and because of that it was only fair for Botswana with the shallow side should have ownership of the island, called Sedudu.

Our highlight was the hippo. So far we had seen and heard loads of hippo, but not a lot of there large bodies.

And then we found lions again, this time we were further away, but they were more active, the video is a bit pixelated as I had to zoom in to see them.

And then we came across a bloat of hippo who looked like they were settling down for a nap. But the baby in the centre wasn’t quite ready for a sleep.