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Claire
Exploring the Waterways and Wild Landscapes of Moremi Game Reserve
Moremi Game Reserve: Where Land and Legend Converge
Okavango Links:
Okavango Delta: Wildlife, Wetland, and Perfect Wilderness | Pel's and Papyrus on the Okavango Panhandle | Moremi Game Reserve | Khwai Community Concession | What To Pack For a Safari To The Okavango Delta | Okavango Delta Quick Travel Tips
At one point in recent history, Moremi Game Reserve was called the best park in Africa. In what is no doubt a hotly debated topic, it raises one question for me: “That means crowds, right?” It was prime time for safari in Botswana and bookings were scarce, so we braced ourselves for busyness. Our supplies replenished in Maun, we drove the bumpy Mababe road in the direction of Moremi. Our final destination was Khwai, where we would be camping on the river boundary with Moremi.
The road’s bone-shaking corrugations became completely tolerable as a leopard darted across a road stained lavender in the Botswanan dawn. Hyena eyed the car with distrust and made a speedy, sloping departure. We passed sleepy lagoons filled with hippos, surrounded by sandy thornbush – a reminder of the miracle of Botswana’s waterways in this dry and desert-like country.
Our first taste of Moremi was in the commute – thick sand and towering mopane trees giving us a taste of what was to come. We were staying in the neighbouring Khwai community concession – a wonderfully wild destination that is a modern-day success story for conservation. That is a story in itself.
Our first morning drive was a worthy introduction to this incredible park. As darkness gave way to dawn, Botswana’s chameleon light makes for a shock of beauty all through the day. Alone on the road, we stopped to follow the gaze of statuesque impala. A single wild dog snapped the serenity into a boiling pot of dust, snorts, and chaos. We followed the dogs until they disappeared, leaving us in a slow-reveal of exquisite, changing landscapes. →
Work of Darter
Wetland scenes, Botswanan light, and water birds of every description are a masterpiece in the Okavango Delta
We followed the rolling forms of badgers as they waded through the sandy roads, shifting gear to disappear into the grass beyond. We explored forest knolls, looking for wildlife hiding from the heat. We drove through sweeping, flat grasslands flanked by trees that looked like they could be as old as Africa itself. Great, golden grasses stood to motionless attention until hushed chain messages were passed through with the rustle of the wind – metronomic elephant ears keeping time.
In my mind, I had a satellite view of where we were. The famous capillaried cartography of the Okavango Delta is well-known as one of the most famous watercourses in the world – and a true wilderness area. This is where land and legend converge – and I was constantly trying to compute the enormity of the landscape with the immensity of this water system. The limitation of legs has never been felt more acutely. If only to be a bird. If only to be a fish.
We pulled up to a waterside hide, hippo paths bleeding the edges of the shore in sky-captured colours. A pair of lechwe watched in knee-deep, rigid uncertainty. Across the water, a lion roar echoed in the shadowy canopy of a forest, walking the waterway – a loud, invisible phantom. →
Giants in Big Landscapes
The enormity of the landscapes in parts of Moremi Game Reserve are home to giants. When considering the interconnectedness of KAZA, the idea of wildlife without borders adds a touch of magic to sightings.
A little further on, we found ourselves confronted by a solid, stretching wall of papyrus – the perfect spot for breakfast and birding. We had come from large, long, flat savanna, which made this a dramatic boundary. Impenetrable to man, this papyrus wall clearly marks the beginning of wild and watery wilderness. A small antelope darted into the darkness of the inaccessible beyond – a world we can barely comprehend, with secrets carried by sitatunga.
We watched big elephant bulls sun themselves somnambulantly at the water’s edge. Watching these elephants, I was reminded of the high-pitched crack of papyrus as we poled our own mekoros on the Delta a few years before. For them, the Delta’s waters must be both home and roadmap to new lands. As the waters of the Delta flood life for these magical mammals and their habitats, elephants bring nutrients to the ground and so other species in this part of Southern Africa – nomadic augurs bringing divine signs of prosperous times. →
Nearby, huge crocodiles lay with their bellies and claws planted in the mud. With jagged teeth displayed in widely spread jaws, they are almost proudly predatory – even at rest.
Brutality in a Peaceful Place
Nature presents the spectrum of experiences - peaceful scenes sometimes punctuated by the harshness of wild life.
We stopped at lakes and watched flocks of waterbirds displaced by elephants as the afternoon heat reached its apex. In a nearby thicket, I couldn’t ignore the anguished chatter of guineafowl and cacophony of squirrel alarm calls. Squinting into the thick bush, a surge of golden movement separated rosette and shadow and we watched a leopard slump down into the shade – only to be met by another leopard moments later.
This was a trip for leopards, but their presence was often an auditory more than visual one. The bush around them would react and we’d follow the sounds with our eyes – sometimes rewarded, sometimes left charged with electrified senses. Watching a male lion work out his plans for the day, he eventually walked into the bush and disappeared – indistinguishable from sand and shrub and shade and shadow.
We would go into the reserve whenever we could. We’d drive the areas we’d enjoyed the most. We drove from North Gate to Xaxanaka, where we added to the outline of the Delta’s spindled fingers in the map in our minds. We watched elephants – solitary and in herds – doing every manner of elephant thing. There was almost an intimacy to the view, as if watching these vastly wandering creatures in the privacy of their homes.
We arrived as the gates opened and left as they closed. We saw dawn and sat with the engine off as daylight trailed its blanket of colours into dusk over Botswanan sand and mopane. And, for the most part, we were completely alone. →
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Cat's Eyes
Lion spotting in tawny-coloured grass takes sharp vision. We watched this lion until he completely melted into the hues of grass and sand.
Occasionally, we’d come upon a mobile safari operation tucked away in a perfect tree island or the odd overlander. Game viewers passed in the afternoons with smiling guides and people with shining eyes. Helicopters would sometimes fly overhead. The Delta is life-giving to incredible ecosystems, but also to the thriving ecotourism industry in Botswana. There were crowds of people zipping in and out at this busy time of year, but we didn’t feel it. We somehow managed to have an exclusive experience of a place surging with popularity.
In the same way as the Delta extended a geographical handshake to me a few years previously, I was introduced to it in a different way by visiting Moremi. Conserving the Delta is a matter of top importance for Southern Africa. The local Batawana people saw the need to protect the area and the establishment of the Moremi Game Reserve followed – protecting a huge section of the Okavango Delta.
The result is a reserve that is a perfectly preserved piece of wildest Africa. This land creates a shifting outline for this extraordinary water world. To be alone in a place like this is privilege defined. To feel alone in a place like this is privilege refined. In exploring these dusty roads, blocked by flood and waterway, it is the impermeability of wilderness that is to be celebrated.
The Okavango and the incredible preserved places around it are part of an immense tapestry that connects everything from fabled waterfalls to ancient inland seas. The Delta was created by a geological anomaly that changed this land forever. The leopard dissolves into light and shadow. The lion becomes one with tawny sand. Mysterious skulking antelope become shuttered behind reeds. In these fleeting encounters with the world as it was, there is acceptance that – in wilderness - we will never know the end of the story. →
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Tipping the Scales
The tranquillity of the Okavango scenes sometimes makes it easy to forget the dangers that lurk beneath the surface of the Delta waters.
Packing the right safari clothing and accessories help you to enjoy the best enjoy land- and water-based activities in Moremi Game Reserve. Get in-depth Okavango Delta safari packing advice and quick tips for travellers to the Okavango Delta from our experts and your comprehensive safari packing list.
Walking on Water
Lechwe are right at home in the shallows - a sight to behold in stillness and as they leap through the water.
An Ellipsis of Hippos
The Moremi camps have incredible water wonderland views, with hippos carrying the eye into the wilderness beyond.
Whistle While You Work
As I write this, my imagination can so easily conjure a chorus of White-Faced Whistling Ducks - a sound that adds a tenor of drama to sightings.
Unfenced With Great Gates
The areas around Moremi Game Reserve so wonderfully blur the lines when it comes to the wildness of these areas. However, the gates are a reminder that there is something special in the heart of it all - in Moremi Game Reserve.
Botswana Safari Links:
Okavango Delta: Wildlife, Wetland, and Perfect Wilderness | Pel's and Papyrus on the Okavango Panhandle | Moremi Game Reserve | Khwai Community Concession | What To Pack For a Safari To The Okavango Delta | Okavango Delta Quick Travel Tips | Mokoro Okavango | Off The Beaten Track Safaris: Okavango Delta | Expedition Tested: Okavango Delta | Rowing the Okavango: A Lockdown Virtual Expedition | Raw Botswana | Kgalagadi, the Magic of Nowhere |