For the Botswana leg, we decided it would be best to meet up in JNB, spend a day or 2 acclimatising there, and then make our way into Maun. J was inbound from South America (via LHR), on the back of her Columbia and Ecuador trip, flush with details of scuba diving with sea lions in the Galapagos and the suchlike. That’s a report on it’s own, and not mine to write!



In Botswana we flew to Maun airport (ex JNB on a BW Avroliner RJ-85), on the border of the Delta. From here we took a small charter aircraft (some Australian make that I have never encountered in the wild before and looked like a stripped down Cessna Caravan. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called- if anyone knows what this could be, please comment!). We touched down at “Pom Pom” airstrip about 40 minutes later, and had a highly entertaining boat ride into camp.



Camp from the air





Pom Pom




The camp was absolutely beautiful, and teeming with wildlife. The Banda/Chalets were also unbelievable- spacious, tastefully decorated and appointed with a plunge pool. It was quite surreal to be sitting in the middle of the Okavango Delta in such luxury.



Banda and Plunge Pool






Lounge Area






Coppery Tailed Coukal









We were incredibly lucky with our sighting of this pack of Wild/Hunting/Painted Dog





On our final evening, we took a short sunset ride in a Robinson R-44 helicopter, topped with a champagne sundowner on landing in celebration of J’s birthday. After a few days of seeing the Delta almost exclusively from water level, it was mind blowing to see it from above. Naturally the photos don’t do it much justice. I’ll see if I can cobble together a short video from the shaky shots I have. Watch this space.














The trip out of Pom Pom was on a Cessna 172, fresh out of the late 70’s with all the original dials and gauges. It was fantastic! Then back to JNB on the BW Avroliner, and DAR on SAA’s A319.



Rear View of 172

Coming up: Zanzibar/Mnemba