June 12-13: Moremi 3rd Bridge

Our first stop in Moremi was called 3^rd Bridge, so named because it is the 3^rd bridge you cross getting there from the South Gate (coming from Maun). By “bridge”, I really mean a stack of logs laid across beams, but raised above the channel and a railing or sorts to keep the faint-hearted feeling safe. Here are shots of Mark and Kirsten crossing 1^st and 2^nd bridges (note, our campsite was before the actual 3^rd bridge so I won’t show you that yet):

Our first night we camped in a site that was shaded by 3 or 4 huge sausage trees, so named for the huge 5-pound sausage-looking seedpods that hang from the branches periously waiting for the unsuspecting camper to place their tent or vehicle underneath, and then at any time they drop like bombs from a plane to obliterate the poor souls or vehicle below. Here’s a picture of the sausage tree and another with Nancy for perspective (note, Nancy uses these as dumbells to do curls):

Our second night we had to move over one site, which also had a couple nice sausage shade trees and a better view out over the marsh, but we were alert to the sausage tree ambush and parked our vehicles in the clear, as you can see in these photos:

This campground, like all the others in Moremi has modern ablution facilities with a flush toilet and hot shower (most of the time) and the sites have a water spicket, firering and brai. Despite our precautions against the sausage tree bombs and our vigilance against invading baboons and vervet monkeys – who are almost always in the vicinity and ready to exploit any complacency on the part of the camper – we were not quite ready for our after-dark campsite visitor who snuck in quietly and tried to steal our trash bag full of vegetable cuttings from dinner. Yes, a very bold Vegan spotted heyena – yes, I said Vegan – tried his or her best to get the vegetable trash in a bag on our table, but we were quick on our feet and forced it to drop the bag upon its hasty retreat. We decided that this heyena was a Vegan as it was keen to steal our vegetable left-overs. Who would have guessed that even amongst heyena’s there would be a Vegan?! Note, in our commitment to fend off this bold heyena on its repeated ambushes we forgot to take a picture or video – sorry!

Directly across the marsh from our campsite there was a reported lion kill from the night before. We didn’t see the lions on the kill or at the kill site, despite looking; however, we did see 3 very fat lionesses walking by our vehicle coming from that direction as we left our campsite the following morning, as you will see in the composie video below.

Our main focus at 3^rd bridge was to take a boat ride into the delta, which we did and enjoyed tremendously. The Delta, as you may recall, is an emmense, fan-shaped morass of channels and pools and small and large tree island embedded in a matrix of marshy grasslands. The Delta fan spreads out for miles and one can easily get lost in its maze of channels. So we did the smart thing and took a boat ride through a tiny piece of the delta wetlands with a very experienced guide at the helm who knew his way around the delta like the back of his hand, as you will see in the composite video below.

Moremi 3^rd Bridge composite video (9 minutes)

Photo Gallery: