Nxai Pan

Alert Giraffe Family - Nxai Pan, Botswana

The transfer to Nxai Pan was long and tiring, not to mention very wet at times. Shortly after we left the Central Kalahari gate the track was completely flooded and looked more like a river. At times it was impossible to decide where the shallowest track was, but we got through without mishap.

Arriving at the Nxai Pan gate, we were greeted by another track masquerading as a river and informed that we could only be admitted at our own risk. This was a no-brainer as our camp was already set up in there and there was no alternative. As it was getting fairly late, we did a short game drive and repaired to camp for dinner and bed.

Next morning all was well and we set off to see what Nxai Pan had to offer. It was to turn out to be a day mainly consisting of bird sightings, apart from the Zebras, which was the reason we were there anyway. They were even more plentiful than the Oryx had been in Central Kalahari and our guide estimated we saw between three and five thousand in Nxai Pan. However, the vast amount of rain and the affect it had on the vegetation meant the Zebras didn’t need to migrate so far as in most years. Had it been a normal year he estimated we would have seen three to four times that number.

My first impression of Nxai Pan was how big and open the area is, although only a fraction of the area covered by Central Kalahari. It is classic Cheetah territory and that was what I was hoping to see. I didn’t have to wait long on our second day and we found a female with two young cubs, probably about nine months old. We spent best part of an hour with them as they slowly moved around their range and the cubs played happily with each other, before they moved into cover and we left them.

Next up was another herd (dazzle) of Zebras, and another brief Cheetah sighting, but much of the day was spent looking for Lions. After lunch, we were successful, even witnessing a (distant) mating session. There was a torrential thunderstorm later on in the afternoon, but once this moved through we had another Cheetah sighting, which turned out to be the brother of the female we had seen in the morning.

That brought us to the end of our two full days in Nxai Pan and just left us with a game drive to the gate next morning. We had been trying, unsuccessfully, to photograph a European Bee-eater since we arrived, but every time our guide killed the engine, the bird would fly. Finally we were successful as we found one in an Acacia bush and it didn’t move. Also added a Bradfield’s Hornbill to our list as it posed beautifully beside the track. All too soon we were at the gate and transferring back to Maun for our mid-trip overnight stay in Thamalakane River Lodge.

My overall impression of Nxai Pan is somewhat mixed. Certainly we saw exactly what we went there for, so we have no complaints on that score. But there are vast areas of the reserve that are inaccessible due to the no off-roading policy. I understand the reasons for this policy and agree with it, but it only works if there are adequate roads to use and that is where Nxai Pan suffers.