Travel reviews by Mrs K from Kent

"Bishops' Court is an excellent guest house with exceptional service. We arrived after a long flight from London and were instantly offered tea and breakfast (very welcome after an airline breakfast). Our room was large and very well decorated with a nice terrace onto the garden and nice views of the slopes of Table mountain.

The manager, Thomas, recommended and booked us into some excellent restaurants; we tried the local Bistro in Newlands as well as the more expensive (but very well worth it) Buitenverwachtung in Constantia. Transport to and from the restaurants was reliably and cheerily provided by Gigi, the chauffeur. Both Thomas and Gigi were very helpful throughout our stay - recommending things to do, places to see and routes to take.

Bishops' Court is very relaxing and easy going place - much more so than any large hotel - on a particularly wet afternoon, having been out and been drenched, we sat in the lounge in front of the log fire and relaxed with a glass or 2 of wine. ....a true holiday."

"Zibalianja is a very small camp and as such differed from camps on our previous trip (and from the subsequent camps on this trip). The size had it's pros and cons.

Pro: The lack of raised walkways between tents was nice and it felt more like real camping (well apart from the ensuite facities etc!). The camp was quiet and relaxed and had excellent food (congratulations to the chef). Our guide, Rain, was excellent and was very keen to track animals. On our first game drive (when we were the only people in camp!) he picked up the tracks of 2 male cheetah and successfully tracked them over a long distance - we then spent some time watching them and taking photographs

Cons: With only 6 guests in camp, the experience does depend to a large extent on the other guests. We were joined by a group of 4 travelling together and although they were all very nice people, we did have different interests. They were keen birders and wanted to stop every few hundred yards to examine a particular bird in detail through binoculars and tick it off their list. We wanted to see more animals and to get close enough to photograph them.

On one particular occasion we had been tracking a cheetah for about an hour and were very close when they decided they'd rather give up and go look for something else. This was disappointing and had we been at a larger camp, we would probably have tried to negotiate a vehicle switch so that people of like interests were grouped together.

As keen photographers we also wanted to get out as early as possible and take advantage of the good light - our fellow guests were however, less keen on rushing out and as a result, we took some time to finally make it to the jeep every morning. In other camps, the managers have tactfully "chivvied" people along but this did not happen at Zib.

With the notable (and important) exception of the cheetah sighting (and a lot of elephant) we felt that there were fewer game at Zib than at the later camps (Chitabe and Little Kwara) - this was partly due to the different environment but even so, the game in general were sparser than at last year's camp in the neighbouring Linyanti.

The accomodation was good although we understand that there are plans to move the camp slightly and to upgrade the tents - if so, more storage space in the tents would be useful (there wasn't enough space to stack bags and camera gear - a few more shelves would be good). The tents were spaced reasonably far apart which was excellent.

The hide at the waterhole was fun but photography from the hide was difficult as it faced the sun. If the camp is to be moved then siting the hide such that it is suitable for taking photos at both sunrise and sunset would be ideal (maybe 2 different hides for morning and evening?)"

"Chitabe is an excellent camp. We had a great time and the game sightings were excellent - 5 separate leopards on day 1 alone!

In common with other Wilderness camps, there is an emphasis on early game drives - we were very grateful to Celine for tactfully encouraging people into the vehicles for the morning game drives! (although our fellow guests were also very keen and so less chivvying was required than at other camps). We would certainly revisit Chitabe.

The outside shower was excellent....taking a shower as an elephant walks past within a few yards is not an everyday occurrence!

One note for guests wishing to charge batteries etc....there is a socket in the room but it needs an international/US adaptor rather than the South African adaptor we took with us. The camp managers will however, happily charge batteries etc"

"The tents at Little Kwara are relatively new and very well designed - roomy and with lots of storage space.

The camp is very nice and we enjoyed our stay but we would not return to this camp or any other Kwando camps until they change their vehicles (made by Uri)! There are 2 problems with the vehicles:

1. The seating is in 2 rows of 3. Hence, 2 people have to sit in the middle and get a poor view. This contrasts with the WIlderness camps where seating is in 3 rows and everyone gets an outsode seat.

2. The vehicles are extremely uncomfortable - especially in the back seat. The suspension on the vehicles at Little Kwara seem designed to elicit maximum damage! These vehicles are significantly different from those at other camps who use either Landrover or Toyota.

The "double decker" boat was excellent and great fun.

Game viewing overall was very good with one sighting of a very unusual event - a lioness in a tree! However, there was one problem: There was a tendency for all vehicles from both Little Kwara and Kwara to look for game in the same small area near to the camp. This meant that at any one time, we could always see one or 2 other vehicles (even when not at a sighting). This did destroy the wilderness feel that we would normally associate with Botswana.

The camp manager told us that this was because there was hunting on the far edge of the concession (in another concession) and they didn't want guests to hear shots but even so, the area used for searching for game seemed to be limited to a very small area around the camp."