Travel reviews by Ms I from North Berwick

"This was a great start to our trip. The birders had a whale of a time spotting, I think, over 100 species in a couple of days.

I was very impressed with our guide, Roggers, and tracker Volte (spelling!). Roggers could not have been more attentive to my needs.

There was a fair bit of driving to see some of the wildlife but because my group were not preoccupied with the Big Five, we were able to put the journeys to good use spotting a wide variety of wild life and habitat on the journeys."

"The volume of wildlife we saw at this camp was at times almost overwhelming. Our guide was excellent, confident and experienced. This was helpful when the Landcruiser starter motor failed twice on an evening drive, once while we were a few yards away from cheetahs and the second time when we were in the middle of a pride of lions at the start of a hunt. I think there were 14 in total. The spotter and guide took it in turns to dash out of the vehicle and effect the quick fix!

It was a great experience overall with a slight problem at the end when the manager took a lot of convincing that we had to speak to Expert Africa about the change in transfer arrangements to our mobile safari. We had to be very assertive to achieve contact and speedy resolution to the problem.

I had one other problem when I was there. During our boat safari, the staff used a coffee table to get guests on and off the boat. As this generated a 2-3 feet drop down onto the coffee table on the way on to the boat, and a 2-3 feet rise on the way out, my already injured knee suffered a set back. A small set of steps would have worked perfectly. Given the age of the client group, I am surprised that the staff thought this was appropriate."

"Andrew and his staff coped very well with the challenges generated by the bad weather that preceded our visit. Clearly the area had been flooded but it barely rained at all during our stay.

The food was outstanding. I have no idea how Philemon, the chef, created such good food from his pit oven. The whole set up was an "Out of Africa" experience. My group have all been campers and hikers and we adapted readily to camp routine. I personally loved dining outside all Deeted up for breakfast and dinner.

Andrew miraculously never got stuck despite the conditions and water flowing over the bonnet. I have a Landrover and off roading experience, and i would not have driven my vehicle through some of the water Andrew took on.

Some of the drives were a little quiet on the wild life side but this gave us more time to enjoy the unique scenery including the devastation caused to the trees by the elephants. We also had superb drives including close observation of elephants, baboons, wild dogs and lions. We followed the dogs for a long time, which was great. I served our sun downer on the move and am pleased to say that I did not spill a drop!

Having lions roaring around the camp and resting within about 150 yards of the camp on the last night was an unforgettable experience. This was my first mobile safari and i am very glad we did it.

Minor issues arose in relation to the lack of duvet and pillow slips on the bed. My bed was not terribly comfortable but i have camped on much worse. The lights in the tent consistently failed, but i had two torches with me and generally use very little light when camping to avoid attracting insects anyway. I suspect that we suffered teething problems with the camp set up as this was the first camp of Andrew's season.

I wish him and his gang every success going forward. He is very well informed and enthusiastic about the environment and the natural world."

"We saw a huge amount of wildlife from this camp. The flight in was very well done too with the pilot flying low and pointing out features and animals on the way.

Tom, our driver, and Matt, our spotter, were open to altering their normal routes to accommodate our wishes. As the lodge was not full, we were almost always on the Landcruiser on our own, so there was no reason why they could not accommodate us and they did. We had a couple of outstanding drives that included finding and photographing Alison's favourite tree (Alison is a Master gardener and occasional lecturer on trees) and seeing a huge number of animals and birds on the way. We overheard a very amusing radio exchange when the other driver asked what we were tracking and was told that we were tracking a tree!

We also had rare sightings of an elusive antelope during our river cruise spotted by Mark and Alison through there super duper bird watching binos. They were like pigs in muck when we stopped at the bird colony island on that cruise.

I particularly enjoyed my accommodation at this camp with open views and sightings of passing giraffes and baboons, and an outside shower with loads of hot water, which was very welcome after the mobile camp.

My only criticism, which i have already raised with the camp owners, is that on occasions the food was served at the wrong temperature. Hot food was not hot enough and cold food was not cold enough. Apart from detracting from the enjoyment of the food, this is also a dangerous practice which hugely increases the risk of food poisoning. As a result i did avoid certain foods during my stay."