Travel reviews by Mr & Mrs L from Battersea

"Good all round camp, the Mokoro rides were particularly good. Such an unobtrusive way of seeing and understanding the Delta.
It was so quiet and all that could be heard were the Red Lewche running through the water, terrific!

We saw lots of elephants of all ages.

Particular highlights were a female hyena with her small cub who was running and jumping all over her and rolling over on the ground and lying between her front paws being washed.

Saw leopard very close.
All staff very helpful"

"Our highlight was seeing the wild dog which we came across whilst watching a very large heard of buffalo. We were able to be with them and follow them for a long time. The interaction of them was terrific to see.

Guides were very good following tracks and finding predators.lots of leopards also, plus lions.

It was good to have a written explanation about seeing and staying with the wild dogs, this took the pressure off the guides as they had rules to follow. Staff were very good ,helpful and very cheerful on the cold early mornings.,The camp worked well and every thing ran to time.
Highly recommend the camp"

"We have travelled to Africa many times and it was lovely to come to a camp that was small, intimate and a reminder of how Africa was for us, before it became so busy and corporate!

My husband was the horse rider and he was spoilt as he was the only rider in the camp. He had six amazing rides with Johnno Carmen and the excellent Botswana groomsmen.. The horses were very well looked after and easy to ride, he highly recommends the whole experience. I was very well looked after also and could choose whether to go on a walk boat, Mokoro or game drive.

Nothing was too much trouble for the staff.

Visit this camp even if you do not ride you will not be sorry!"

"As Expert Africa says this is a very special camp set in beautiful scenery and very good game viewing. This was the camp that showed what it was like to be reliant on the yearly flood and we spent a lot of the time being driven through water and mud.the skill of the drivers in some situations was outstanding.

Highlights were seeing a pride of lions getting ready for hunting , wild dog and sable antelope.
The bird life was particularly good in this area.

Our best animal encounter was a leopard with a three month old cub eating an antelope which had not long been killed.

Sitting quietly in the jeep whilst elephants with tiny babies were so close to us and a group of kudu passed in front of us, magic!
Staff were all very good and helpful ."

"Beautiful setting by the Zambezi. We arrived at camp via an hours boat ride from the Churundi crossing. No better way to leave your busy world behind and settle into your holiday.

Accommodation and food up to a good standard.
Staff were very helpful, professional and with good senses of humour.

We saw 3 wild dogs a number of times. Elephant plentiful and relaxed,close up of eland, lots of birds and the mixture of different enviroments made it most enjoyable for the 3 nights we stayed"

"Lovely setting by the Kanga Pan in the Mana Pools area
What ever time of the day you sat watching from the deck there was always something going on.

We had the place to ourselves so were very fortunate in having such close attention.
Fisher our guide was very knowledgeable about the animals and the bush in general.
Camp staff very helpful and the cooks were very good.

We went on the inaugral night run following a bottle of champagne given by Richard and Gilly ( camp Managers). Saw herd of buffalo ,civet, scrub hare genet. Altogether a lovely place to spend 3 nights"

"We had been waiting many years to visit Hwange NP, it certainly lived up to expectations. Beautiful wild area very few other people around and lots of game.

We saw the most relaxed elephants we have ever seen, even with very young babies they were not really worried about us.
We had been wanting to see sable antelope for many years and we did here, lovely group of nine with young.
Eleven lions with various ages of cubs .Plenty of giraffes ( they do not occur in the Zambezi Valley)
AND FOUR WHITE RHINOS !! Male, 2 adult females and 1 young

We were fortunate to have Lewis as our guide for the 5 nights we were there (he has now left to take a job with the Trans Frontier NPs).
His scientific knowledge was excellent, he knew about the latest research that was being done and results.
All the staff at the camp were helpful, interested and again had great senses of humour, we could not have asked for more.

Watch out Zambia you now have a great rival !"

"Lovely place to finish our holiday .

The Victoria Fallls were magnificent.

Although there were ' Tourist Police ' to escort you to the Falls and back and around town we found they were not available on our walk back and were badly harrassed by one young man all the way back to the hotel."

"Despite some problems with the weather (an east windblowing up sand storms!) we had a good 2 nights here. The trip to the dunes was really good and not too busy. We also had a guide to ourselves for a game drive in the evening so we were able to do what we wanted which was good"

"Typical 4 star hotel with all amenities and staff were very friendly and helpful

Ed: Whilst here, we organised two day-trips for these travellers. They commented about the trip to Sandwich Harbour:

"This was so good,and Ernest our guide excellant. Weather intervened again here and he rang early morning to say cause of the really bad winds we could not go till lunch time. He picked us up plus 2 others and we had a wonderful trip along the coast, his knowledge of everything was good. We had a good lunch did some bird watching and walking and some riding up and down on the dunes in the landrover, digging for water , watching jackels. And because we had missed the morning he continued on until it was dark and then looked for Brown Hyenas, cause we had mentioned we would like to see them, we didn't, but none the less he really put himself out

Again you could promote this more."

... and about the Harbour Cruise:

"Again the bad weather prevented us going out for very long, this time it was the fog in Walvis Bay.
It was perhaps very touristy but none the less we saw the Benguela Dolphin but did not stay all that long at the seal colony cause of weather""

"The camp and staff were good. We stayed 3 nights ,which you have to do to see the desert adapted black rhinos. This was a terrific trip,you should perhaps promote it more.

Raymond our guide set out with us about 5.30am on a very cold morning, for about an hour and a halfs drive to the higher slopes of Damaraland. The scenery was different from the camp site, nobody else around, Raymond said he had not been there for weeks and he found us the rhinos 5 altogether, one mother and calf .

We got really close to them on foot a magic moment! We also saw alarge group of elephants and to my husbands delight hundreds of Welwitcha planst in flower!

The elephant tracking from the camp was also very good The evening meal at the boma was good as well"

"This was a very different experience for us. We have been many times to Africa but have never stayed at a game reserve that had bought all its animals in and is very managed and of course is fenced. The animals were plentiful and we spent some time with our guide Rio looking and walking for rhinos, which was successful, although we did not see Black ones there ( thank goodness we had done Damaraland) Plenty of lions.

We were again lucky to have Rio too ourselves almost the whole time. The one disapointment is that they do not have elephants on the reserve, because of the potential enviromental problems of destroyed trees etc. ( This perhaps needs to be told to clients in advance)

We did 2 trips also to Etosha which were excellent although we should perhaps have done a visit to the east side of the park where you can see the salt pan much better and where all the elephants were.! But we had super views of all sorts of game at the waterholes.

The staff at Ongava were particularly helpful articulate and shared ideas and views This might have been because the manager Paul was very much visable with the guests and was always happy to talk as were the rest of the staff.

Only one negative point and that wasthat hot water was only available at night, and in the very, very cold mornings at 6am it would have been nice to have washed with hot water or had some hot tea or coffee bought to our tents."