We even tried staying for a long time at one waterhole to see what life might come. There had been some big fires in the east, so we concluded that there had been a large movement westwards. The birds, though, were magnificent!

The Botswana side of the reserve is less well travelled, as became very obvious when we turned off for Kaa. From a wide dirt road, we were on a single sand track that was deep in places. 85 kms of slow slog through the bush. There were a few animals, but no humans. We learned on leaving that we were the first car to cross for some two weeks. A very tiring drive made harder by having another 30 kms of even smaller tracks to where we could ‘wild’ camp for the night.

But driving back the same 30 kms to the gate the next morning delivered the first real gem of a sighting of our trip. Three Kalahari lions stood in our way in front of the exit gate. These magnificent animals are huge, the males having black ringed manes. Photos do not do justice to this lion sub-species, as they fail to convey just how massive they are!