Returning for the Great Elephant Migration
Some Wilderness Travel trips are so great, it makes sense to go a second time to fully appreciate everything there is to see. For us, that trip is the Great Elephant Migration Safari. We went on this trip back in 2018, the very first time it was offered, and we loved it! So, when a slightly different itinerary was offered in 2024, we jumped at the chance.
This time, we began the trip on Caprivi Strip in Namibia’s northeast corner just across the river from Chobe National Park in Botswana. Boating up river to Elephant Bay, we saw Cape Buffalo and monitor lizards, fearsome crocs and numerous water birds. We also watched parades of elephants gathering next to the river and a pride of lions eying the calves. Were they waiting to make a kill? Or were the lions thirsty?
We never got the answer because several bull elephants came charging onto the scene and scared the lions away.
A quick flight from Vic Falls brought us to Nehimba Lodge, our first camp in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. Here, the waterholes and lodge swimming pool were teeming with elephants.
We also spent a very windy morning at a nearby waterhole with two male lions and some of the Ponies (daughters of the aptly named Horse, the largest female lion anyone has ever seen in the park).
On our final morning at Nehimba, we found ourselves in the middle of an epic “battle.” A group of Cape Buffalo “Dagga boys” had just enjoyed a mud wallow and were on the move across the veld, when the Ponies started stealthily encircling them. From out of nowhere, an impala came charging across the clearing, a wild dog in close pursuit and barking loudly for reinforcements from the pack. And into the middle of all this chaos, a hapless young male lion came sauntering. All the animals scattered in different directions!
We took the famous open-air Elephant Express train along the park boundary south to Camelthorn Lodge. This was another change from the original itinerary. We spent lovely days visiting the regional Ngamo High School where the students welcomed us with singing and dancing.
Afterward, we picnicked at a waterhole while watching elephants come out of the bush to quench their thirst. But for us, the highlight was spending time with Thuza and Kusasa, the two endangered Southern white rhinos at the Community Conservation Rhino Sanctuary right next door to Camelthorn.
A long drive brought us to Jozibanini Camp. We’d spent time at Jozi on our previous visit, but it never gets old. Morning games drives let us see so many animals, especially birds and giraffe. Late in the afternoons and early evenings, we spent in the hide—a shipping container partially buried in the Kalahari sand. To see hundreds of elephants lumbering out of the bush, the babies and juveniles charging past their mothers and aunties was sheer joy! One day we watched as a calf slipped in the mud and landed butt down in one of the boreholes. His screams were heart wrenching, but his mother calmly lifted him out with her foot. He stayed close by her after that but was none the worse for the frightening experience.
We think the sunsets were even more beautiful during this visit, and as photographers, we enjoyed playing with the light.
—Text and photos by 15-time WT adventurers Jeannée Sacken and Michael Briselli, Great Elephant Migration Safari. Read about their first Great Elephant Migration Safari here.
