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An emotional return to the "Remote " Safari Camps in Zambia


BRACQUENE

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III . Mwaleshi Camp : Walking ,crossing the river and playing Frisbee  :

 

One of my best memories of this safari was the 10 km walk between Takwela and Mwaleshi on the morning of the 15th of July most of the time close to the Mwaleshi river: 

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 But we had to be careful because Elephants were never far away and our ranger made sure that the passage was safe 

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And then we saw Mwaleshi Camp for the first time and had a welcome drink at the bar, still on our own with Stephen but half an hour later Ernst , the South African guide and camp manager arrived with Andrea and James ( who would leave for Takwela in the afternoon ) who crossed the river on foot , a "ceremony" we would repeat quite a few times in the next three days . 

Ernst , who had been on and off with Remote since 2001 was doing his last days at Mwaleshi before leaving for the wild and pristine West Lunga NP , northwest of the Kafue NP and close to the border with Angola : From the 1th of august he would be replaced by an old acqaintance of ours Brent Harris , who guided us in 2014 on the Trails.

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After an early lunch ( food was again excellent ) with on the menu ,who would have thought it , Hamburgers with French fries we settled in 

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And as in Takwela we had number three , more rustic than the former one, with all the chalets and the main area very close to the Mwaleshi river 

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For the next two days we were joined by four Indonesians : a father with two sons and a friend from the island of Java ( the youngest one studying at Utrecht university spoke fluently Dutch ) .

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And we had our first sightings even from inside the bedroom before leaving for a first walk ; it started with an elephant close by !

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And I was happy to see a Wire-tailed Swallow and some other more common birds 

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Before sunset ended the first day at Mwaleshi 

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Early morning the 16th of July we went for a morning walk and saw a lonely Cookson's wildebeest with some puku against the backdrop of the Escarpment 

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And a Brown Snake Eagle just above us 

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Some Ellies in front of us with a baby .

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A Saddle-billed Stork

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At morning tea close to a pont Kennedy came with a surprise as did Anne !

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Returning to camp and after visiting James in the kitchen Ernst proposed to play a game of Frisbee in the river together with the staff ; the "elderly" decided wisely to encourage the players !

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After that unseen intermezzo we went for a drive that would prove to be a winner , starting with a highly venomous boomslang even before getting into the car .

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And then at last a herd of Cookson's instead of the two lonely ones we saw until now :

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And some close ups

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And only five minutes later ...

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Two males and a mating couple but for the action we had to wait until after sunset  A Crowned Lapwing nesting wasn't particularly happy with their presence. 

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On the way back a Spotted Thick-Knee

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Next morning the 17th of July we would do a walk in the morning after a short drive and say goodbye to the Indonesians at a meeting point where we had been before with Stephen Banda .

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The Rhino protectors on bicycle 

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The meeting point where Mark McAdam , director and owner of Remote Africa Safaris and Heidi joined us for the last day at Mwaleshi and we drove to a lush lagoon and

afterwards through some difficult terrain , the old road to Mwaleshi camp . image.png.83e51f75628ea1c9694660d8b6edd802.png

 

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In camp the resident elephant was waiting 

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The afternoon drive was nice be it not so spectacular in big game and we ended the day with a sundowner 

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Next time : The Bangweulu Wetlands !

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Hi Peter!  I think that your thick-nee is a water thick-nee :unsure:

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Thanks @Bush dog probably confused by the Zambian bird guide indicating that the spotted one is often on gravel roads at night and that’s the case here 

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@BRACQUENEthe game viewing around Mwaleshi was so varied. What a fabulous site for a camp right on the river shallows.

 

Looking forward to reading about Bangweulu.

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wonderful to see the herd of Cookson's with young urns!

 

oooh that's a lot of birds - am i seeing a future BY from @BRACQUENE ?

 

Looking forward to reading more on North luangwa and Bangweulu and the fantastic ancient bird. My husband and I loved SLNP, and have decided that these NL parks should be high on our list in near future safaris, so will be paying close attention to your TRs (in addition to the past ones!). 

 

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Thanks @Treepoland @Kitsafari for your nice comments ; that BY is in the back of my mind   when I finish this TR and the Bangweulu topic I started earlier ; in less than two months I will be in Gonarezhou and that could be another trigger but even if I am fascinated by birds I realize I still have a long way to go before I can identify most of them;)

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On 8/19/2022 at 2:56 PM, BRACQUENE said:

The meeting point where Mark McAdam , director and owner of Remote Africa Safaris and Heidi joined us for the last day at Mwaleshi and we drove to a lush lagoon and afterwards through some difficult terrain , the old road to Mwaleshi camp.

 

Fantastic to read and see this!

Is Mark a co-owner, or did the Coppingers sell?

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@ForWildlife

 

Thanks ! Mark is indeed a co-owner as you can read on the website of Remote where he is together with John and Carol Coppinger , mentioned as owner; he stayed with us two more nights at Shoebill Island Camp as you will see in the next part of this report 

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3 hours ago, BRACQUENE said:

@ForWildlife

 

Thanks ! Mark is indeed a co-owner as you can read on the website of Remote where he is together with John and Carol Coppinger , mentioned as owner; he stayed with us two more nights at Shoebill Island Camp as you will see in the next part of this report 

Great, I didn't know that :)

Looking forward to the next part, some exciting species and sights to be seen hopefully!

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IV. From the walking camps of North Luangwa to magical Bangweulu : Men and wildlife living together 

 

In the morning of the 18th of July Mark and Heidi left early for Bangweulu whilst Anne and me went for a last walk with some good elephant sightings :image.png.cbfcb2e8f72c47ab42a8f26deadc1df2.png

 

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And birds of course :

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Then it was time to leave Mwaleshi and go to the airstrip where we met a lovely South African lady , Annalise Willis who sadly lost her husband recently

and would fly with us to Chimbwe airstrip : she was very much into birds so her visit to Bangweulu wasn't a surprise but let's make this clear from the start :

I don't think you need to be a birder to love the Wetlands ! it is an incredible area and we both might return later be it only for that atmosphere you can't 

describe unless you've been there 

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The landing was as you might imagine spectacular even if I was sitting in front next to Roary , the pilot and it wasn't easy from there to make the video !

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The arrival at Chikuni , just 3 km from camp and the first mokoro on our way to Shoebill Island Camp and the camp manager Lloyd was waiting for us :

 

The pictures speak for themselves but can you believe it took us less than half an hour to see our first Shoebill be it not close at all : tomorrow would be a different story 

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We arrived just before sunset at camp ( no night outings of course ) with Mark and Heidi ( photo above ) arriving almost at the same time and it was getting pretty cold and we needed badly the fireplace ; the whole staff made us feel at home immediately and the beds were the best we had on the whole trip with hot water bottles for the night !!

Shoebill Island Camp , rebuilt in 2018 general view

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Early morning on the 19th of July !

 

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Young fisherman showing their skills 

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And then suddenly ...

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Again pretty far as you can notice 

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But we managed to get a bit closer ..

 

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Lloyd suddenly shouted : another Shoebill flying in the distance 

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We found that amazing bird a few minutes later with some other birds 

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But this time we could get really close :

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The afternoon drive starting with Martin Shoebill at the airstrip and was very rewarding indeed as you will see ; for the Cheetah sighting we had ,

I admit , the help of Abraham from African Parks

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To be continued with part two of Bangweulu.... 

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offshorebirder

Thank you for sharing the photos and video of the Shoebill - a magnificent creature indeed.

 

I also enjoyed the Cheetah and Black Lechwe - fantastic that Cheetah are being reintroduced.  

 

Thanks for this trip report @BRACQUENE, I am enjoying following along very much.

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  • 2 weeks later...

V. The last days at Shoebill Island Camp in the Bangweulu Wetlands :

 

Next morning the 20th of July was very cold and we were surprised that so many fisherman would stay the whole night on the river : 

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And then we went back on the plains close to the airstrip :

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Looking for Tsessebe as I have never seen them before , but it would prove to be particularly difficult ( as they mainly were hiding in the tall grass

and the terrain was bumpy ) ; instead we were lucky to find some interesting birds ( amongst them a Fülleborn's longclaw) and the afternoon was again

blessed with a great Shoebill sighting. 

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The next day the 21 and the Belgium National Holiday : 

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We continued our search for Tsessebe through even worse terrain than the day before full of termite mounds and it seemed in vain ....

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But then in the far distance and difficult to get sharp photos ...

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And the next morning just before we took the mokoro leaving for the airstrip and Tafika we saw that two hippo's had come close to camp in very shallow water ; a dangerous situation you can imagine for men as well as animals anxiously looking what would happen next !!

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We said goodbye to the staff after some last bird photos in the garden and hoped for the best ( no armed guide by the way ) but made it safely to the airstrip even if one of the hippo's was in fact still around ; we had a last look at the Black Lechwe and Martin before our pilot arrived 

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Next time : Tafika Camp eight years later ...

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madaboutcheetah

How nice that Lloyd was able to be there with you at Shoebill.  Who was your local guide at Shoebill ...... I don't recognise most of the staff from last year from your photo. 

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Enjoying this a lot @BRACQUENE.  Great photos of the 5 Little Bee-eaters then the 3 wondering where their mates have gone :D

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Thanks a lot @TonyQand @AfricIanIt was indeed very busy in the Remote Africa Camps the second half of July @madaboutcheetah so Lloyd came over from Tafika to be our guide for the four days and he returned afterwards with us as you will see in the next episode to be the guide for Chris McIntyre from Expert Africa and his family at Tafika Camp 

 

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Very enjoyable report as usual @BRACQUENEincluding pictures and videos. The five little bee-eaters on the twig are so cute. North Luangwa and Bangweulu Wetlands are also on our list. Beautiful photos of the Shoebill.

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Really enjoying this @BRACQUENE; Bangweulu especially looks wonderful. Like the others I love the Bee-Eaters huddling together. And so many Shoebill sightings, just awesome. And how great you saw Cheetah. Looking forward to Tafika.

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Eight years back in time : Tafika Camp the first day

 

The 22th of July 2022 was an "emotional "day ; We took the plane together with Lloyd and Rory , our pilot , returning back to Tafika where Lloyd would guide Chris McIntyre , the managing director of Expert Africa , his wife and their two children ; at Shoebill Island Camp it would be calm for a couple of days whilst Tafika was fully booked the day after we arrived .

The descent on the Luangwa Valley and the landing at Lukuzi airstrip was for us a "déjà vu" event  but I can't resist to show you the difference with 2014  as we were now welcomed by a small crowd , amongst them the son of our guide for the next three days, Levis 

 

 

 

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Arriving in 2O14 

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And in 2022

 

 

We arrived in time for the aperitif and were happy to have the same chalet as in 2014 , the farest from the main area , the new honeymoon suite with king-size bed , dbl showers & private hammock even if our marriage was 31 years ago. 

I had the impression that the main area had changed a bit and was bigger than before ( the position of the river certainly had) but Bryan Jackson who was the first we saw doing his last months at Tafika said it hadn't apart from the hide which didn't exist when we first came over .

Jen Coppinger and her husband Nick Riddin welcomed us and we were happy to see Steven and Ernst , our two North Luangwa guides , back and of course Rona responsible for the kitchen and the new responsible for the front of the house Velelapi Lungu , everybody named Vel : we immediately started to look at the clothes and caps that were on offer !

Lunch was lovely like always and during the rest time hours I went to the hide : 

 

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And then we went for the first drive on a cloudy afternoon with Levis and Irena , a Russian lady who lived already a long time in Zambia and would be on all of our drives ; a group of four Germans were guided by Bryan 

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Suddenly things started to get interesting...

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But the action would take place at night and that's for the next episode ...

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Finally I've caught up. 

 

So Nice to see Lloyd again in your video clip at Shoebill! He guided us for about 2 days after Moffat guided us for the first day. 

Bangweulu looks beautiful and so many shoebill sightings which was brilliant. the black lechwes are so elegant, and yes i'm a fan too of the those little bee-eaters huddling together in the cold dawn!

 

  

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Eight years back in time : Tafika Camp day two

The second day at Tafika started early with lion roars at three o'clock and no surprise that we headed to the river were we saw them in the evening ; a young hippo had been killed and after the lions feasted the scavengers did the rest of the work in the afternoon ; it was also a day with very interesting bird sightings : Kittlitz's Plovers, African Pied Wagtail , Black headed heron , African Harrier-Hawk , Purple-crested Turaco , Tawny-flanked Prinia and early Southern Carmine Bee-eaters amongst others and the light was much better than the day before !

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The next day would be full of surprises ...

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good job that you were able to take a picture of an elephant shrew, they all escaped me. Do you know which pride the lions belonged to?

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4 hours ago, BRACQUENE said:

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Love this photo of the hippo pretending to be an elephant :lol:

 

As always, excellent photos and exciting sightings! The scavengers did a great job on that hippo carcass. 

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Great picture of the Elephant-Shrew! Looks like a very enjoyable day. :)

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