Papyrus Sea Video

I finally have enough internet bandwidth to upload the little GoPro video that I made of the trip into the Okavango Delta in Mokoro Dugouts. You can view the video on my Vimeo channel at: https://vimeo.com/73577025. I don't have it currently on my website because I don't have a structure in place right now for videos shot above water that were NOT Shot on RED. I will remedy that later when I have more than a day of good internet access.

Detour Ahead

I've decided to alter my plans a bit. I really want to shoot some more wildlife, so I'm altering my original plan. Instead of doing the next six days traveling overland through more desert and down to Cape Town, I'm going to fly to Johannesburg tomorrow, and then to Kruger National Park the following morning. I will spend 4 nights in the Balule private nature reserve at a game lodge called Pondoro. I will get to do 7 more game drives, and that's really what I came to Africa for in the first place. Then I will fly down to Cape Town and resume my regular schedule.

Desert Starscape. The desert is a great place to shoot the night sky.

Desert to Sea

We had quite a transition today. The day started with an early morning hike up a boulder strewn canyon in the Brandberg mountains. The goal was to see the famous rock painting called "The White Lady". It's not really a white lady, just a misinterpretation by an early archeologist. The painting is about 2000 years old. From the mountain, we crossed the desert and wound up on the shore of the Atlantic ocean at the lower end of the Skeleton Coast. There, we visited the Cape Cross Seal Colony. A smelly aggregation of thousands of fur seals. Late in the afternoon we arrived in Swakopmund, a seaside town, where we will spend a couple days.

In the Brandberg mountains on the way to see the rock paintings we saw a boulder that looks like a Baboon head


The White Lady (not really a lady, and not white either)


Cape Cross Seal Colony. A seal for every rock.


A nice spot for warming up in the sun.


Real Estate squabbles are frequent.

Desert Elephants

Well, yesterday didn't go exactly as planned. Our driver had a bad day. First, the truck ran out of diesel about 50 km from the nearest town. That ate up about 5 hours for our driver to go get some fuel and then get a ride back out to us. That put us pretty far off our schedule on a long drive day. Then, shortly after dark he made a wrong turn and we wound up having to camp for the night quite a bit north of the planned stop.

Today was better. We did a stop at Twyfelfontein to see the ancient rock etchings and then made it to Brandberg mountain a little before sunset and setup camp in a dry riverbed. We had all barely gotten out tents setup when a family of Desert Elephants came strolling down riverbed. It was not light enough to shoot RED footage, but I did shoot some stills. Hopefully we might see them again tomorrow morning.

Ancient rock etchings at Twyfelfontein


Desert Elephant


Desert Elephant family

Epupa Falls Day Two

I did morning and afternoon hikes along the Epupa Falls gorge and found some nice views. There are loads of ancient Baobab trees that look like something out of Lord of the Rings. Tomorrow we have a long drive to Palmweg where the Desert Elephants are sometimes seen. Hopefully we will get a glimpse of them!

Baobabs stand sentry in the center of the upper cataract


Lush near the river, but barren desert just a short distance away.


A rainbow on the upper cataract.

Epupa Falls

We did a fairly long drive today into Northern Namibia. We are camped on the banks of the Kunene River which forms Namibia's northern border with Angola. We will be here for two nights. There is Cell service here but there's no electricity at the camp, so by tomorrow my devices will be running on empty!

Epupa Falls just below out campsite. On the left is Angola, on the right is Namibia.

Cheetah Park

Today we left Etosha and were treated with a Black Rhino on the way out (plus a nice herd of Zebs). We stopped in a small town outside of the park and found a place that does superb Cappuccinos and real Cheesecake! The closer we get to South Africa, the more "civilized" the towns get.

We arrived at the Cheetah Park campground in the early afternoon. We were able to interact with four of the tame Cheetahs that the farm owners have rescued and raised. We also got to go into their private reserve this afternoon where about 10 wild Cheetahs live. They feed them in the afternoon every day and it's interesting to see them jostling for position and leaping in to the air to snag a 5 lb. chunk of meat. The the successful Cheetah dashes off at full speed with its prize.

Etosha Day Two: Waterholing

Etosha is a desert and it is pocked with waterholes that attract the local wildlife. Some of the waterholes are natural, and some are man made. As the dry season drags on, the waterholes shrink. If they dry up, that animals suffer in their quest for water. To help a bit, the park management has installed solar powered wells at many of the waterholes to keep them active during the long dry season. One Lioness we spotted today decided that the solar collector was a really nice shady spot for a rest!

Today, the water holes were the place to be. Nearly all of the wildlife we saw today was either at a waterhole or going to or from one. Some of the waterholes were bustling with activity. The big one at our campground was particularly good today and during the break between the morning and afternoon game drives I saw Elephants, Giraffe, Zebra, and several species of Antelope in large numbers. This particular waterhole is lighted all night long so it gets a lot of action all the time. Last night there were 6 Rhinos at the waterhole, some Giraffe and lots of smaller animals.









This Lioness was resting at the edge of the vegetation at one of the waterholes.


A short while later when we passed by this waterhole again, she had moved into the shade of the solar panel that powers the waterhole's well.

Etosha Day One

We did a morning game drive in the Safari Truck. It's not quite as east to shoot out of the truck as it is in a smaller 4x4, but you can flip a hatch in the roof and stand up to look out. Works pretty good if things are a bit away from the truck, but if they are too close, the roof gets in the way. Of course, close is what you really want so in that event you shoot through a window, if the critter is on your side of the truck. We started off with a really distant Rhino. It might make a nice "artistic" scene with the early morning light and haze. The next stop was a Male Lion drinking at one of the water holes. We also has several species of Antelope, numerous Giraffe, Wildebeest, Elephants and tons of Zebras. I'm trying to arrange for a private 4x4 to do a full day tomorrow.

Okavango Delta and beyond

I've been "off the grid" for a few days with poor internet connection. We went to Guma Lagoon in the Okavango Delta and camped a night, then we packed all of our camping equipment into a speedboat and went out into the delta until the channels became too small to navigate, then transferred everything into local dugout canoes called Mokoros. We went a further 1.5 hours into the delta by Mokoro following tiny waterways through the Papyrus that are kept open by Hippos in their nightly travels (fortunately, they seem to prefer deeper water in the daytime). We setup camp on a small island in the middle of the panhandle and spent the night there. In the afternoon, we did another Mokoro cruise and observed a family of 6 Hippos just about as close as I care to get in a bite size canoe. The following day, we reversed course and went back out to Guma Lagoon camp, first by Mokoro and then by speedboat. Unfortunately, no RED shooting on this trip into the delta, the canoes are way too tippy to trust with the RED. The good news is that I did shoot some GoPro footage and did a Q&D edit last night. As soon as I have some 3G access, I will upload it.

We left Guma Lagoon yesterday morning, crossed over into Namibia and spent one night at Ngepi on the banks of the Kavango River. This morning we did a long drive to Etosha National Park with a brief stop in Grootfontein to change some money and buy a SIM card. I'm now on my eighth African SIM.

Tonight I will try to do some shooting at one of the lighted water holes. This will be a test. Tomorrow night we are supposed to be at a much more productive lighted waterhole.

Last night, I upgraded to a "Treehouse" at Ngepi:

Chobe National Park

Today was a busy day for wildlife shooting. I started with a game drive in Chobe National park at 0600. There are loads of Elephants in the park and a number of species of Antelope that I had not filmed before including the beautiful Sable. We struck out on big cats, but saw tracks of both Leopard and Lion and had a lot of watchful activity of some of the wildlife that had probably spotted them. We also came across the body of an Elephant that was being devoured by Vultures.

In the afternoon, we did a cruise on the Chobe River that defines the northern edge of the park and is the border between Botswana and Namibia. While it was difficult to shoot RED footage from the boat, there were lots of opportunities. We must have seen a total of at least 200 Elephants along the bank and on the small flat grassy islands in the river. Lots of Hippos and crocs too. Tomorrow we head off early for a long overland to Maun at the edge of the Okavango Delta.

Kudu Buck and Doe



Sable


Vultures on Elephant caracas


Elephants at Sunset on island in Chobe River

Zambia Video

The new Zambia wildlife video from South Luangwa National Park is now on my Website and Vimeo channel. I really has a lot of good Elephant behavior in the park and an excellent Leopard encounter. There are Hippos galore in the park and loads of big Crocodiles around the river banks and in small ponds left over from the rainy season. The big highlight for me was a dozen or so large Crocs feasting on a young Hippo. This film was mastered in 4K on RED and has been scaled down to a size that is presentable on the internet. Most of the footage was shot with a Sigma 50-500 lens (Bigma) and a Sigma 17-70 lens.
Music for this video is Arid Foothills by Kevin MacLeod

You can find the video either in the "Shot on RED" section of FishTalesFilms.com or on my Vimeo channel at: https://vimeo.com/72213406

Zimbabwe

I crossed the border into Zimbabwe today to have a look at Victoria Falls from the other side. You may have noticed in my post a couple days ago about Victoria Falls from the Zambia side that I didn't exactly "gush" about the Falls and only included one photo. That's because at low water, that side isn't too impressive. The Zimbabwe side, however, is quite spectacular. It might even be best to see it in low water because at a high flow you probably wouldn't see anything but mist. Even at low water the main falls is difficult to see through all the mist rising from the gorge. In this case, Zim beats Zam hands down.

Looking down the gorge from Devil's Cataract toward the Main Falls


Rainbow at Devil's Cataract


The "Main Falls"


Falls through the rainforest


Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke that Thunders). A constant rain rises vertically out of the gorge obscuring the falls in mist.


Middle Falls


Rainbow falls


Warthogs at the top of the falls


Looking toward the Zambia side

Mosi-oa-Tunya

I did an afternoon game drive today in Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park to shoot some stills for a change. I didn't hire a private 4x4, I just signed up for a normal game drive. I haven't shot any stills on game drives so far with the exception of a few in Ngorongoro Crater. Everything else has been shot on RED. So this was sort of a goof off day for me. It's a very small park, only 66 sq. km., but it's very nice. It's bordered on the south by the Zambezi river and Victoria Falls is just downstream. The park gets it's name from the constant mist above the falls. In the local language, Mosi-oa-Tunya means "The Smoke that Thunders". We saw Elephants, Giraffe, lots of Warthogs, some Zebra and Impala, a Crocodile on the Zambezi bank, some Hippos, lots of Baboons and a really large herd of Cape Buffalo.

That wasn't all I accomplished today. I also finished the edit of the Zambia video. Tomorrow I will put the finishing touches on it and upload it to my Vimeo channel. I'm also planning on crossing over to the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls tomorrow to see it from that perspective.

Baboons


Cape Buffalo with some hitchhikers


Impala


Warthog


Elephant

Victoria Falls

We have been in Livingstone for a couple days now. This morning we walked the Victoria Falls trail on the Zambia side of the border. The river flow is low now since it's well into the dry season. That means that the falls are more visible because there is not so much mist rising up from the gorge.

I've been trying to arrange transport down to Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe for the last two days, but so far I haven't been able to find an option that isn't ridiculously expensive. If I can't find suitable transportation by the end of the day, I'll have to abandon that plan.

Zambia side of Victoria Falls looking toward the Zimbabwe side.

Bridge Camp

We are at Bridge Camp for the night, about 1/3 the way to Victoria Falls. Two more days of travel to get there, so not much in the way of Photography coming up for awhile. I did want to post a couple images of the Lions we saw last night. They are shot with a DSLR, not with the RED. I had to jack up the ISO to 3200 and the lighting is only with a spot light plugged into the 4x4's lighter, but you get the idea….

Lions drinking at Waterhole:


That was refreshing


Keeping watch

Monkey Trouble

Day two at Wildlife Camp is proving to be as productive as Day one was. A good drive this morning starting at 0530. Another good sunrise in the park. Today's mission was Hippos and Giraffe and it was vert successful. The Luangwa River has the highest concentration of Hippos in the world. This time of year, in low water, they are broken up into groups consisting of a dominant Bull, several females and their calves. We also saw quire a few Crocodiles today, at least 8 different individuals. Back in camp, everyone is on watch for pesky monkeys that try to steal food from the table. They also try to knock over the garbage can to steal goodies out of it. At least at night we only have to worry about Hippos roaming through the camp. The afternoon game drive was special. In a small pond, only an acre or two in size, we found dozens of Crocs devouring the caracas of a young Hippo. The Crocs probably didn't kill the young Hippo, that was probably the work of the Herd's Bull. But the Crocs were certainly taking advantage of the free meal. Some of the Crocs were massive. They would grab on to the Hippo and roll in the water to twist off a hunk. Quite amazing to watch. We stayed about an hour and I shot around 80Gb of the action. On the way back to camp, we found 5 Lions. Two females and three cubs. We spent about 45 minutes following them. It was after dark, so we were using a spotlight to track them. Not good enough for video, but I got some stills for proof that we saw them. Didn't want anyone to think we were Lyin:<)

A Hippo family cooling off in the river.




Elephants crossing the river at dusk


Elephant takes a drink


Crocodile Reflections


Chow time