Hwange National Park is an exceptional National Park in Zimbabwe, but due to the distance it is from where we live, we don’t get to visit it as often as we’d like. So it was great to have an excuse to spend some time there in October of this year. We started off by driving to Nehimba Tented Camp, which takes about 2 hours from the Main Camp entrance, it is on a private concession. One of the benefits of being on a private concession is that the guests are able to go out on drives outside of the normal national parks operating hours and the lodge even offers night drives.
We were met upon arrival by the very capable manageress Amy and our guide Brenden, who both ensured all the Covid Protocols were followed before we were shown to our gorgeous room. All the rooms at Nehimba overlook the pan, which has water pumped to it daily to ensure the elephants, and other game have water all year round. Apparently the few days before we arrived there had been no elephants coming to the pan due to the recent rainfall, so we were blessed to have them appear while we were in camp and spent a very entertaining afternoon just watching the different herds arrive and leave at the waterhole. It felt like we were watching an episode of “Days of our (Elephant) Lives!” with one group nearly losing a small baby, which in its enthusiasm to get a drink underestimated the depth of the waterhole and once in the water, was unable to get out. The mom and aunties came to his rescue and very quickly used their trunks to pull him out. My word – what a drama it was to watch! We could have spent many more hours just watching the goings on.
After a good night’s sleep in our very comfortable room, we were up extra early to go on a game drive with Brenden. We were so early we were lucky to catch a fleeting glimpse of the resident honey badger as he left the lodge lounge area after his apparent usual night’s escapades! We had a hugely interesting game drive, the most memorable part being when Brenden showed us an elephant carcass at the Nehimba Seeps. The elephant had died of old age. You tend to forget how gigantic these animals are until you get up close and personal, in this instance Woody holding up a leg bone which was nearly as tall as he was!
Our time at Nehimba was altogether too short, but at least we were not yet leaving Hwange and travelled on to the newly built Deteema Springs in the north western section of the park. The lodge was only completed in May 2019, and is named after the springs it is literally built around, it is also located on a private concession. The management couple of Mak and Sakhile met us and showed us to our beautiful room, which had a view of the nearby Deteema Dam, while rooms on the other side of the lodge overlooked the Deteema Springs. We were lucky to have the ever attentive Lungani as our barman and waiter, and he attended to our every need, sometimes before we had even realised we needed something!
The lodge’s mascot is a pangolin and when I asked Mak why, he had a very interesting story to tell. Apparently when the owners came out to look at the site before deciding whether they should go ahead with the project or not, just near the entrance to the camp they saw a small herd of sable antelope in the road, kicking a big rock around. They thought this unusual and upon closer inspection saw it was not a rock, but actually a pangolin! The pangolin had inadvertently got itself caught in amongst the sable and curled itself in to a tight ball for protection. The sable, were not actually kicking it on purpose, but he had just got caught in the middle of them by accident. And hence Deteema Springs mascot was born!
As well as being the manager of the camp, Mak is also a qualified guide, and he would be our guide for the duration of our stay. That afternoon we went for a game drive and sundowners at the dam and were extremely lucky on our drive back to come across a pack of pack of Wild Dogs on the hunt! They were literally a half kilometre from the lodge and apparently a few weeks previously the same pack had actually chased an impala near the front of the lodge – whereby it took a short-cut and escaped the pack by running across the front deck! Imagine how exciting that would have been for guests on site. As wonderful as the wild dog sighting was, by far our favourite and most treasured sighting was when we were on our own and came across 2 bat eared foxes who had just popped their heads out of their burrow. Neither Woody nor I had ever seen one in real life, so to see 2 was a special bucket list item ticked off.
The morning of our departure we managed to fit in another quick game drive with Mak, this time to the salt pans, as Mak had figured out we loved our birding and we were not disappointed we had made the effort to get up early and go. We ticked off a number of rare species, including the Collared (red-winged) Pranticole, Yellow-throated sandgrouse, Burchell’s sandgrouse, and even a lone greater flamingo, whom seemed to have lost his way and arrived a few weeks previously and hadn’t left! On our way back to the lodge we very quickly stopped at the Fossil Forest, which is located near the entrance to Deteema Springs. Mak and Lungani (who is himself training to be a guide) showed us the petrified tree pieces, and although we didn’t have time to do it on this trip, they told us how they usually include the site when they do a guided walk. It has a wonderful view out across the bush, with the dam in the back ground, we will definitely make sure that next time we visit we allocate time to do the walk. Deteema Springs is another brilliant lodge in Hwange that we recommend you take the time to visit if you get the opportunity.
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