Hello there. I hope that once again the weekend has been spent well and you are ready and raring for the week ahead. So, as promised, and with no further chit chat from me I am handing you over to Neil Andrews with a follow up from last week’s Luangwa Safari House trip. This week he is across the border in Zimbabwe at John’s Camp.
Neil over to you:
“Goodness me! Was Jane Pike (RPS afficionado) right or was she right? I absolutely loved Mana Pools and John’s Camp, and its location. My first visit to Zimbabwe since 1997 was to be the actual location for my seventieth birthday. Many, many thanks to RPS for allowing the six of us to have the magical setting of John’s Camp to ourselves. What a combination … Mana Pools and John’s Camp. WOW! Whilst being a temporary camp there is an aesthetic simplicity to John’s Camp’s structure. However, there is an intrinsic feeling of being in the lap of luxury, from the tents to the boma, from the attentiveness of the staff to the awesome cuisine. My birthday cake was something else.
Okay, though we all agreed we were putting on pounds we were there to safari. The camp faces Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park across the river with a backdrop of mountains beyond. In our foreground impala, waterbuck, buffalo and elephant wondered about their business as we enjoyed temperate afternoons within the camp.
Richard was our knowledgeable guide, and I especially enjoyed the walks he guided. The terrain of Mana Pools makes walking relatively easy, and these walks very much appealed to my desire to learn additional pieces of safari-lore … be it the close-up inspection of the sprouting of a strangler fig to the identification of eland droppings.
There were plenty of eland about, though they proved, as ever, difficult to photograph. The beautiful kudu were obligingly more camera-friendly.
The Mana Pools elephants are known for their circus trick of standing on their back legs to browse. The vegetation in June it seems is still too accessible, so though we saw how this specialty would be performed by these incredibly well-disposed giants we did not witness the complete performance.
One of the reasons I am forever changing my season of travel can in this instance be simply summarised on this June visit by seeing a euphorbia in bloom for the first time on a trip to Africa. Open your eyes and there is always something new for them to feast upon.
I had also not come across flocks of hornbills before. This of course could be ignorance and not a seasonal occurrence, for stretches of our drives they would noisily flit about our vehicle. Crowned hornbills, Lilian’s lovebirds and black winged stilts all obliging posed for snaps. Thank you.
Other than the termite mounds that dot the banks of the mighty Zambezi the beauty of the groves of winterthorn trees are sublime, for me the abiding memory of Mana Pools, changing colour throughout the course of the day. The park has no giraffe therefore the tree topiary is at kudu level but still eye-catchingly uniform that any groundsman would be proud of.
What a great addition John’s Camp is to the RPS portfolio and one I shall definitely be making plans to return to.
Tatenda to all at John’s Camp, I could not have wished for a better place to celebrate my seventieth birthday. See you soon.”
How wonderful, thank you so much Neil and Happy birthday from all of us! We look forward to seeing you back here again very soon. Needless to say, no further stories are required from me except to bid you a very fond farewell and hope that you have a splendid week ahead with plenty of smiles and laughter and don’t forget to look after one-another.
