Tuesday fishing

Posted by Christie

Tuesday morning we got up around 6 and had a quick breakfast. The ladies in the kitchen took really good care of us, they even had gluten free muffins especially for me. So sweet. We had breakfast and were in the boats by 7. Judy, Reg, Kate, and Ted went off to see animals with Alfred. Mom, Dad, Nigel and Bevin went fishing in one boat, and Steph and Emily and I went in the other boat with Devine.

We rode fast back down rive close to where we were moored the afternoon before – about 20 minutes. Devine set up the rods for us. We started with spinners, but didn’t have too much luck nobody minded though because it is so beautiful. Later we used several different kinds of lures.

We did all catch a few tiger fish. They are really beautiful. Bright orange fins and stripes longways down the fish. They strike hard and fight so even the little ones are fun to catch. Steph brought in a really nice one. We especially loved this little section of the river where we could drift around a small island. We got several fish there. It really was a lovely morning. We also saw lots of birds.

We headed back to the boat around 11 and they served us a lovely brunch with lasagna (special one for me), and eggs, bacon, the works. We have been joking that all we do here is eat! But they’ve gone to such effort and hey we are on vacation. :).

We took it easy for a while after lunch. Snoozing or reading or just looking out the window. The boat is gorgeous. Three levels. Cabins on the lowest level, then the kitchen and main salon (dining room, lounge and bar) and then the wheel house and observation deck up top (some nice lounge chairs too). The main lounge has remote control metal shades that raise and lower whenever wanted. It’s nice to keep out the strong breeze or make it shady. The wind blew quite a bit the whole time we were there.

In the afternoon, we went on a game drive, or boat ride, and it was spectacular. We saw elephants, hippos, giraffe, cape buffalo, baboons, impala, bushbuck, kudu (the last three are all types of antelope) and about a hundred birds (eagles, kingfishers, storks, swallows, greebes, geese, hornbills, and many more). Emily assures me that she has a list of it all so I will let her fill in the gaps. We were in the Chobe national park, which is a huge game reserve. All the animals come down across the “bush” which here is a very dry and sparse forest, to come and get water at the river. It is the dry season so some of them come very long distances to get the water. So it was great to be on the water, because everything basically just comes to us. Hundreds of elephants in small groups line the river. We even saw some swimming across. Totally cool. We had some of our traditional sundowners (cocktails) and watched the sun set. Delightful!

We returned to the boat and had a lovely dinner, chicken, veggies and other tastiness that I can’t recall now. Delicious, of course. We relaxed and played a few rounds of cribbage (Dad beat me, naturally) and off to bed. No hippo noises that night… Monday I was sure they were right outside, but I think they were actually upstream a bit. The frogs made a wonderful song as well.