Camping in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and flying over the Okavango Delta just after sunrise.

We stayed in Maun for one night after staying in Kaziikini, so that we could restock on some of the things we thought we might need and also to replenish our potable water supplies. There isn’t any water at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) campsites, so we needed to bring what we needed with us. This was to be our first night of unfenced camping completely alone and with the potential of having dangerous animals walking by the tent. Our camp, CKSUN-01, was also about seven kilometres away from the nearest other people. We spent one day there and then drove almost 19 kilometres to our next camping site CKDEC-06, which had other people about 200 metres or so away. They tried to call the lions by playing roaring lion sounds through their car sound system just after sunset. I was not amused. I was thinking that they probably put down food and water for them too. I had no such proof, of course, but I did not enjoy the sound effects they played. We went to bed and did not know whether the lions pitched up there or not. We did not see any big animals in CKGR, but there was enough other wildlife to be enjoyed. We camped there for two days before heading back to Maun for two days. When we got to Maun, we booked a sightseeing flight over the Okavango Delta. With it being just the two of us, our pilot flew a Robinson R44. The doors had been removed, so we had beautiful unrestricted views over the vistas. The trip was for about 45 minutes and we saw many animals. We spent two days in Maun before heading back slowly in the direction of home. We decided to go back via the western and southern sides of CKGR and slept over in Kang for one night. We had a booking to spend four nights in two different campsites in the Kalagadi Transfrontier Park, so Kang would have been our stop anyway before entering the park. The Kalagadi campsites are also rather spartan and just the week before we had heard of a group that were in the park that had a rather hard time with the lions. They lost several tyres when lions decided to nibble on them during the night. They had to wait for days for replacement tyres to arrive from Upington. We just did not feel up to all that. We then spent two nights in Gaborone, which was not part of the original plan, before hitting the road and seeking out he fires of home. In the end we were away for just short of a month. Thank you for your time. Music: artlist.io Map: “Map imagery ©2025 Google” #centralkalaharigamereserve #helicopterokavangodelta #helicopterhorizons #botswanacamping #ckgr #sightseeingflights #botswana