Years ago I read an article about Katavi park in western Tanzania, famous for its remoteness and its huge herds of animals. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. When I told my sister Carolyn I wanted to drive there she said (and I quote) “you are out of your mind”. Now here we are, bush camping near a hippo pool with no one else around. The hippo pool smells. Bad. Try to imagine 70 or so hippos encased in thick mud, gunk and you know what else, under a blazing sun, with a nice breeze wafting the scent over to our camp. But who’s complaining? Birds flock to the sparse water holes – they get really dirty too, just like the hippos. Katavi is so unusual with its wide variety of palm trees and huge umbrella acacias and white ghost trees – the scenery is spectacular. A big surprise is the roads, they are graded and tidy and driving is pleasure. Yes, we really appreciated that after Lake Tang.

The hippos leave their mud spa every evening to graze. We can hear them grunting and heaving themselves out of the pool. The noises they make aren’t as musical as the hippos we camped with before. Water is drying up here and these creatures are getting uncomfortable. It won’t get better for them. The crocodiles don’t seem to mind, and they are enormous.

The birds congregate in huge numbers. 200 Open-billed storks land at once, then take off again. Yellow-billed storks mix with Saddle-billed storks and a lone Spoon-bill. This Palmnut Vulture hangs around, chasing off a stork to eat its fish. Jim builds an African-style fire and we enjoy our evenings, especially when the breeze shifts. Katavi is everything I hoped it would be. Maybe we can swing by on the return and see it in the green season.