Oasis Ahead...

Hello world! My visits to this blog space have been so infrequent lately, but here I am with a bit of personal time to spend online for a moment.. slowing down slightly, on a beautiful wintry Sunday...

Last week, returning from a speedy visit to a cold, citified South Africa, it was with a feeling of intense relief that we turned our wheels north and put some distance between us and the traffic-ridden economic powerhouse of our neighbouring country!

The open roads of Northern Botswana are an alluring contrast to the cityscapes, and we feel thankful that they also happen to lead us home...

The days are growing ever shorter now, and we stopped over at Elephant Sands, to avoid a dangerous night drive. In this encroaching winter dry season, the lodge is a veritable oasis, in the midst of arid terrain with very little water available elsewhere in the bush. This herd was thoroughly enjoying an afternoon at the waterhole.

Oasis-like for humans, too, it was great to catch up over a glass of wine, and to hear the stories of the elephants, and the leopard that had been there the night before...

 ...and the little gang of three red billed teals who are the survivors out of their initial brood of eight. This mini duck flock races in and around the giant elephant legs...scattering momentarily when a huge trunk sweeps the water around them! I only had my small camera with me, but hopefully they are somewhat visible in the foreground! I have also taken a rather experimental video clip, but will have to figure out how to upload it some other time!

Although here we are facing east out over the waterhole, the sunset colours behind us are still reflected in the waterhole, with the backs of the furthest elephants burnished by the late, late afternoon light.

Next morning, suitably refreshed after our overnight visit, we happily got up in the early morning chill, off to work - two and a half hours away! The elephants had crossed the road just before us..

Old habits! yes, I still enjoy stepping inside these giant prints for some reason..

The rebuilding of our road is progressing rapidly now: from being the most dilapidated and dangerous potholed track a few years ago, we have watched it grow.. recently this section had been only used by elephants but now we have access to much more of the brand new surface, which makes a huge difference to life

Past a thriving crop of sorghum... no sunflowers this time, as the field was on the "wrong" side of the road, and, being so early in the morning, the yellow heads were turned away from us towards the rising sun.

Finally we arrived back, straight into the office, to deal with the piled up work, and craziness; then back home to spend some time with our growing family of animals, including a newly adopted puppy, and one of our older dogs needing treatment after a snakebite... Now, after two weeks of not going on the river, we can hardly wait to load up the boat and go, but that will have to be another blogpost!

Glorious Sunday greetings from over here, to all reading this!