Maun airport hosts a squadron of smaller bush planes to ferry visitors in to Okavango delta camps and lodges. Visitors ending their visit arrive back late morning to coincide with departing international flights and those heading in to the bush depart Maun in the early afternoon. The process happened smoothly with practiced routine and a welcome bottle of cold water on boarding. The need for this apparent even in the hot airport building.

Sharing the flight with another group of excited visitors we realised were were a little different when we couldn’t explain which lodge we were heading for because we had no lodge to head for. We would be camping in the bush, a rather different and less common prospect.

Once loaded into our Mack Air Cessna Grand Caravan EX, we joined the queue on the taxiway awaiting our turn to take off. Closed into our aircraft in the beating sun, temperatures climbed and this combined with the rocking motion, unappreciated by those prone to motion sickness. One by one we progressed until our turn to become airborne. The roar of the unleashed turboprop dragged us forward and eagerly into the air, gaining altitude and views of the delta as we climbed. The hot bubbles of thermal rising from the dry land contrasting with the cooler inundated wetlands gave a lumpy ride which was challenge to those of us prone to airsickness.

Seeing the Okavango delta from the air for the first time was spectacular. The contrast between the dry sandiness and green flooded areas in the middle of a desert is unique. Looking into the flooded area more and more elephants materialised.

After a relatively short flight our destination, the airstrip at Santawani (generously tagged as Moremi Airport on Google Earth) appeared and we descended toward it, touching down in a cloud of dust. Our safari car was waiting with Chris and Colin and as we taxied back down the runway we passed impala browsing on shrubs at the edge of the runway completely unperturbed but the sounds and presence of the aircraft.

Transferring our bags to our vehicle we waved the plane goodbye as it sped back down the runway for it next destination, it’s sound fading into the sky and leaving us alone in the sounds of the bush.

Settling into our safari car we started to become familiar with our environment and means of transport for the next 10 days on a short drive to Moremi South Gate.

This screenshot showing GPS tags of iPhone photos in Lightroom gives an idea of the area we will be exploring. The southernmost numbered images are in Maun and we then will be exploring the eastern parts of the delta. We landed at the area marked by the orange square labelled 14

Photos with iPhone 14 Pro