October 2022 Pictorial Newsletter

Just our usual roundup of the last month at Kaingu Lodge.

At the beginning of the month we had our first ever “Art Weekend” and it was fantastic. Our tutor Alison Street did a magnificent job coaching people (including absolute beginners) into producing images that they were all happy with at the end of the weekend.  We really hope to make this a regular feature of the Kaingu calendar next year.

Elephant activity in and around the lodge continued as we moved into the end of the dry season with the river levels at their absolute lowest.  This guy was putting on a show on the island opposite chalet 6 for quite a while.

And then the toilet elephant.  A video of this that we put on facebook has gone a bit viral – over 500,000 people have seen it!

We did lots and lots of canoeing.  And we had lots and lots of great guests.  So good to see internationals moving again this year.

October also is quite the month for birding with a lot of migrant arrivals meaning that outside of the raining season this is probably the best month.  Rock pratincoles in this instance.

But probably the strangest sighting we had was a leopard tortoise swimming the Kafue river.  Amazing.   At first we had thought it was a terrapin, but thy are pretty shy and always immediately submerge when a boat approaches.  The leopard tortoise however just bobbed about in the water.  As it was heading into faster water we picked it up and ferried it to the bank that it was heading for (for anyone interested he was heading for the East bank, so came from the park and was heading for the GMA!).

Then we had the first ever innaugral Kafue Park Operators Association football tournament in Mumbwa.  This was a fantastic day out with several lodges (and African Parks) providing support.  The crowd was into the hundreds and there were even more teams that could take part.  We provided two players (Bo and Mike) and had a super (although VERY hot) day at the field.

Mike (left) and Bo cooling down.  

 The joint operators/DNPW team actually won the tournament which was a nice surprise.  A massive vote of thanks to our KPOA treasurer Musona Katebe (owner of Mwamfushi lodge) who was instrumental in making the day happen.  

Then we come to independance weekend.  The National day is the 24th of October and it is also around the time that we often see the first rains.  They held off on the actual weekend, but a few days later they started.  But anyway, back to the weekend.  Lizzie made her famous cake in Zambia’s colours.  And regular repeat guests made it a special event.  

 Skimmers and Sable.  Regular sightings on our loops this year have been a large (around 35) herd of sable antelope.  Less regular have been African skimmers.  But we were visited briefly in October!  

And then to end our month and our newsletter we have a big day out.  A rare day with no guests meant a spur of the moment decision to head down to the lake and do a staff day out with lunch at Musungwa lodge and some game driving around the lake.  For a few people it was their first time to see the lake.  The lunch was extremely good and the game driving on the lake was superb – great elephant encounters.  

 And that is it.  We do the usual and leave you with an image from Zambia’s night sky.  Here the Pleiades (seven sisters) show there stunning reflection dust clouds glowing blue.