Experience John Maytham’s Okavango adventures: Tawana in a season of plenty

They – whoever they are – say that the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes. Far be it from me to challenge a time-honoured cliché, but may I add something that is a near certainty – a visit to the Okavango Delta brings a cornucopia of delights, and when the time is spent at a Natural Selection property, that near-certainty solidifies into a dead cert to rival death and taxes.

Tawana is the newest lodge in the portfolio, on the south bank of the Gomoti River, in the Moremi Game Reserve. The lodge is named after Tawana Moremi, current chief of the Batawana people. His grandmother, Regent Elizabeth Pulane Moremi, played an absolutely crucial role in establishing the Reserve in the 1960’s. She was alarmed by the impact of out-of-control hunting on the wildlife population and called the tribe together at a kgotla. That meeting gave the green light for the Regent to proclaim a protected area, which was done in March 1963.

This gives Moremi a cultural and historical uniqueness beyond its natural richness. It was the first wildlife conservation area in Southern Africa, proclaimed by a local community rather than imposed by colonial authorities. Tawana Lodge honours and sustains that legacy.

I spent four nights there in December, traditionally the low season because of the heat and the supposedly lower concentrations of game – a result of the rain that traditionally falls at this time, and which turns the area into a mosaic of full rivers and streams and pans, dispersing the wildlife. Water, water, everywhere and every drop sweet to drink, obviates the need to congregate at waterholes that happen in the dry season, concentrating the game and providing plentiful hunting opportunities for the predators for which Moremi is justifiably famous.

Bah humbug – I say. Yes, it was hot – above 35 degrees every day. But the way the camp facilities were cooled and the activities designed, and the sheer power and enchantment of what I was seeing made the heat no more than background noise – and that comes from someone who is ordinarily very sensitive to heat. And the game sightings came one after another to a point of near satiety.

Elephants by the score – including a herd in excess of 150 strong crossing the river in front of camp. Some forging determinedly straight ahead, intent only on getting to the other side; some lingering to play in the deeper channels – their delight in their boisterous antics plain to see; the very little ones sinking below the water and needing the rescue efforts of a patient aunt. If the elephants Hannibal took across the Alps had behaved like this, the Romans would have been charmed into surrender. Multiple sightings of a pride of lions, two dozen in number. I have a very low threshold for the ick-factor, but the leonine equivalent of toddlers and tweenies playing with each other and harassing the adult ladies of the pride delighted all who were privileged to witness. A coalition of three cheetah brothers whiling away the heat of the day in the scarce shade of a Wild Seringa; their delicate majesty still for the moment, but the ears always twitching, alert for an opportunity to turn stillness into the flecks of mottled light their hunting speed displays.

Daily sightings of leopard, including one that was stalking a baby giraffe so newly born that the umbilical cord was still attached.

Two schools of thought in the safari vehicle. One group wanting the hunt to succeed – the other delighted when the parents’ watchfulness saw them form a four-legged, two-necked shield around the young one while shepherding it to open space that took away the leopard’s advantage of an attack from concealment. And – a first for me – the male giraffe vocalising a really threatening and aggressive bark that gave the leopard pause for thought, and he sank into the grass to await another opportunity. Massive herds of buffalo, a pack of wild dogs at play and at rest, an aardwolf slinking into cover, ungulates galore, dung beetles hard at work rolling a tennis ball-sized perfectly rounded orb along a sandy track, the female hanging on for dear life as she prepares to lay eggs in the sphere her partner is so uncomplainingly rolling home, a bird list of 206 species for the trip.

If this is the bounty of the low season, then high season must surely lead to sensory overload. And the light, oh people, the light. In the first minutes of the morning game drive, the sky is still and draped with a dark velvet blush. The dawn does not, as in Shakespeare’s words, ‘in russet mantle clad, walk o’er the dew of yon eastward hill’. It’s altogether more dramatic. The African savannah dawn breaks not with a whisper but with a fiery shout that transforms a landscape of shadow into a vibrant canvas of life. Light moves from the backstage area to the front and delivers a multi-chromatic soliloquy of immeasurable depth and impact. The morning dew refracts the glowering sky's luminescent gifts, casting glittering diamonds across the green grass as far as the eye can see. Then the light hardens. The sun doesn’t illuminate – it casts over its dominion a "rapier blade" of light so dominant, so brilliant that it almost strips the landscape of colour, though the verdant green of the rain-soaked Delta fights back and keeps some of its delight. At dusk, the sun asks for forgiveness and kisses the plains with hues of honey and burnished copper before taking its leave and allowing velvet night to return.

Tawana Lodge is the perfect base from which to explore the delights of Moremi. The accommodation is spacious, elegant and oh-so-comfortable. Each ‘tent’ has a private plunge pool in which to take shelter from the midday heat and watch the animals on the plain in front of one, and the birds in the riverine trees above one. There is also a lap pool for those who want to work off the calories of the always delicious food. Which sometimes seems it’s on a conveyor belt, so often does a new and tasty delight arrive in front of one. The very knowledgeable staff are another gift – always warm, always ready to help, always prepared to go the extra mile. Oh, and the beer is always cold and wine fridge stacked with some of the best that neighbouring SA’s winelands has to offer.

But perhaps the most lasting memory of my time at Tawana is the sense of a place in balance; somewhere man and animal and plant live in the kind of harmony we need everywhere on our struggling planet. Here, humans live in gratitude and humility, not with the destructive, arrogant power that is so prevalent elsewhere. Here, one can easily imagine the Garden of Eden that Adam jeopardised when he plucked the apple from the tree. Here you can ‘ come into the peace of wild things, come into the presence of still water, and for a time rest in the grace of the world, and be free.’

Visiting Botswana is not cheap, but South Africans can join the Natural Selection Explorers Club, which offers significant discounts, especially if you are able to travel at short notice.