Botswana safari and Uganda gorillas

By Rob Vanderpoel LPSNZ

My wife, Angela, and I spent August 2017 in Africa, including a 17-day camping safari in Botswana and five days in Uganda with two days of gorilla trekking. The unique experience of seeing wild animals in their native habitat, doing what they usually do, was amazing, helping us to understand nature’s diversity and complex interactions.

For the Botswana safari, we were in a group of twelve, travelling by truck and spending one or two nights at a time in bush camps. You never really know what to expect in these situations, but I was certainly surprised that the camp areas were completely open; elephants, hippos, lions and wild dogs all passed around the edge of our camps at different times!

What was also unexpected was how thrilling it was to see these animals in their native habitat, in larger groups, and up-close without intervening fences. Certainly, you came to expect the unexpected. You might travel for half an hour without seeing much of great interest and be heading back to camp, when around the corner would be a large family of elephants splashing through a stream, crossing the road just in front of us and then enjoying a dust bath. Or, a leopard would appear, climb a tree in front of you and continue its meal of the impala it had stored on a tree branch.

I spent some time beforehand, considering what extra equipment I might want to take but, in the end, settled on my existing gear – my six-year-old Canon 60D with 18-55 and 55-250 kit lenses. There were times when I would have liked a longer lens, or more megapixels for cropping, or a faster lens, or less noise at higher ISO at dusk, but on the whole, I was very happy with what I was able to achieve with this kit and didn’t feel I missed too much.

The daily routine began with breakfast at 6:00 am. We were on the road by 7:00 am; by this time, the sun was up, but there were still a few hours of great morning light left. The morning safari drive would last until 11:00 am; by then, it was becoming too hot for both man and beast, and we spent the middle hours relaxing in the shade. I used this time to do an initial cull of photos, as I realised early on that I’d underestimated the amount of storage I’d need (shooting raw + jpeg). Partly this was because with animals moving, I’d often take short bursts rather than single shots. About 4:00 pm, we’d head out again as temperatures started to drop, and we’d catch the evening light and dusk.

Most of the time, I used the longer zoom lens. As we weren’t allowed to get out of the truck, for safety reasons, composition options were limited and tripods unusable. One of our party had a monopod but rarely used it. If necessary, the truck frame could be used as a prop, but I found I could use quite high shutter speeds most of the time because of the bright light, so hand-held shooting was fine. With several DSLRs on the truck, there was often a constant sound of mirrorslapping, sometimes to the annoyance of the one videographer!

After the Botswana safari, we had a few days’ break and then flew to Uganda to see the gorillas. We didn’t know beforehand how long it would take us to find them each day, and the terrain was difficult. Once contact was made, we were limited to one hour to keep their human contact to a minimum, but that hour was special. We had to remember the experience itself and not lose that in a rush to take photos. Shooting in the dense bush was tricky, especially as, in theory, you weren’t supposed to approach closer than seven metres; in theory, as the gorillas didn’t seem to know about the rule and often came much closer! We booked two trips on consecutive days in case the first trip wasn’t successful; there were no guarantees. As it turned out, both days were successful ̶ so we had two hours with the gorillas for the price of one, plus a little extra!

The Botswana safari and the gorilla trekking were fantastic experiences in themselves. Combining them into one trip made for a truly awesome undertaking.