Sunday 6 October - Day at Chitake Campsite No. 2, Mana Pools National Park

Wide awake at 5am - the campsite was quiet which was good as busting for the loo!  We packed the tent away and headed up the track in search of the campsite described by Safari Drive (and the Bradt Guide).  About 1 km up the track we saw a group of baobab trees on a hillock - this was clearly the place but also clearly no longer a campsite.

Whilst we were admiring the view a vehicle appeared.  It was a family of Zimbabweans, mother, rather and son, who had camped on Chitake No. 2 the night before us (ie the ones who had supposedly double booked the site) but who had moved to Chitake No. 1.  They were very experienced bush campers and had heard the lions and been concerned that we were completely surrounded.  They had also not appreciated Chitake No. 2 as a campsite for the same reasons as us - no line of sight!  We had a long interesting chat with them - they spend all their spare time camping in the bush.

We stayed up at the baobab trees for breakfast as it was really beautiful with fab views.

This area is really best seen on foot but without a guide we were not going to venture far from the car.  We did have a look down at the spring and did see a herd of impala and loads of baboons.  The Zimbabweans had seen a huge herd of buffalo the previous day but we had missed them and they were not evident today.

We decided to head back to the hillock and cook an early dinner up there - corn beef hash, yummy .  We did have one moment of excitment when the car started rolling down the hill - it would have crashed into a baobab tree but luckily Ian managed to jump into the drivers side and slam his foot on the brake.  All I managed is to hurt myself on the passenger door.  We had a long discussion about where to camp that night and finally decided to head back to Chitake No.2.  We would have liked to have camped up at the baobabs but if the wind got up like last night we would have been blown off the roof.  Equally we couldn't guarantee that Chitake No. 1 would be empty and we certainly didn't want to set up camp to have a load of campers descend on us a sunset.

So we headed back to Chitake No. 2 in the last afternoon and after our sharing our last beer headed up into the tent well  before sunset - we were not taking any chances tonight.