Category Archives: Zimanga Travel Blog
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Eating the Elephant (The Tail-Piece)
It’s instructive to look back on my Zimanga trip, to review what worked, and what I might have done differently. If you’re planning a photo safari, you might find the following useful. Firstly, I can’t praise strongly enough the owners … Continue reading
The Need for (Shutter) Speed?
Over the past few weeks I’ve had the same conversation at least four times: before my trip to South Africa, at least twice while I was on my safari, and also after sharing my images for review. It starts like … Continue reading
The Zimanga 2025 Group Photo
Although my "group panoramas" are a tradition, I am on this occasion frustrated, as on every night there’s less than half of group at dinner, between night hide slots and three of us staying at The Homestead, a separate accommodation … Continue reading
Cutting It Fine
The Zimanga team insist on doing a final pre-breakfast game drive. While I appreciate the "value for money" focus, I am fretting slightly about whether that then makes the timing for the rest of the day a bit tight. It … Continue reading
A Day of Drama
Next morning I present myself slightly early so we can go to the Tamboti hide and collect a justifiably-smug Colin and John, ready for our morning session in the Lagoon Hide. I’m keen to practice my new skill with the … Continue reading
I Invoke the Dragon Gods
After the frustrations and ultimate disappointment of the previous night hide session, I demur from another and after lunch wave goodbye to John and Colin before joining another group, with Calvin as guide, for an afternoon game drive. I Discover … Continue reading
The Scavenger Hide
The next morning we head off for our (in my case, at least) long-awaited session at The Scavenger’s Hill Hide. As the name suggests, this is designed to attract the reserve’s less glamourous occupants, those who depend on the kills … Continue reading
In Which Andrew Meets Many Heffalumps
With our search for elephants still not fully resolved, and Frances confirming she wants me to come back with evidence of at least one baby elephant, we give Tyrone a fairly straightforward directive for the morning game drive: "find us … Continue reading
The First Great Heffalump Hunt
Despite the short guest appearances on previous days, our hunt for elephants remains unfinished business. Zimanga has about 40, and it should in theory be relatively easy to find them, so that’s the initial focus of our morning game drive. … Continue reading
A Bit More Action
The 4th day of our stay at Zimanga delivers where the previous day did not. We start with another game drive, again aiming to track down the reserve’s male lions. Almost immediately there’s a confirmed sighting, and we head to … Continue reading
Absence of Elephant
You don’t have to shoot Zimanga at 800mm! I call this “Absence of Elephant”. £4M please! (If Peter Lik can get away with it, why can’t I?) Oh, and about 5 minutes after shooting this scene, it disgorged a herd … Continue reading
Bird-Dogging, To Hyphenate Or Not To Hyphenate?
Day 3 dawns with a borderline white-out: thick mist filling the valley under heavy low cloud, and it appears to be even colder than the previous day. The drive is somewhat hairy, and also almost a wash-out: we find the … Continue reading
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