Well what a fantastic week we have had.  Tena Tena and Nsefu both opened on Tuesday and are having a superb start to the season. Ross continues to manage Tena Tena along with Rocky and Sebastian guiding – Sebastian passed his grade one walking exam this year so congratulations to him.  They are joined by Anna who has settled in and is doing a sterling job of keeping them all in order.  Ross reports good elephant sightings, plenty of leopards and even a flirting white-tailed mongoose couple. It appeared that the male tried hard but went home alone! Entertaining for the onlookers though.

Unfortunately everyone “up north” is still getting into the swing of things and have not been able to send me any photos of the amazing sightings, so we will try to see what we can find for next week.

Rocky took guests on a salt pan trip where they came across a herd of about ten eland – such a magnificent antelope and a real treat to see. They were just by the Kauluzi River and let’s hope they stick around for a while.  The same guests had a superb sighting of a leopard playing around a tree with her two cubs. This is the resident female who did not have any cubs last year so great to now see her with young.

Nsefu had a pretty amazing show at camp a few nights ago.  Guests were having a drink after dinner watching a couple of hyena pups sitting in the car park. Three lionesses and two cubs then came into view, hunting a puku. They missed the puku and then saw the pups – two adult hyenas then appeared and a scrap ensued, unfortunately resulting in one of the pups being killed.  All very exciting and close to home.  A leopard had been seen drinking from the lagoon next to the bar a few days before, so keeping up Nsefu’s reputation for not having to leave the camp to have excellent game viewing. To top it all the ellies have now started crossing the Luangwa River in front of camp.

Another exciting viewing was seven porcupines on one game drive – a group of four and then one of three – fabulous, funny creature.

And so to the new house – well what can I say…..I have not visited the site for a while as I am not fond of waiting for an accident to happen. Huge, heavy trees, holes in the ground and lots of people …trying to move them – you can picture it.  However, all is well and we now have a crane doing the lifting – slow work and not quite the rate per day as Jo would like but we are getting there.  One can certainly start to imagine how wonderful it is going to look when it is finished.

Basil our ex Work shop manager camp back for the wedding of the year which we all attended on Wednesday –  Jess who worked for RPS some years ago married Ade. They both run Flatdogs and we all had a great day – in fact few days – many continuously hung-over people have been seen drifting around the valley this past week. Shanie and her team organized the wedding ceremony and champagne reception in the bush.  They did an amazing job producing delicious canapés for about 120 from their bush kitchen.

Baz, like any “old” staff members who return for a visit, had to sing for his supper and was soon enlisted to help fix one of the cruisers.  He is off tomorrow and so we are having a little braai tonight to send him on his way and also to celebrate Shanie’s 30th birthday – sorry Shanie but everyone knows my grand old age – congratulations…

Stay well and have a great week
Cheerio

Kim
Robin Pope Safaris

Robin Pope Safaris are acclaimed owners and operators of three exclusive bush camps in the Luangwa Valley including Nsefu, Nkwali and Tena Tena camps and Robins House. They are also specialists in unique guided walking safaris in the South and North Luangwa National Parks.