DUBA NEWSLETTER April has been amazing month in the Duba Plains concession, with fantastic sightings, hard working guests and inspired guides. A large group of Australian guests arrived for their fourth visit to the area and were not disappointed on their first night when they were greeted by a large herd of elephant in camp [...]

April is the cruellest month….as the temperatures continue to drop on a daily basis, I was almost tempted to believe TS Eliot but in fact April has been anything but cruel in terms of its safari this month. It all started with African wild dogs who decided to appear at early morning breakfast and kill [...]

Driving back to camp after a splendid morning tracking a lone Lioness for two hours, eventually finding her plus four two and a half month old cubs. We were just passing an area locally known as Jouberts Island. Here the flood plains are drying up awaiting the seasonal flood to return. It has left pools [...]

If you are asked to sum up Duba Plains in a matter of words then more often than not Lions, Buffalo, exceptional photography, Dereck and Beverley Joubert and National Geographic’s The Last Lions come to mind. The Lion and Buffalo interaction is world famous and we are one of the top places in Africa to [...]

Selinda Explorers Camp – Private Safari by Safari Architects Day 1 My guests and I had been waiting for this trip for the last 6 months! After a lot of banter and excitement, the day had finally arrived when we would be leaving for our Selinda adventure.  Both myself and Brad were leading the trip, [...]

In life there are so many situations that may be defined as the mundane, they happen once, twice, one hundred times.  Even some beautiful sights like a picture by the masters can be viewed over and over.  A discovery is a moment that will never happen again. You are the privileged individuals to see that [...]

27th March 2013 – 6.10am “we hear erratic splashing coming from the water in front of tent 4″. “In the cool of the early morning our guests had been watching the moon set from the main deck.  When there is a full moon you can enjoy its last hanging moments reflecting off the Zibidianja lagoon [...]

While there’s no doubt that being alluded to as the Brangelina’s of the safari industry is quite a compliment, there’s much more substance to the work of Dereck & Beverly than appearances. Tiara Walters of South Africa’s Sunday Times weaves a story which we hope will “turn around a billion Chinese”. But it requires your [...]

A Visit to Ol Donyo Lodge (full text and images here) So I just came back from a week in Kenya. I initially planned the trip because of a friend’s wedding and because of a Fashion Designers without Borders trip that I planned with Chrissie Lam the Founder of The Supply Change. The trip was [...]

Safari Architects’ Brad reviews the wonders of Selinda Explorers Camp on a Private Safari Day 1 My guests and I had been waiting for this trip for the last 6 months! After a lot of banter and excitement, the day had finally arrived when we would be leaving for our Selinda adventure.  Both myself and [...]

Last year we witnessed some extraordinary sightings involving a rather eccentric Cheetah we called Sehema, this  means silly in Setswana. Two of the highlights came in as many days.  The first involved some of our Selinda Camp guests who came across what seemed to be a Cheetah stalking something.  Cheetah are our rarest cat so [...]

Meet Bokamoso The Leopard, she is using this tree to scan for prey not far from Zarafa Camp The Young Female is almost 3 and half years old so she will have left her mother around two years ago. Bokamoso, meaning future in Setswana, is a very appropriate name for this endangered animal. Protecting these species one [...]

A new Wild dog pack on the Selinda Reserve has been discovered.  We have named it the “Explorers Pack” which consists of just 4 individuals.  Led by an Alpha female we suspect  that they have split from a pack from the north, possibly the Kwando area. They are incredibly distinct being very dark.  One of [...]

There are few perfect places in the world, but Zarafa (for want of a piano in the main area) is certainly one of them. I shouldn’t hanker for music with so much wildlife abounding but it’s such an inspirational place that the dulcet tones of a (non ivory) keyboard would not be misplaced at sunset. [...]

The breeze coming off the spillway in February helped cool the residents of Selinda reserve and the insects were given haven in the long grass, this has lead to some pretty fantastic birdwatching in the area and the lush greenery adds to the feel of really being out in the bush. There is nothing like [...]

This was the month that we completed the first ever Great Plains Conservation aerial survey over Duba Plains.   We have collaborated with Elephant Without Borders’ Mike Chase and Kelly Langden for what will be two annual survey, one in each the wet and dry seasons.  Each May, we will then release a full report [...]

SWEET-TOOTHED GIANTS   Elephant reaching up for marula fruit (Sclerocarya birrea) near oL Donyo Lodge, Kenya.

On the 1st March we re-opened Selinda Explorers Camp for its second season. It was extremely exciting for us to see the spillway flowing with water, over the summer months it does dry up. The waters have come from heavy rainfall, throughout the wet season, coupled with the flood waters from Angola flowing in from [...]

To all our managers, staff, colleagues, and tourism friends in Kenya Our thoughts are with you all in Kenya this week for a peaceful transition in government and on the streets. Despite CNN and BBC wanting to show footage of the old election unrest, their efforts have largely been thwarted so far and there is [...]

Fred is back at Zarafa, with  an absence of a few months but he has returned! Good ‘ol Fred, the sleeping elephant.  If you can remember Fred from last year?   He was the famous elephant who liked to sleep on the termite mound in front of camp – all the time and made famous [...]

Yesterday morning, after just leaving  Mara Toto, guests immediately bumped into three of Notch’s boys as they licked their chops from finishing up a hippo killed a couple days earlier. These brothers have, since their time as a young coalition on the Masai Mara’s Paradise Plains become specialised in killing hippos. This is quite an [...]

Email from Lizzy at Selinda Camp after asking her about the three little lion cubs we saw near Selinda’s airstrip last week. Hi Dave, The cubs haven’t been sighted as yet however their mother has been spotted and it looks like she is lactating, so we hope there are still alive but just hidden.  We [...]

And here’s how the cheetah vs. leopard sighting at Selinda Reserve transpired. Written by Jamie Hopf, guest and photographer of this extraordinary event. Dicks of Selinda Camp was the guide. Our very first morning drive definitely set the bar high for the rest of our trip! Our guide, Dicks, spotted some cheetah tracks in the [...]

On 22nd February, Ride Kenya assisted a vet from the David Sheldrick foundation in darting and treating an elephant with an arrow wound wandering near ol Donyo Lodge and the Ride Kenya stables.                   Ride Kenya managers Paddy and Kim were on hand to track the elephant and follow it [...]

Wild dogs are incredibly relaxed around humans. This inquisitive behaviour can contribute to their downfall though, human encroachment into their habitats has caused serious conflicts for these social animals.  Numbers ranging from 2,500 to 3,500 place them as the rarest mammal in Southern Africa. Imagine the delight when one of our new puppies from 2012 [...]

Pictured is a frequent visitor to the camp, loving the lush green leaves on the trees at this time of year.  5 tonnes of mass, he is incredibly tactile in camp. Stepping over obstacles in order not to break them.  One amazing site is watching him breathe in so that he can squeeze through a [...]

Recent guest Di from Adelaide, Australia, encapsulates what is just so special abotu Selinda Explorer’s Camp: “What a treat. We were able to do day paddles, & bypass the hippos and elephants from the water. No ticking off the Big Five by truck, just the absolute privilege of walking quietly through the bush, following footprints [...]

Let’s transport you to another vision, where you are floating on the HBS Zib in the middle of Zibadianja Lagoon in Botswana’s Selinda Reserve. And get this, you are on a massage bed. Yes, it’s true. “There is always a bowl of water with an orchid in it whenever I go to a spa, so [...]

With the increased demand for small luxuries in the safari industry, Great Plains Conservation looks for innovative ways to retain the true essence of safari while also meeting the needs of our guests. With that, Zarafa Camp’s four guest tents rooms now have a new cooling system for all of the beds.feature a new, very [...]

                ….. And all the surrounding landscape merely a playground. At ol Donyo Lodge the ‘element of surprise’ is around every corner, and when a lodge is placed upon a 270,000 acre sanctuary— anything is possible. Last night we unveiled our newest secret Bush Dinner site, and it’s [...]