Ivory Lodge - The Place of Elephants was our next destination. We spent 2 nights here and did a couple of evening game drives with the Lodge's guide, Peter. For our first drive we were the only guests in the lodge so it became a kind of private drive for the four of us, which made it very special. Although we were at Hwange we were now actually just outside the park so, rather than pay the $90 entry fee again, we took our drives in the concession area just outside the park. This area is shared by several lodges and gets pretty much the same animals as the park. The second evening we were joined by a group of Hawaiian Americans so we had a full drive which was different but still fun. Our guide picked up lion tracks so we had a slightly faster run around the concession but we didn't manage to find any.
All in all we did pretty well over the 2 drives we had, especially as there have been rains here and the game is much more scattered and not all coming to the waterholes. considering the season, including some zebra and several different species of bird but the highlight was an elephant herd which crossed the track around us and which we then followed back to one of the nearby waterholes and watched drinking/bathing.
The highlight of the stay had to be the lodges own waterhole. At various times it hosted a good variety of game from Kudu and other bucks to a large herd of buffalo. Even more spectacular were the regular visits of a large herd of elephant. At one point over 100, including big bulls right down to the tiniest babies. The lodge had a hide right on the due of the property and the elephants would be within 3 or 4 meters of where we sat. It was an amazing spectacle to watch them playing in the water, washing, play fighting etc by day and (thanks to the near side of the waterhole being lit) night. The herd must have come in 5 or 6 time in the time we were here.
On our final morning lions were spotted at the lodge next door. The managers of the two sites took us out with them for a look but sadly they had disappeared into the bush by then and we drew another blank, so lions are still outstanding on my list. We think the lions got pretty close before turning away because we were initially watching from the hide and you could almost follow the lions route by watching where the baboon sentries were looking. Certainly all the animals at the water at that time became very wary and nervous. Once the excitement was over it was time to begin the next stage of our trip...
