We were woken at 6am for an early light breakfast at 6.30 and then off on our walking safari. We collected our bush babies (hotties) and then it was a short walk down the decking to the boat ramp. The entire lodge is protected by an electric fence that keeps out elephants but other wildlife can go over or under. The boats go through a gate that has an electric wire exactly the same as in electric fences on farms at home. The connection is just a bit higher up. 
We went on the motor boat with our blankets and bush babies for about 10 minutes to an island to the west. Our guide is Karl and Gee backs up the walking party. 

We encountered one hippo in the water that panicked and jumped into some reeds and then the water. Karl had the boat in reverse pretty quickly but the ripples subsided so we continued past to our landing place. 

We then walked slowly in single file stopping often to look at plants and animals. It was really interesting. We saw this cute bird called a little bee eater, the mounds from the Damara Mole Rat, some Red Lechwe (look like Impala but their horns are less twisty and they are a darker red and bigger), open billed Storks (which have a gap in their bill that enables them to get the insides out of snails somehow) and an elephant which was eating bushes about 200m away. 

We also saw more sausage trees, which were common in Kenya also. The fruit are shaped like sausages, that can weigh about 4kg and are like a marrow or squash but brown in colour. Baboons like their seeds but nothing else does. 

Both Karl and Gee are very knowledgeable, (especially Gee although Karl is our actual guide). They could show us the different footprints, how you can tell which way they are going and heaps of cool stuff. For example, termite mounds make good lookout points for animals as they are very hard and termites don’t come out to bite you. Then the animal poop results in seeds near the mound that then grows into vegetation. That’s how many of the islands in the delta formed as the vegetation rots down and forms higher ground.  The taller the termite mound, the higher the water table as the termites go to higher ground when it’s wet. 
We also saw this birds nest thing which was actually chewed up palm leaves that elephants spit out as they can’t digest the fibrous material. Elephants also rip off the outer bark of trees and then eat the cambium layer which has heaps of nutrients. This can result in ring barking and explains the numerous dead adult trees everywhere. 

The entire walk took 2 hours and Rita announced we had walked 1.8km. Well that’s about 1.5km further than we’ve walked on any day in the last 3 weeks, not including airports. 

11am means brunch. Eggs, sausages, bacon, pork ribs, vegetables, salads, bread, fruit salad, cheeses, crackers…. you need to pace yourself. We have ordered our sun downers and have a boat trip to look forward to this afternoon. We have to take scarves to keep the bugs out of our mouths on the way back.