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The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is the second largest game reserve in the world. Situated right in the centre of Botswana, this reserve is characterised by vast open plains, saltpans and ancient riverbeds.
Varying from sand dunes with many species of trees and shrubs in the north, to flat bushveld in the central area, the reserve is more heavily wooded in the south, with mophane forests to the south and east. Rainfall is sparse and sporadic and can vary from 170 to 700 millimetres per year.
The Chobe National Park, which is the second largest national park in Botswana and covers 10,566 square km, has one of the greatest concentrations of game found on the African continent. Its uniqueness in the abundance of wildlife and the true African nature of the region, offers a safari experience of a lifetime.
The park is divided into four distinctly different eco systems:
Serondela with its lush plains and dense forests in the Chobe River area in the extreme north-east; the Savuti Marsh in the west; the Linyanti Swamps in the north-west the hot dry hinterland in between.
A major feature of Chobe National Park is its elephant population currently estimated at around 120,000. The Chobe elephant are migratory, making seasonal movements of up to 200 km from the Chobe and Linyanti rivers, where they concentrate in the dry season, to the pans in the southeast of the park, to which they disperse in the rains.
The Okavango is a labyrinth of lagoons, lakes and hidden channels covering an area of over 17,000 square km and the largest inland delta in the world. Trapped in the parched Kalahari sands it is a magnet for the wildlife who depend on the permanent waters of this unique feature.
Sometimes called a 'swamp', the Okavango is anything but. Moving, mysterious, placid, gentle and beautiful, from a wide and winding channel it spreads through tiny, almost unnoticeable channels that creep away behind a wall of papyrus reed, into an ever expanding network of increasingly smaller passages.
The Tuli Block forms a long, thin fringe of land demarcating Botswana's southeastern border and is readily accessible by road from South Africa. The 350 km long strip now consists mostly of privately owned reserves or concessions dedicated to game conservation.
Tuli has a fascinating frontier history because of its strategic position along the South African border. Britain declared a protectorate over Bechuanaland in 1885. A decade later Chief Khama III ceded the area to the British South Africa Company. The object was to make the thin strip of rocky terrain a buffer against incursions by the South African Boer farmers. It was also on the direct route to Rhodesia where Cecil John Rhodes intended to build his great railway from the Cape to Cairo.
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