We departed Chitake Springs on August 1st after a total of 6 amazing nights camping in the wilds of Mana Pools National Park and made our way to Wharthogs Camp near the shores of Lake Kariba in the town of Kariba Zimbabwe.
I say near the shore of the lake because the water level is at record lows. Where once you could stand on a small wooden platform at the edge of the property and see fish swimming is now a dried plain that extends about 500 metres until the water’s edge.
Waterbuck, Zebra and the occasional Wharthog grazed on the new found plain.
Wharthogs is a funky basic place with good food and cold beer and very nice “safari” style canvas tents where we spent the next two nights with hot showers and a semblance of civilization. And we usually had internet!
I won’t get into the difficulty we had finding the place, we didn’t have a Zimbabwean SIM card so no Google Maps but we made it after about 3 hours of hilly scenic driving on a good road to reach our destination.
Our plan was to go out fishing the next day for the elusive Tiger Fish, referred to as the Piraña of the Zambezi.
Lake Kariba is the largest man-made lake by volume in the world and was formed by the damming of the Zambezi River and the filling of the Zambezi Gorge.
It was the wrong time of year to catch the tigers but we hired a boat anyway and headed out onto the lake to catch the not so elusive Bream that are plentiful. We did head out onto the lake but continued to the shores of Antelope Island where we tied up to the shore and set our hooked worms into fairly shallow waters.
It didn’t take long and we started reelin in the Bream.(any Steely Dan fans!?)
It was great fun and after a couple of hours we made our way back to camp and kicked back for a little relaxation.
Kariba is located in the Charara Safari Area so wild animals roam freely. When the lake was at normal levels many animals would wonder into camp but with the lake so low they had no reason to stop by for a visit but you always hear the grunts and antics of the hippos in the distance.
The two nights passed quickly and we departed Kariba on August 3rd, crossed the Kariba border with little hassle and made our way into Zambia and a five hour drive Monze for a one night pit stop on our way back to Kasane, Botswana.