The many sides to Wilderness Vumbura Plains

Wilderness Vumbura Plains’ appeal lies in this duality. Flying from Maun to Vumbura Airstrip, I got a glimpse of what was to come. Below, the landscape was a kaleidoscope of colour – blues and greens, yellows and browns. Lush floodplains cut by shimmering channels of water. Some pools appeared almost black, darkened by the shadows of clouds drifting overhead. And then dust as we touched down, the air thick with those familiar scents that make seasoned safari-goers feel like they’ve come home. 

Getting to Vumbura Plains depends on the water levels. When it’s low, it’s a combination of a roughly 35-minute drive and boat transfer. On our visit the water was high enough to travel entirely by boat, with only a short drive to and from the jetty. The journey through the Delta’s intricate maze is an exhilarating route and can take anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 hours, moving through waterways carved by hippos and kept open by boats. Our skipper Kabo navigated them with ease. 

Papyrus lined the deeper channels in floating mats, while tall, hardy reeds grow thick along the shallows. At one point, Kabo cut the engine to point out the sprawling waterlilies – seasonal, he explained, blooming as the waters rise (typically March through July). Day-lilies open mid-morning in shades of violet and gradually fade to white over a few days, while the night-blooming lotus opens in the late afternoon and closes again at dawn. 

And then, all too soon, the engine started again and the camp came into view.

Vumbura Plains sits on an island, divided into North (six suites and two family units) and South (six suites), each designed to draw your eye outward – across water and grassland – and drawing the outside in. Sitting on my deck beside the plunge pool, I heard a swishing and looked up to see an elephant wading through the inundated grass below, thrashing the plants to shake off mud and grit before swallowing the green bouquet. He was a stone’s throw away, aware but uninterested, focused entirely on his meal before eventually moving on.

‘He hangs around camp,’ said Masco, our guide who has been with Wilderness for 18 years, four of them at Vumbura. And sure enough, our local pachyderm returned that evening, passing within metres from where we were (safely) enjoying dinner. 

It’s a reminder of how wild this area is and that we are unequivocally guests in the animals’ space. That same night, walking back to our room with Masco, we passed a large hippo feeding below the boardwalk. Seconds later, a noise in the reeds revealed a water mongoose – a first for him. Some of his other standout sightings include aardwolf and, during our morning coffee stop, five honey badgers. 

Vumbura spans both dry and seasonally flooded terrain, and the safari shifts accordingly. ‘It especially affects animal movement,’ Masco explained. ‘Some are harder to find when water cuts off the islands, but we adjust how to move through the landscape.’ Predators here are used to it, following established crossing points just as their prey does.

We saw plenty of lions, hunting, sleeping, moving; and elephants – interestingly quite a few with only one tusk. Years of use, Masco explained, can wear or break them. Elephants favour one tusk over the other, much like being left- or right-handed. We also saw some with shortened tails, likely the result of old injuries. All were well adapted, the marks simply part of their story.

Our story continued back on the water – this time by mokoro. Sitting low in the narrow dugout, almost at water level, with a poler guiding you forward with practiced ease, there is something almost meditative in the experience. There is no engine, no urgency. Tiny frogs cling to papyrus stems. Dragonflies hover and dart about. Even the conversation fell away, giving in to the soft dip and lift of the pole, rustle of reeds, and occasional plop of something unseen slipping into the water. 

Back at camp over a three-course meal in a beautiful setting, lightning flickering in the distance and darkness pressing in from all sides, it was easy to forget – or perhaps I actually felt it more keenly – what lay beyond the light. That animals were moving, hunting, feeding. That somewhere above, an owl was watching. That the scratching outside my suite as I nodded off might have been a bush baby passing through. 

By the next morning, boarding my flight, it already felt slightly out of reach. Yet it stays with me, ready to return in full colour when I touch down again on that dusty airstrip.