| Bonham now has his own camp and concession on | | | | the sand river bank in a little mosquito net. We spent |
| the North bank of the Rufiji - a small (just six | | | | a magical 24 hours walking with Bonham and a game |
| cottages) and very up market camp called Sand | | | | scout for miles along the sand river which we had |
| Rivers perched overlooking the Rufiji river so that | | | | entirely to ourselves. |
| you wake to the sounds of snorting hippos, the cry | | | | We went to sleep watching packs of hyena coming |
| of the fish eagle, the bark of African wild dogs and | | | | to feast on the bones of a dead buffalo by the light |
| the harsh racket of the hadeda ibis. | | | | of the full moon and listening to that spine-chilling |
| You can fly straight into Sand River's own little airstrip | | | | noise of the lion roaring in the distance. |
| from Dar-es-Salaam or you could do what we did, | | | | At dawn we breakfasted on scrambled eggs and |
| which is to ease your way in gently, divesting | | | | bacon and then set off to walk back to base, |
| yourself of metropolitan angst by degrees, by | | | | climbing up small hills for better views, sometimes |
| stopping off first at a charming tented camp called | | | | resting quietly beside lakes decorated with drowned |
| Mbuyini. It sits on a little promontory on a bend in the | | | | palm trees, watching a Goliath heron balancing |
| river and you can spend happy days tootling up and | | | | precariously on the back of a hippo and flocks of |
| down the river learning to tell the grey heron from its | | | | open-billed stork circling high in the sky. |
| black-headed near relation, picnicking beside the lakes | | | | All this is just a taster for the real treat, the thing |
| fringed by Borassus palm trees and tracking the local | | | | that makes Bonham's outfit special, which is his long |
| pack of hunting dogs. | | | | portered walks into the Southern Selous. The Selous |
| Then, if you are very very fortunate, Bonham | | | | north of the Rufiji is wild by most people's standards |
| himself turns up to take you up-river by boat, drifting | | | | - it has just six lodges (of which Mbuyini and Sands |
| past the nesting storks and hippo pods, arriving in | | | | River are much the best) together catering for no |
| old-fashioned style at the wooden landing-stage of | | | | more than 100 people at a time. |
| Sand River. | | | | But that is crowded compared with the Selous south |
| At Sand River you go on game drives through the 15 | | | | of the Rufiji. This is serious wilderness country, the |
| or so square miles of Bonham's private concession or | | | | country that Peter Matthieson, Tom Arnold and a |
| you walk with a well-trained guide through the bush | | | | very young Bonham explored 16 years ago on what |
| or you go on jaunts up the river sure of seeing | | | | they dubbed the "last real safari" (and which Peter |
| hippo, crocodile, waterbuck and buffalo and hoping | | | | Matthieson wrote about in Sand River). Here there |
| for a sighting of the rare Rock Pratincole or the even | | | | are no lodges at all - just a few temporary tented |
| rarer leopard. | | | | camps in the hunting blocks and Bonham's occasional |
| But, above all, you get the chance to sleep out on | | | | mobile camps. |