Dry Season Trip to Selous Game Reserve – Day Two

An early start saw us driving along remarkably quiet roads through Dar-es-Salaam…quite a contrast from last night! We arrived on time at Terminal 2 and checked in with the charter flight company that would be flying us to Likuyu. After a short wait in the departure hall we walked across the tarmac to our aircraft and boarded. Excitement was tangible. For everyone except myself, this was the first visit to the Selous, and I did not get to see that much in August anyway. This was going to be a trip of a lifetime. The charter flight from Dar to Likuyu crosses the length of the Selous from north-east to south-west and gives the viewer some perspective of the vast wilderness and astounding variety of habitats present. We touched down at Likuyu at about 09h30, pleased to see that our vehicles were waiting. The drive through the forest reserve adjacent to the Selous was a pleasant one, especially since much of the road had been graded since my last visit. A recent burn had stimulated the small suffrutex Cryptosepalum maraviense to initiate flowering and some parts of the woodland in the first part of the drive were covered in pale lilac blossoms in among the dry leaf litter. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stop for a photograph. We arrived at Mkuju Camp just before lunch and settled in. The camp is really well organised and we could see that this was going to set the bar for trips elsewhere in Africa! After lunch we endured the obligatory induction and then spread our maps out on the viewing platform to plan the week’s fieldwork. An afternoon drive into the northern part of the project area provided a decent introduction to some of the habitats that we would be working in. A highlight of this drive was the little orchid Polystachya dendrobiflora, which is usually an epiphyte on tall woodland trees, but here in the Selous it grows as a self-supporting species on eroded uranium-enriched crests.