Small canopied motorboat speeding across still water in soft low light, wake fanning out, reed-lined banks far off

Area · Eastern Moremi, on the water

Xakanaxa

Where the reserve's dry land ends in permanent water — a game drive in the morning, a boat in the afternoon, and some of the oldest safari ground in Botswana.

At a glance

Signature characterThe lagoon area — leopard in the riverine trees, a boat in every month

Where it sitsEastern Moremi, inside the reserve, where the Tongue ends in water

Best broadlyRewarding all year; the heronry roughly August to December

AccessXakanaxa Airstrip, or the long road in through South Gate

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The area

Land and water, from one camp.

Xakanaxa is the corner of Moremi where two safaris meet on the same ground. The Mopane Tongue is dry woodland for most of its length, and at its north-western tip the woodland is at an end: reeds, channels and a wide, permanent lagoon where the Khwai River opens out. The camps stand on that shore, inside the reserve itself. From them a morning drive works mopane, grassland and floodplain, and an afternoon boat runs the lagoon and the channels towards the Monachira — the same guides, the same day, two different countries. Nowhere else in Moremi is that pairing so plain.

It is the reserve proper, and that cuts both ways. Safaris were coming to this ground before most of Botswana's camps were built, and the game density is the reason. It is also shared: reserve rules apply — daylight drives on the tracks, no walking, no spotlight — and the same tracks carry self-drivers and mobile safaris too, so in the dry months a good sighting will often have a second vehicle at it. For a first safari that has to deliver on water as well as game, or for anyone who wants the birds, Xakanaxa is the natural choice. For night drives and walks, look to Khwai's concession side; for solitude, to Chief's Island.

On the map

The tip of the Tongue.

Xakanaxa is the north-western end of the Mopane Tongue, the peninsula of dry land where Moremi's roads are. The lagoon and its channels are the line where that dry ground meets the permanent water of the delta; across the water to the west is Chief's Island, and along the river to the north-east is Khwai. By road it is the far end of the drive in from South Gate; by air it is a short flight from Maun.

See how the whole reserve divides

XakanaxaS 19°11′ · E 23°24′

01Wildlife here

Leopard in the trees, herons on the water.

Xakanaxa is old leopard country, and the birds are the other reason people come. The riverine forest along the lagoon and the channels is leopard habitat from one end to the other, and the guides work it tree line by tree line. Lion prides hold the mopane and the floodplain edges; a buffalo herd some hundreds strong, resident here, keeps them busy; elephant, giraffe, kudu and red lechwe are the daily company, and wild dog come through often enough for the guides to check their usual ground. Cheetah are seen on the open grassland, and seen less often than the rest.

The water has the other cast. Hippo hold the lagoon and crocodile the margins; sitatunga and lechwe hold out in the papyrus; and the birding is among the best in the reserve — wattled crane on the flooded margins, slaty egret in the shallows, African skimmer on the sandbars, and Pel's fishing owl at dusk in the ebony trees along the channels — few places anywhere are better for it. The heronry on the lagoon's islands is full of breeding herons, egrets and storks in its season, in their thousands. None of it keeps to a timetable.

The full cast, and where the Big Five stands The birding, in depth

02When it suits

Every month has a reason; the dry has the most.

Xakanaxa has permanent water, so it has no empty season. The boats run in every month, which is rarer in Moremi than it sounds. From around June the country is drier, the grass shorter, and elephant, buffalo and the antelope draw in to the lagoon and the river; by September and October the drives are thick with game and the predators hunt the shrinking water. That is also when the heronry is building — nests from around August, chicks by October and November when the water is low and the fishing easy — and you reach it by boat.

The green months, from around December, turn the ground over to the birds: the migrants arrive, the storks and herons are on the nests, and the light after an afternoon storm is the best of the year. On the drives the grass is high and the sightings take longer; the water is up, which favours the boat. Water, game, heat and rates are one decision, and it is best made once, across the whole reserve.

The month decision — water, game, heat and rates What the weather does, month by month

03On the water

The afternoon belongs to the boat.

A boat outing from Xakanaxa is half of what a stay here is for, and worth taking more than once. The boats are small, a guide and a handful of guests, and they idle rather than race: through the lagoon's open water and into the channels, hippo surfacing either side, a Goliath heron motionless at the edge, malachite kingfishers low over the reeds, a fish eagle on a dead branch, calling. The engine goes off for the sunset. In the heronry's season the boat runs out to the nesting islands; in the wet months it reaches further into the channels than a vehicle can go all year.

Mokoro are a matter of water levels and of camp: some run them when the flood is up, none can promise them. Of the four camps here only Monachira walks, and night drives are not part of a stay inside the reserve; if either is what the trip is for, the concessions on Khwai's far bank are where they happen.

Drives, walks, mokoro and boats, compared Khwai — the night drives and the walks

Mopane at dawn, the lagoon at four — two safaris from one camp, inside the reserve itself.

04Getting here

A short flight, or the long road in.

Nearly everyone flies. Light aircraft out of Maun put down at Xakanaxa Airstrip, typically twenty-five to thirty minutes in the air, and the drive from the strip to camp counts as the stay's first outing; from Kasane the flight is about an hour. The scheduled flights share their seats between camps, so a stay here pairs easily with Khwai, with the island camps, or with Chobe in the north.

The road is the drive up the Mopane Tongue from South Gate: sand, the log bridges, and after the rains water across the track. It is four-by-four country, and few guests take it. The camps here book as fly-in stays; the road's practicalities — the gates, the campsites, who books which — are answered plainly where the road is the subject.

Flights, gates and the road in Park fees and the flight legs, with the figures

Where to stay here

Four camps on the water.

All four Xakanaxa camps stand on the lagoon or its channels, inside the reserve, and all four run boats as well as drives. Camp Moremi is the front-row position at the Tongue's tip, thatched chalets under old ebony and jackalberry with the lagoon as its shared front row. Camp Xakanaxa beside it is one of Botswana's older camps and keeps the old form — Meru tents on raised decks, lamps at night, a help-yourself bar. Okuti stands on the Monachira channel with its curved reed-and-thatch suites and a proper programme for children. Monachira Camp is the quiet one, further down the channel, led by the water rather than the road.