The end of the year is a great time to reflect on the path that has been travelled over the year, and the ones that you hope to travel on in the coming year. 2016 has been an interesting, and really good year. The photos below encompass some of my thoughts about the various paths that I am on.
There are times when the path is clear; you know where you are going and the way is easily defined. If you have to retrace your steps for some reason, it’s easy to get back where you started.
Sand Forest, Phinda Game Reserve, South Africa.
On some days, the path might seem barren and you feel all alone, but you never know what might pop up ahead.
A saddle billed stork takes to the road. Amboseli National Park, Kenya.
Sometimes others will doubt that you are on a path at all; they will question your direction and your vision. But you know exactly where you are going.
An elephant heads towards the river for an early morning drink. Ishasha Sector, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.
Sometimes you need to create your own path. You can’t see where you are headed, and if you try to turn around, the way is just as obscured. Going on intuition is the only way forward.
A leopard moving through the tall grasses, Ishasha Sector, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.
Sometimes the only thing to do is take a break, rest, and return to the path later on. This is especially true when you have no idea what you are doing, or where you are going!
Silverback Makara rests on one of the game trails in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest, Uganda.
For the coming year, I plan to continue to challenge myself to explore new places, walk my own path, and plan adventures to the places that call to me.
That’s what I did in 2016, and it has been a fabulous year.
From my time in the Masai Mara in September, the dawn of a new day.
If I had a scorecard for successful trekking experiences in Uganda, it would look something like this:
Gorillas treks 2/2
Chimpanzee treks 1/2
Now by successful, I am only meaning that I saw the animal that I intended to when setting out for the trek. We could define successful in lots of ways though: if success meant coming back safe and having fun, I’d be 2/2 on both of them.
One trek felt like a quest more than the others, and that was the chimpanzee trek through the Kyambura Gorge in Uganda. You see, with gorilla trekking, trackers go out long before guests to try and find the animals in advance, so you don’t spend loads of time wandering, and the success rate of seeing the gorillas is quite high. There are no trackers that go out ahead of time for chimpanzee treks, and in Kyambura Gorge, the success rate for seeing chimps is somewhere between 50-60%.
The river at the bottom of Kyambura Gorge.Lots of spooky looking trees, a few monkeys, but not a chimpanzee to be found that morning.I don’t recall the name of this tree, but the chimpanzees bang on the bases as a form of communication.The path looked quite innocent at the start!
Several times I had contemplated giving the gorge trek a miss, as I was worried about the physicality of it, but decided to give it a go anyways. The gorge itself is around 150m deep, has a river running through it (with hippos) and the pathways along are often steep, muddy and slippery. On more than one occasion, rather than fall over, I sat down at the top of a hill and slid down the muddy path on my butt!
Sometimes, we walked in the footsteps of elephants!
After the initial decent into the gorge, we crossed a very nice, sturdy bridge over the river to look for the chimps along the other side. And as we walked along the paths, up and down hills, through streams and over fallen trees, we passed several more bridges. But when our guide declared it was time to return since the chimps weren’t in the area, we were a good two kilometres from the nearest bridge, and so instead, we had to cross the river by crawling along a fallen tree!
The tree I crawled across was pretty much like this one. Little did I know what was in store for me when I took this photo!
Crossing on the tree wasn’t actually that bad, it was wide and sturdy, and while the bark bruised my knees terribly, I wasn’t scared I was going to slip and fall. But then I reached the other side and learned that to get off the fallen tree, I would have to stand up, bear hug a big branch, and take a step of faith to another tree lower down that was further away than my legs could easily reach… and then finally jump to the riverbank below. I wish I had photos of all that but even my GoPro was safely packed away in my bag. I was terrified taking the leap of faith at the end of the tree, but very thankful for the other people in the group that helped me out and walked me through what I needed to do.
I saw chimpanzees the next day at Kibale Forest, but the Kyambura Gorge walk sticks out for me just as much. As one of my new friends said “You’ll always have a story to tell because of this!”
I’m a bit behind on the weekly photo challenges, but I found some topics that interested me that were released while I was on holidays, so I am going to catch up on them over the next week or so.
I hope everyone has had a great weekend!
An egret reflected in the waters of the swamp at Amboseli National Park. Kenya, September, 2016. 1/1250 sec, f10, ISO 640.
I noticed this challenge before taking off on holidays, and thought it would be a great chance to showcase a series of photos I had edited and saved in a folder titled water birds.
I hope you enjoy!
A rufous bellied heron.An African darter drying its wings.An egret stalking in the shallows.A mixed group perched in a dead tree, including African spoonbills and sacred ibis.An African jacana.A grey heron standing very close to a nile crocodile.A brown hooded kingfisher.A pair of malachite kingfishers.A hammerkop.A pair of pied kingfishers in the Okavango Delta.
Please note, I’m away for several weeks, so I have scheduled some posts in advance. I will moderate and respond to any comments just as soon as I am able.
I am hoping to be taking loads of photos, so if you would like to follow along, please feel free to give my page a like on Facebook @jennifersawickyphotography and a follow over on Instagram at jensawicky.
A leopard framed by tree branches. Okavango Delta, April 2015. 1/800 sec, f8.0, ISO 1000
I’m away for several weeks, so I have some posts scheduled in advance. I will moderate and respond to any comments just as soon as I am able.
I am hoping to be taking loads of photos, so if you would like to follow along, please feel free to give my page a like on Facebook @jennifersawickyphotography and a follow over on Instagram at jensawicky.
It was wonderful watching the group that these two zebras were a part of; there were several youngsters in the group, but this little one was by far the tiniest. She spent lots of time nuzzling close to mom, and when she curled up for a rest, Mom kept a watchful eye and was never far away.
I find it so peaceful to spend time bearing witness to these animal’s lives, if only for a few moments. That’s my take on this week’s topic: Pure.
