North Gate Campsite

Moremi Game Reserve is one of Botswana's premier gameviewing destinations and home to some of the country's most expensive safari lodges. Yet you can experience some of the wildlife action while camping for relative song at North or South Gate campsites. In fact, the lady at "check in" warned us that elephant, lion and hippo regularly frequented our campsite, while monkey and hyena could be expected daily. We also had a sign a document waiving the campsite operator's liability for our safety.

Our campsite was a very short walk to a neat, tiday and very clean central ablution block which had good showers. As darkness fell, I had to patiently wait for an elephant to pass before I could get the the loo. Also, after dinner, we heard hippo grunting very close by and then a hyena arrived, snuffling around our campfire. It departed after a very short time, no doubt disgusted that we were vegetarian.

The following day, we encountered hippo, elephant, impala, kudu and a spectacular array of birdlife - all without leaving our campsite. Furthermore, we had new neighbours who didn't secure their food - shortly after their arrival, they were set upon by a troop of vervet monkeys who stole all their bags of bread and burger buns.

Our opinion: The Moremi Game Reserve is absolutely fantastic and North Gate is a clean, convenient and affordable base to explore it. We hardly had to leave our campsite - the animals came to us.