It is long overdue that I write Chiawa Camp's first official newsletter of the 2008 season but then yesterday was our first day of the 2008 season so now is as good a time as any. And my main excuse being that we have been going flat out at getting camp ready for you, whilst attending to the growing needs of my growing family.

Our builders led by the irrepressible carpenter Herby have created a miracle despite the heavy and long lasting rains that threatened to wash out the project completely at times and which almost drowned 3 of our game viewing vehicles when we crossed the Chongwe River into the park a couple of weeks ago. The photo of the vehicles fording the river - that was the shallow bit! A cost of a confidential amount of cash but many tons/truckloads/boatloads/planeloads of timber, thatching grass, hardware and supplies we have rebuilt, from scratch, the entire "front-of-house" part of Chiawa Camp. This means our sitenje (lounge/bar), dining room and loos. Even the plunge pool has had a face lift being completely resurfaced and tiled - this last effort ran a little into over time and is being completed as I type but will have its water in tomorrow.

To reassure our many "returners" Chiawa Camp retains all its old charm and rustic luxury, even its footprint remains much the same, but we have added some height to the rooms giving more light and headroom, replaced the thatch which was no longer fit for even our camp buffalos to eat, and most especially added some gorgeous timber decks that bring more warmth and luxury to the heart of the camp.

Another game viewing vehicle has been added to the system, new engines on our boats and a second silent power generation inverter system to improve 220v power supply to guest fans and charging appliances through the night. We had hoped to build a 4th Superior Tent too but perhaps this was too optimistic as Africa got the better of us with near impossible access from the rains, shortage of materials, delays by our South African tent manufacturer ... I won't bore you but suffice to say we will get onto the task of more Superior Tents at the end of 2008.

So we opened gently to a lovely honeymoon couple Chris and Kim from the UK who have been pampered beyond compare with private meals, a floating dinner, walks, canoe trips, a lunch on the Zambezi and treated to Douglas the local lion pride male who is keeping on hanging in there, along with three new young males from whence no one knows they have come. It seems a similar type of coalition to the 3 Mondoro Males, 2 young scruffians plus a larger, hairier dominant chap. In fact after months of building work it was a great pleasure to sit by the first morning camp fire of the season, sipping my first cup of bush (as opposed to builders) tea, and listening to lions roaring both up and downstream of camp.

Then the lions in Mana Pools started roaring too - either telling ours to shush or perhaps complaining about the election skullduggery going on south of the border. It's also been a pleasure watching the abundant birdlife such as huge flocks of Abdims storks, red billed queleas "swarming" overhead, blue cheeked bee eaters dashing in and out of the reed beds, fish eagles carrying branchlets for their nests (they lay in May) and so on whilst at night hyenas, leopard, lion and honey badgers have kept us awake and then lulled us back to sleep. To be awoken nightly by a noisy genet that has taken to bounding over our family's roof at seemingly any opportunity and to hanging out on the veranda in the early evenings.

Back to the changes at Chiawa where we are also pleased to announce the arrival of Jason and Michaela (Kayla) Johnstone, both qualified with professional hotel management degrees and fresh from a 3 year stint where they helped take a medium sized upmarket boutique hotel in the Australian outback to winning accolades such as Northern Territory Best Hotel & Restaurant and Best Fine Dining awards in the Northern Territories. Jason is from Zimbabwe originally and previously helped open an upmarket camp in the South Luangwa National Park with his lovely wife Kayla who hails from New Zealand. We are sure they will help take Chiawa Camp up to the next level whilst still ensuring all the warm hospitality and service that we are renowned for remain intact.

Jenny and Julie are busy working away with Reservations and Rebecca has just joined us to help - bookings are excellent, 30% up on this time last year, with most of the season already booked up by January so thanks for your excellent support. However there is still some availability especially in May so please email us should you have anyone wanting to experience the best of the Lower Zambezi. Lynsey has also been helping with Reservations and PR as well as helping get camp ready after a very wet rainy season although with baby Lauren and Scott always close by it has been difficult for her to give Chiawa as much time as she would like. It has been great having them all here in camp with us this week, with Dave (my Dad) too all helping get camp ready. Dave has done a brilliant job, again, at getting our ever increasing fleet of vehicles and boats into immaculate shape and Scott has also helped out, putting screws into pre-drilled holes as I followed up with the electric screw driver - not quite child labour as he got bored after only a few and went off chasing lizards and frogs. Fortunately, for now anyway, they are just faster than him.

Anyway on to more news. For those of you who bought the raffle tickets last year where Chiawa Camp donated a safari to encourage our guests to take up Conservation Lower Zambezi (www.conservationlowerzambezi.org) Family Membership - Uda Eggen from Germany bought the lucky ticket. To those of you who were so generous to buy tickets and donate to CLZ last year, be assured that your monies have been well spent on a very deserving and useful cause and I hope that CLZ can count on your continued support. CLZ's activities focus on providing environmental education and logistical & training support to anti-poaching activity and whilst CLZ's involvement has saved countless animals, poachers still have some success and already we have lost a few elephants this year. Thus we must unfortunately appeal for your continued support.

For those of you who are familiar with Google Earth about two weeks ago they updated the imagery around Chiawa Camp so that you can now see many of the game viewing tracks and the camp itself - the photo looks to be about two years old. Anyway a bottle of bubbly for whoever is first to spot our resident pride of lions on the map!

Now that we are open again more news and pictures will follow.

All the best,

Grant and the Chiawa Camp team.