Horseback Riding
Ride Botswana Q & A
Thamalakane River Ride – as this is on a private reserve we offer riding all year round and it does not matter what time of year you visit. This ride is suitable for all levels of riders including families with young children. As well as having good safari horses based there we also have our retired horses who are perfect for beginners.
Kalahari Ride – we offer this all year round except we do not run the 5 night safaris during October and November. We do however offer 3 night rides during that time with no fly camping on offer. There are two seasons on this ride but the times of the seasons vary each year depending on the season.
Migration season – this normally runs from December-April and is when the zebra and wildebeest migration is in the area. The migration is the highlight – for example we often canter with a thousand plus zebra for over 5 minutes. But at this time of year the Pans are wet so we can only traverse the edge of them and certainly can not offer a sleep out in the middle of the Pans.
Dry Season – normally May-September. At this time of year there are far fewer zebra and wildebeest but there are more elephants! The highlight is the fast riding on “the moon” (the Pans) and the sleep out in the middle with the horses. We actually ride across the Pan in the dark under the stars! Magical.
At all times of year the guests experience the other extraordinary highlights of the Makgadikgadi – the obvious one being the habituated meerkats but also all the other rare desert adapted species such as brown hyena, aardwolf and bat eared fox. And then time to walk with San bushmen and look for stone age tools.
For our 5 night set date departures in the Kalahari riders must be intermediate or experienced. However families can book private departures where the level of riding is not so important as you are not impacting on any strangers if you are not so good!
We can take less experienced riders on private 5 night rides AND on 3 night rides out of any of the camps – Jacks, San or Camp Kalahari. On the 3 night rides there is no fly camping involved.
We mostly ride English but with trail saddles.
If you think you would prefer to see more wildlife (the migration) then I would suggest January-April. May is of course a wonderful month when you might catch the tail end of the migration AND get to sleep out on the Pans. We find lots of our guests come back to experience the other season!!
