Botswana; Kalahari Transfrontier Park May 2012

Trip Diary
Botswana - Kalahari Transfrontier Park
Wednesday to Sunday 16th to 20th May 2012

Wednesday

Chris had to work this morning but I had taken leave for the day and so Beatrice and I finished loading the car. Chris keeps much of the really heavy stuff in permanently. Beatrice had a breakfast date with one of her friends at Mugg and Bean and I went shopping in the meantime for the last of the provisions. When Beatrice was back she packed the cooler box and I made sandwiches so that by the time Chris came home from work everything was ready to go.

We felt very efficient as we hit the road and then Beatrice remembered her head torch. Oops! But never mind we were not far from home and so back we went. At the same time she remembered her pillow so at least we went back for two important things. Just as we passed the turn to Woermann and Brock Chris asked about the chicken and Beatrice asked me if I had put it in the cooler box oops! and so we stopped quickly to buy some. So about an hour later than we planned we hit the road for Gobabis. We sent messages to Andy to find that they too had just hit the road and by the time we had stopped off at the airport to collect emigration forms we found ourselves in convoy with them which is always reassuring. The road to Gobabis was quiet and we reached the border post just past Gobabis while it was still light. Mandy had booked us into Eastgate lodge which is a hop and skip from the border. We checked in and found our little bungalow. Very fine, clean and with all you need for an overnight stop. We all got together at our place because the other bungalows are a bit small and filled in our emigration forms while waiting for the others to arrive. Mandy and Andy had cooked cous-cous with a lamb tagine for supper, very tasty.

Thursday; from the border almost to the park!

We got up early and hit the border just as it opened. Since we had already filled in our forms we were first through and drove across the Botswana side before the lorry drivers. The official on the Bots side was a bit shirty and required from everyone the specifications of our destination even correcting spellings in a couple of cases!

Eventually we were on the open road. We turned south at Charles Hill and from then on we were in Len’s hands. He had looked up the short cuts to the park on a GPS application called Tracks for Africa which was working a bit intermittently on his lap top. The first settlement that we reached was Makunda. Here the Botswana government was improving the road system and had tarred quite a few streets – we got a bit lost and all whizzed past an interested local farmer, turned round and whizzed past him again. He watched us calmly  – tourists! We found the right road and set off for the next town; Kule, or Kole according to some notices. We drove happily through, admiring the infrastructure. Botswana does seem to be investing in good school buildings and teachers’ houses and in neat admin offices. The next settlement is Ncojane and we take a wrong turn. It is after 55 km that Mandy notices we are travelling due east – wrong -! We turn around and take the road to the south east. After a while on this road Len, who is in the lead, screeches to a halt. His GPS device shows that we have missed our turn, we back track to what is clearly a back track literally. This is where our smart new vehicles will acquire real patina! This looks like a track normally used by donkey carts but probably isn’t or the poor donkeys would be lacerated by the thorn bushes. As it is our cars scrape through the bush with the thorns screeching along the sides like fingernails down a blackboard. The track is beyond winding, it negotiates its way through the bush like a switchback ride around every obstacle that it encounters. The sand alternates between deep and hard packed and rocky. You can tell that the drivers are having a whale of a time. This is why you come to Botswana! From time to time the dense bush gives way to more open country with blond high grass and thorn trees and we think – yes! Then the bushes crowd in again and we have no view of anything.

From time to time we see an animal or two, a couple of springbok, a hartebeest standing under a tree, ground squirrels and mongooses and a flash of red as a Crimson breasted shrike flies across the landscape.

At one point, as the land has opened out again we arrive at a pan. Flat white earth and the odd tuft of grass or scrub, but there must be water because there are dozens of animals, springbok in particular, very plentiful, and a family of bat eared foxes investigating the smaller fauna, one appears to have caught a mouse or something equally small. We watch for a while but it is getting late and we can’t linger too long.

Near to this pan there is a campsite and Chris and Len are interested in staying the night since reaching the Kaa gate of the park is unlikely today. The rest of us are less keen and want to press on as far as possible so that tomorrow is not entirely spent driving. Being a democratic group we decide to keep going but rather than continue on the intrepid road we turn towards the gravel road that runs more directly to the turnoff to the park. Boring, boring, cry the intrepid ones. The landscape is by now completely beautiful, deep pale gold grass filtering the sunlight as the sun sinks in the sky; dark green thorn trees standing with the grass up to their knees. We see quite a few steenbok and duikers, small antelope who disappear quickly into the grass when we alarm them. We turn off onto the road to the park, deep red sand, deep tracks, you hardly need to steer! The sun has sunk lower and it is clear that we should make camp as soon as possible. So in between our exclamations about how beautiful the landscape is we look for a likely camping spot. Since Len is in the lead he and Karen are in charge. Apparently there is a pan nearby and they are quite keen to find it, it doesn’t appear. We pass likely spot after likely spot and just before we start yelling out of the window in frustration, Len turns off the road. There is a lovely swathe of grassland and some nice trees. No bush for lions to hide in – very important!

We set up camp quickly and Karen and Len prepare the meal; they are ‘on’ for this evening, chicken curry and rice – nobody intends to braai meat this weekend – interesting. The evening starts with gin and tonics – lovely. The contrast of a sophisticated drink in such a rugged situation makes the drink taste even better. I don’t actually drink much because I’m worried about the lion issue and don’t want to be found in a compromising position by a hungry predator at three in the morning. Len makes a fire in a sandy place, Beatrice rakes it clear and we collect wood since it isn’t the park yet. We sit around the fire getting closer and closer to the flames as the night falls and the cold settles down. Our chairs cluster closer and closer together as the circle draws in and by around eight o’clock we have given up the chairs and are standing shoulder to shoulder. Like penguins in the Antarctic we move to warm our fronts and then our backs and then our fronts again. Chris has the thermometer on the table and as it nears freezing point we decide that we really have had enough and we race towards our beds. Thank heaven for feather duvets! Beatrice has decided that the car is the best place to sleep being the most lion proof possible place. Chris has set up our new mega loo seat and communes with nature under the stars. Brave man.

Friday into the park

Breakfast is a chilly affair, Len announces that he heard a lion in the night at around four in the morning. Makes me glad that I avoided having to leave the tent. Gin and Tonic – what a cool drink – minimum liquid, maximum kick!

I have totally lost my bearings by now but fortunately the drivers have a better sense of direction and we hit the road as quickly as possible since it would be good to be at our destination, Swartpan, by lunchtime. The deep sand track continues through the beautiful country, and continues, and continues. We seem to travel forever - maybe we’re trapped in some sort of time warp and will keep on driving through this same gently undulating country forever! The landscape is lovely but monotonous and one becomes thrilled by the smallest deviation from the usual. We drive for a couple of hours seeing plenty of oryx, this is perfect oryx country, as well as springbok and hartebeest and the smaller buck. The gate to the park is very smart, paid for with European Union money. We are told that the pump is broken at Swartpan and so there is no water, we fill up all of our receptacles ‘just in case’.

The road to our camp takes us past a number of pans, all peopled with animals. At one point, while we wait for Andy to put some fuel into his car, we stop at a pan and watch a group of oryx who equally curiously watch us until they decide we might be dangerous and run off with a frisk of their tails. At twelve we pass another campsite and ponder for a moment about stopping for lunch but no – we are only two hours from Swartpan and we keep going. The dunes undulate and so we can regularly have a wide view of the Kalahari, so lovely so full of vegetation and so dry. The birds and animals here all have drought-proofing which is why we can’t believe our eyes when a small herd of eland gallop across the dunes in front of us. At first we can’t work out what they are, Chris thinks that they look like cattle, I think that they look like zebra but they have horns and they move in a strange way, unlike other antelope. I look through the animal book but I can’t recognise them, surely they can’t be eland? Then Karen confirms it – hey! My first properly wild eland!

We reach a splendid pan at around two o’clock. Is this really Swartpan? How great is that! There are dozens of oryx, springbok and hartebeest grazing gently. We pass the entrance to campsite number 1 and standing there, armed with a large catapult is a retired South African who is camping here for four days with his wife. One car – brave. Our convoy carries on to campsite 2. A lovely sandy circle in the shade of tall thorn trees. It looks welcoming and from the circle one has a good view of the pan and the oryx. We choose our spots and set up our tents. A detail of kids and adults dig the loo and put up a screen. Our loo seat is placed throne-like over the hole. The view from loo to pan is very good, one can sit and contemplate the landscape very happily.

We set out the tables and chairs and Diane starts to prepare for their cooking evening. She takes out what seems to be an enormous amount of spaghetti but after all there are eleven of us and Jason is still a growing boy!

We walk down to have a closer look at the animals and counting on the herd principle to protect us we keep fairly close together, Andy and Mandy arrange their chairs to watch us from the camp so if anyone is eaten they will have a good view. After a while at the edge of the pan we relax a bit and walk closer but the animals spot us and race off. We take photos of each other instead in the evening light and then return to the camp. This evening is red wine tasting, tomorrow we will enjoy the white and rosé wines. We settle in for our tasting, Chris wants us not only to rate the wines but to try to guess the cultivar. I get everything wrong!!! But the wines taste nice.  Dianne serves the food, gem squash, garlic bread, spaghetti and sauce. We tuck in but there will still be plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Jason has cooked brownies for dessert and there will be plenty of those for afternoon tea tomorrow!

The night is not so cold and we chat around the fire for much longer than last night not needing to adopt the penguin principle. Eventually we head for the tents, there is a jackal looking for pickings and we shut away all of the food in the cars so that visitors will be discouraged.

Saturday. One day to relax!

Last night, around midnight there was a spotted hyena in the camp, Dianne screamed, Len shone his mega torch and there was some excited discussion which our family missed entirely. It mooched around the camp drank the water in the wash basin, sniffed at Jason and Catherine’s tent and Mandy and Andy’s tent and tried to get into Andrew and Dianne’s. Andrew says that he was ready with a pillow to attack it if it broke in. I didn’t wake up until three, my normal time to go to the loo, by which time the excitement was over and all was quiet in the camp. I looked around for eyes with the torch and saw nothing, glad not to have known about the hyena at the time. We reckon afterwards that perhaps the scream sounded like a vulnerable and edible something which is why Dianne and Andrew got so much attention.

This morning there was a bit of an east wind so we sat in the sun until the day warmed up. Breakfast was leisurely for the first time since today is the only non-driving day of the weekend. Mandy and Andy got the cards out and a poker school was established under a tree. Mandy proving to be the wiliest of players. The poker school carried on for most of the day since the kids really enjoyed playing cards. Eventually it was just the three of them playing as darkness fell. Apart from relaxing in the camp Andy took people out in his car for two drives around the pan. The first, before lunch, we saw large numbers of hartebeest and oryx and quite a big herd of springbok. On the second drive before supper we saw the same characters after we had taken an exploratory drive to the west and come across the border to Namibia – we are so close! A pair of secateurs and we would be in Aranos and the drive home would take a few hours, as it is tomorrow’s drive will take most of the day! We meet the South African and his wife. He says that he saw the hyena drinking at the waterhole this morning with a bloodied muzzle – fortunately he had not feasted in Dianne and Andrew’s tent but elsewhere! There were vultures around but we couldn’t find what they were eating and a Bataleur eagle, distinctive with its very short tail, was soaring over the pan.

For lunch Chris made a big salad and we ate Dianne’s leftovers. For supper he made chicken curry in an Indonesian style but it had a lot of liquid and so we ate it as soup, it was very tasty and everyone had seconds and in some cases thirds! Beatrice and I helped with the preparation but the cuisine aspect of the meal was Chris’.

While we were out on the first game drive with Andy, Jason realigned the pit loo however the earthworks around the edge were a bit unstable and when I paid a visit I found one side of the loo support sinking gently into the abyss. Eventually, being a folding contraption, it folded and deposited me on the ground. Fortunately I was thrown off at an angle not into the pit and suffered only wounded dignity and sand in places it did not belong. Jason dug another hole. My next loo experience was at night. I was minding my own business communing with nature when Karen chose to explore the part of the bush where I was sitting with her spotlight. The beam happily caught me only on its periphery before I yelled!

The evening was quite balmy but we had to get up before dawn cracked and so we all got to bed early. The night was not entirely peaceful. A hyena and some jackals had a violent disagreement nearby and in the early morning a lion made his panting roaring sound four times, such a thrilling noise, as long as its far enough away! Dianne and Andrew were the only ones who slept through the lion.

Sunday – back home the long way round

We had made our teas and coffees the night before and packed all the necessaries for breakfast into the cars in an accessible way so once the camp was demolished we left as the sun was rising. We quickly checked the waterhole but nothing exciting was happening although Led spotted some very large lion tracks on the road. Maybe that lion last night was closer than we thought! The tracks led from the South Africans’ camp Hope they are ok! We turned off in the direction of the gate 70 odd kilometres away. Of course we knew the track by now and so we were looking out for the Eland around the waterhole nearest to where we had spotted them before. They were there and we got a splendid view of them in the sharp morning light. What a treat! Further along and Len is still looking for lion tracks. We round a bend and nearly drive into him, he has stopped for more tracks. Andy rounds the bend and nearly drives into us – oops rephrase – drives into us. He braked but we were too close to the bend. We get out to survey the damage and stop Andrew Len, oblivious, drives off in search of the lions!

Eventually we get going, our rear door has taken on a new shape and Andy has lost his front spoiler Len is still looking for lions and finds them. Two black maned Kalahari lions resting by the side of the road. They eye us for a while and then make off into the bush, one of them limping badly, Beatrice and I feel sorry for him. Is she working towards an Androcles moment? We drive off before she acts on impulse.

We reach the gate around 8am and take another route towards Hkunsi. Andrew and Andy both need to find fuel quite soon so the route we took before will not work. But what a blessing that we took this route! It starts off a bit slow, bushy and scrubby, not very wonderful but it opens out into beautiful country – almost park-like. The wonderful blond grass carpets the landscape and well shaped camel thorn trees provide shade for the animals, and there are plenty of animals. Towards the end of the sand road we come across two enormous herds of springbok, over a thousand strong. It is the most amazing sight of the weekend. Len keeps saying ‘pristine’, what a privilege and it really is such a privilege to be here in such a lovely place.

After a fill up we drive off to Kang on the trans-Kalahari highway. We are going east on a newly made road. Not the right direction but we need the speed of the tar road to be able to make it home as quickly as we can. It would be nice to have the odd road sign to indicate that we are going to the right place but no such luck – at least here is only one place due east of here!

At Kang we fuel up and I take over the driving at last – tar road is no problem but I am not so secure on deep sand. The trans Kalahari highway is just a matter of counting the kilometres and watching out for cows. As the dusk grew the cows got more difficult to spot and Len, who was still in front, used his hazard lights to indicate rogue livestock on the road. At one point he drove past a group of people by the side of the road – should be no problem after all people have more sense than cows, except not in this case. A young person (man?) walks straight out into the road in front of me, head down ignoring the car bearing down on him at a close range and high speed. I swerve and hit the horn but it’s as if he/she is deaf and there is a small child hovering ready to follow. I miss him/her by a whisker and he/she shows no sign that this was a near death experience. Either the person thought he/she was a cow or else was drunk.

This was scary enough but later on I experienced a ghost cow mooching along the middle of the road and completely lost my nerve. Chris had had his sleep by this time and took over the driving. After a painless transition through immigration we met up in the Wimpy at Gobabis for our final joint meal of the weekend and the headed back to Windhoek. We arrived home at half past midnight and discovered that our bashed in rear door would not open. Beatrice had to crawl in from the front of the car and drag the bags and boxes out. Gosh tomorrow I have to hit the ground running, hope I succeed!