9. The adventure begins...Khumaga Campsite, Makagadikgadi National Park
Prosaically enough, our adventure began with a drive into Maun, to Woollies to stock up with food and drink for the trip, this being essentially the main shopping opportunity to find fresh or indeed other provisions whilst in Botswana. The girls went a bit crazy at the opportunity to buy what was basically M and S UK food at vast prices! Smoked salmon anyone? In the meantime the men stocked up on the alcohol. We also bought large bundles of firewood from the roadside vendors for our cooking fires.
The drive to our first camp was supposed to be relatively easy and on sealed roads whilst we adjusted to our lumbering land cruisers and it was until we turned off the wrong track and found ourselves in deep, deep sand heading off into even more the middle of nowhere. We were lucky enough not to get bogged down but it was a chastening experience.
In the afternoon we arrived at the campsite, set amongst the trees and almost completely deserted apart from ourselves, and, as expected, it took us ages to set up the tents and organise ourselves but eventually we were sorted and cooking steaks and local sausages over the fire with a glass of red wine in our hands and an amazing star field overhead.
We also had our first experience of pilfering monkeys who were a real menace and it required constant vigilance to avoid the theft of whatever they could lay their hands on.
We drove out in the morning to the local saltpans or rather a series of connected pools in the middle of a spectacular scenery and with loads of game at the nearby “hippo pool“.
The drive to our first camp was supposed to be relatively easy and on sealed roads whilst we adjusted to our lumbering land cruisers and it was until we turned off the wrong track and found ourselves in deep, deep sand heading off into even more the middle of nowhere. We were lucky enough not to get bogged down but it was a chastening experience.
In the afternoon we arrived at the campsite, set amongst the trees and almost completely deserted apart from ourselves, and, as expected, it took us ages to set up the tents and organise ourselves but eventually we were sorted and cooking steaks and local sausages over the fire with a glass of red wine in our hands and an amazing star field overhead.
We also had our first experience of pilfering monkeys who were a real menace and it required constant vigilance to avoid the theft of whatever they could lay their hands on.
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| These Cape Starlings were frequent visitors |
We drove out in the morning to the local saltpans or rather a series of connected pools in the middle of a spectacular scenery and with loads of game at the nearby “hippo pool“.
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| Female kudu |
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| Male kudu |
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| Fearless southern yellow-billed hornbill |
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