Our Travels: Part 1

Our Travels: Part 2|Our Travels: Part 3|Our Travels: Part 4|Our Travels: Part 5|Our Travels: Part 6


Day 1: Monday/Tuesday 24 July, 2012

Dublin – London – Johannesburg – Zeerust, South Africa 

After checking in our bags, we relaxed in terminal 2 before flying from Dublin to London, and then waited around Heathrow for our connecting flight to Johannesburg. This gave us a bit of time of have a look around the airport shops, and I was somehow lured into the bookshop. Two minutes later I leave with the first two books in the Fifty Shades trilogy. This would be the perfect time for an e-reader, something I'm still contemplating, but the books will suffice for now (I still love holding a book in my hand!). I'm not sure what it is, but every time I'm in an airport I feel compelled to buy a book. This, of course, is good in many different ways, and it always helps to have books on a long-haul flight. The other thing I look forward to when flying long-haul is the film selection. In between reading, eating and a little sleeping, I managed to watch two films – a Danish one ID:A (action, suspense) and The Decendents (drama). Enjoyed both and then watched an episode of Ab Fab – as good as always :o) Esben found that a double whiskey helps with sleeping during the flight :o) We landed in South Africa at 9.30am, Tuesday and picked up our pre-booked rental car. There were a few issues, because for some reason they didn’t know we were travelling into Botswana and Namibia, but after that was all sorted, we departed for Zeerust. This is a town not too far from where we will do our first safari in SA. Headed out on the motorway, and then came to a sudden halt. We were in a 3 mile long traffic jam – could this be rush hour? Hardly. There was an accident on the motorway, and we all stood outside by our cars in the sunshine and waited, and hoping that no one was seriously hurt. After about an hour and a half we started moving – Esben and I had feared dehydration might set in, and after we were moving again we headed to the supermarket to stock up on supplies for the trip. We are camping and cooking ourselves, so we needed to get some gas cylinders for the stove and groceries. Luckily there was an adventure store at the same shopping mall as the supermarket. Once we had purchased everything we set off in the direction of Zeerust, and managed to reach there before sundown (5.30pm). We found a lovely campsite/guesthouse and set up camp for the night. We went for an easy dinner (sandwiches) and enjoyed a lovely glass of SA white wine in our camping wine glasses :o) Had an early night to catch up on sleep and to be ready for the safari tomorrow.

Think my sleeping bag is calling…

Day 2: Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Zeerust – Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa

We got up early to pack and get ready. We tried out our new Trangia cooking stove which we had received as a wedding gift – it worked really well! After a nice breakfast we packed the tent and got into the car. Before leaving Zeerust, we wanted to get a picture of a sign that Marian had seen the night before. If anybody has any problems with bad luck, partners cheating on them, or just sexual problems in general, then we can give you the phone number to Mama Fatuma and Dr. Moses – they will definitely fix any such problems for you, no prob! That’s what their sign promises anyway…

Already while driving to our next destination, a lodge in the Madikwe game reserve, we saw a good few local animals. And they all seemed to want to cross the road as we approached. Dogs, cows, donkeys, and even birds “hopping” across the road. Now, you would think that if you were a local animal in risk of being hit by a car – you would want to get out of the way and away from the road as quickly as possible, right? Well not the animals hanging around near Zeerust. Nope! Not even the birds cared to move and they were happy enough to sit in the middle of the road as we raced by quite literally right next to them. No wonder we’ve already seen a good bit of road kill!

When we got to the Madikwe game reserve, we were greeted by a group of elephants (also crossing the road that we were driving on of course, but fair enough – at least this time the road kinda did belong to them). We took a few snap shots and drove on to the lodge. And boy, did that live up to our expectations! It certainly wasn't a five star resort for no reason. The view from our chalet was amazing, and the place looked like something we had only dreamed of. We enjoyed a welcome drink upon arrival, a glass of white wine overlooking the game reserve from our private luxury chalet, then a really nice lunch followed by coffee and cookies, and after all that it was time for the first game drive.

Our driver (“Israel”) picked us up at the lodge, and a group of six of us headed off in a big open jeep. We encountered a lot of different animals – including zebra, giraffe, “deer-like-animals” (Marian just kindly informed me that that’s not the name of them…), loads of different birds, and a big pack of lions feasting on their catch of the day. In particular the lions were amazing to see in real life and up so close. A group of hyenas arrived and wanted to join the party, but were kindly informed by a series of very vicious lion growls that they were definitely not welcome! As the sun set later, we enjoyed a beer and some snacks on the savannah, and then headed back in the dark while the driver pointed out animals to us with his torch.

Back again at the lodge we enjoyed a nice dinner with red wine, and then headed back to the hut to find that the staff had kindly put on the heating in the room for us and put on the electric blanket on the bed. So we might just go to bed now.

Night! :o)

 

Day 3 – Thursday, 26 July 2012
Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa – Mahalapye, Botswana

We got a wake- up call at 6.30 for the early morning game drive leaving at 7am. After having a good night’s sleep, we were ready to spot more animals. The sun started to rise by 6.30, and it was bright and sunny, but cold, when we set out again with Israel, our driver. Today there were only 4 of us on the game drive, as the two other people had only come for a day visit the day before.

Today we were on the look-out for wild dogs. They are an endangered species in SA, and are rarely spotted during safaris. But today we were lucky – first, we saw about 5 older dogs, and they were calling to each other and following each other along a route. So the next plan was to try to find the den, and hopefully see some wild dog pups. The two people we were with (both Dutch) had been on many safaris, and they said they had never seen wild dogs.

On our way to find the den we saw elephants, zebras, a giraffe, buffalo and impalas. It was quite exciting looking for the den, as we weren’t sure if we would get another look at the wild dogs. The two Dutch guys were very excited by this prospect, and I don’t think we realised the significance of spotting them at the time. And through collaboration with other game drivers, we all managed to find the den and enjoyed a great view of 7 wild dog pups and the alpha male and alpha female. The dogs were playing around and fighting over some meat  (I’m not sure which animal was their victim). After a great viewing we headed back to the resort, and on the way back got to see more zebras, elephants and buffalo.

When we got back to the lodge, the breakfast buffet was ready – we were hungry, which was a good thing – there was so much choice and then they came around and offered us the hot food :o) We were sitting on the balcony overlooking the game reserve – the view was magnificent and the sun was shining. It was just bliss! And then it all ended when we had to check out ;o)

Back to reality, and back on the road again. We had planned to drive to Khama rhino sanctuary by this evening, but border control took a little longer than expected. We were let through from SA to Botswana, and then informed in Botswana that we didn’t have an exit stamp from SA, so we had to go back around to SA to get the exit stamp, and then queue up again in Botswana to get the forms sorted, and then pay for crossing. So by the time this was all sorted (all the police knew us at this stage), we headed out on the A1 through Botswana a little later than planned. It gets dark here at around 6.00pm, and as we don’t want to drive in the dark, this limits our travelling time each day. We got petrol in Gaberone and went to a bank to get Pula (the local currency). And then looked for a town where we could reach before sunset. So this means that we are staying in a town called Mahalapye tonight. We asked the GPS to give us a name of a campsite and ended up at the Oasis lodge.

The funny thing is that when we called into reception, the lady said that the campsite was on the far side of the building, outside of the walls of the motel rooms.  So we walked around to the back and there was a wide laneway/small roadway with sand. And a very run down looking building. And there was something behind a metal gate and high walls. But we thought – she can’t charge us to pitch a tent on a roadway, can she? And what about the toilets? This is a little strange. The locals were walking by down the laneway looking at us looking confused. So we went back thinking that we would just pay for a room, as we weren’t pitching our tent in a laneway, for obvious reasons. And then she kind of laughed and said, no, behind the black metal gate, in there is the campsite. So we went back around and sure enough it was a campsite, and there are two other tents here (very armyish looking), and there are nice toilets and showers. At least we were the ones who had it all wrong! The night watchman has just arrived – we’re definitely in good hands! It’s much warmer here than in SA at night, so we were able to sit out at the picnic table and have some dinner, and prepare lunch for tomorrow. We have an early start tomorrow in order to visit the rhino sanctuary, about an hour away from here.

Think I'll sign off and go back to looking at the stars. They are truly amazing!

Day 4: Friday, 27 July 2012

Mahalapye, Botswana – Khama Rhino Sanctury, Serowe, Botswana – Sowa, Botswana

They should rename this sanctuary in the winter time – supposedly the rhinos find it too cold in the winter to venture out (26 degrees), and when we arrived, we were told that it would be very rare to see a rhino. But there are other animals in the reserve which we might be able to see. We arrived early (8.30am) and they said that a tour could leave just with us. Luckily, the lady kindly included the money we paid for our camping reservation into the tour price. We were meant to reach here the night before, but that just didn’t happen with the delays at the border crossings. And so we headed off on a tour with a very nice tour guide.

 
She drove like she used to be a stunt stand-in for James Bond, but that was all part of the fun! She also had a very good eye for animals and spotted some that we wouldn’t have seen. It says in the guide book that a 2WD can go around the reserve, but this isn’t true. All the roads are made of sand, and therefore they are very high in the middle, which would make it impossible for a regular 2WD to go anywhere. This was the advantage of taking a guided tour. So heading off on the tour we kind of thought that we would not see a rhino, but there’s always hope! We saw many animals which we hadn’t seen on the previous safari including eland, springbok and to everyone’s surprise a white rhino and her baby rhino! It was brilliant – it made the trip extra special. And our guide was brilliant – she made sure we saw nearly every part of the park. We met some other tourists doing self-drives in their 4x4, one of which had a German reg. It seems quite common to see European registered jeeps that are kept here and the people visit these parts quite often, so it is worth their while to do so. It was the same for the Dutch guys we met two days ago. 

 

After the tour, we prepared our own lunch at the park and then we set off in the direction of Francistown, the second biggest city in Botswana. The original plan was to stay in Francistown, and then set off for Nata and Kasane the following day. But as we were ahead of schedule, we stopped in Francistown to refuel and to stretch our legs, and then set off in the direction of Nata. Before we had planned to get to Nata, we were hoping to go and visit the Sua Pan (salt pans) near Sowa where they now use the salt-mud ash to make sodium carbonate for industrial manufacturing, making it one of Botswana’s biggest industries.

When we got to Sowa, we thought it would make more sense to stay there for the night, and so went around the town looking for somewhere to camp or rooms to stay in. We came across an expensive lodge, where we met a really nice older guy, Philip, who told us that it would be possible to camp at another lodge very close to the Sua Pans. Philip also told us that he had visited Ireland in 1984. He had been to Dublin, Galway, Cork, Waterford and Shannon, and he would really like to go back, but he wasn’t sure if he would be able to convince his wife to do so. We told him that Ireland has changed a lot since 1984!

We followed Philip’s description to get to the lodge near the Sua Pans, and after a bit of confusion and driving forth and back (and after a lot of driving on gravel roads with tons of traffic coming the other way whirling entire Sahara Deserts into the air around us), we finally arrived at the lodge. The staff were very nice, and they prepared a big portion of chicken stew for us that we split and had two beers with it, and promised to give us directions the next day to go to the pans. After a game of pool in the bar we headed back to the tent, and had an early night to be fresh for sunrise tomorrow.

Day 5: Saturday, 28 July 2012

Sua Pans, Botswana – Kasane, Botswana

We woke up at 5 am, but decided to sleep on a bit, since we were both a bit tired and especially because we had whole day of driving ahead of us. After another snooze, we got up, showered and got ready to head down to the pans. We were able to drive to the pans from the campsite to take some pictures at sunrise. We weren’t allowed to drive onto the pans, so there was only so much time you could spend taking pictures at the rim of the pans, but since we had a busy day of driving ahead of us, this suited us just fine. When we went to leave, we actually had to drive onto the pans to turn the car around, so we had our one minute of driving on the pans :o)

 

On the way north to Kasane, we got some pictures of animals along the road – as well as animals on the road. In fact, we had hardly left the lodge before a group of Wildebeests decided to pose for us at the local train tracks. And along the route to Kasane we met groups of baboons, ostriches, elephants (and the usual cows and donkeys walking on the roads). We had read that the road from Nata to Kasane was meant to be one of the worst stretches of road in the country with loads of potholes, so we thought it would be quite a tiresome drive. However, it turned out that they had started building a new road to Kasane since the guidebook had been written. Unfortunately, they hadn’t quite gotten to finish it all the way to Kasane yet, so some of the way was still on the old road, but luckily the potholes had been filled in and fixed. So altogether it was quite a pleasant drive to Kasane with a good few stops for pictures of animals and landscapes, etc.

Once we got to Kasane, we enquired about prices for tours that we had planned to do here over the next two days. After asking around a few places, we met a really nice guy who knew a tour organiser that seemed to be cheaper than any other quote. The guy was called Justice, and he made and sold African crafts at his stall. They were really, really good, so we took pictures of all of it and Justice (after having asked him first of course), and he also took a picture of us. We bought a small, flat bowl that he had carved out of teak, as well as a few other small souvenirs. 

Justice called the tour organiser whom he knew, and we arranged over the phone to meet the tour organiser tomorrow at 8 am in the reception of the Chobe Safari Lodge where we are staying. This is a four star lodge, but as we’re staying at their campsite, it’s not too expensive at all, and we still get to hang around and enjoy their facilities and their brilliant view overlooking the Chobe River. We took some nice pictures of the sunset here earlier, then chilled in their couch areas drinking beers and looking through photos and writing our blog.

Looking forward to the trip to the Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe side) tomorrow!
Read more at Our Travels: Part 2