clancy – Clancy Abroad

Kameel South Africa to south of Khakhea Botswana

I woke up to a slightly colder morning in Kameel. Not as cold as icy Joberg, but cooler than the night before. I got packed up and ready to go by 8:30am. Its 200km to Bray border crossing and its only open until 4pm in the afternoon. Its also not a very good road, so I don’t have a lot of time to play with. I have previously got to Bray at 3pm.

I drove up to the NWK co-op to get some diesel, and buy some contact adhesive so I can fix some more things. After driving back to Patrick at Kameel B&B because I had forgotten to give him the toilet key, I was on my way. I stopped at Stella briefly. Then headed out on the R377 towards Bray. The only village of any size is Piet Plessis and there is not much there.

I got to Bray about 2:30pm. It was an easy crossing, with the single Policeman writing down rego details and an engine number. Then it was over to Botswana. Botswana is such an easy country to enter and leave. I paid 390 pula road tax (about $A40) and got my passport stamped and I was on the way. I wanted to get a Mascom Sim card at the local general store, but they were closed because it was saturday afternoon.

I headed along the road to Werda, which I know from expeience is a terrible corrugated road. I turned north about 2km along to take a much smaller track that headed north to Khakhea. I saw a antelope (Kudu?) pretty early on. Then later a baboon sitting on a fence post. Donkeys, cattle and more antelopes. Then at the cut-line I was intending to camp on I found a broken down couple of utes (bakkies). They had a flat tyre and needed a tubeless tyre repair kit. Amongst the heaps of stuff I carry I had exactly the right thing. I dug out the repair kit, and they quickly fixed their tyre, and were on their way.

I turned left down the cut-line about a km and turned off into the scrub just before sunset and made camp.

the first sign mentioning Bray about 70km out

Border crossing success, stopped under a tree in Bray Botswana (its 30C)

Tablet running tracks 4 Africa, USB fan (no aircon) and garmin GPS

The locals who had a flat tyre, that I helped with a tyre repair kit.

Kameel

This is my third visit to Kameel in a bit over two years. Kameel means camel. It is a tiny town with more silos than people (49 silos with 27 residents). They grow maize locally, although this year more sunflower, because the rains came late in January. The trucks and tractors come past where I am camping throughout the day. When I visited last year, a local facility had been converted into a hatchery producing chicks. This is still going, diversifying the economy. This visit there are several workers staying who are installing solar farms locally. South Africa is so behind Australia in installing solar farms. The area is perfect with blue skies and lots of sun all winter. So that will be another good thing for the locality.

Its a nice campground. Its a B and B as well. Patrick delivers a fresh loaf of bread not long after you arrive, it is delicious. I was going to only stay two nights, but I am going to stay a third and do some more electric fixes to Clancy.

Star trails over the top of the nearby silos

Monks Cowl Drakensburg to Reitz to Johannesburg

We left Monks Cowl Sunday morning. After a great show at Falcon Ridge we got going late, at nearly noon, to make a campsite near Reitz, 240km away. We did most of it on the N3, but then turned off heading to Bassfeather Country Lodge near Reitz. With 3 different GPS’s giving us different routes, we settled on Google Maps, which ended up giving us a short but rough track to the campsite. Bassfeather was pretty well empty, but expensive (420 Rand). Next morning we headed off towards Joberg. We stopped at a 4wd drive place in BoksBurg to replace the solar panel that we lost a year ago with two smaller panels that will just fit to replace the larger one.

So a day of fixing and packing up in Joberg before we fly out to Singapore on Wednesday.

Drakensberg

We arrived at Injusuthi camp Monday afternoon, finding we were the only campers there. It is such a stunning location. The camp is at 1500m, while around the camp towers the Drakensberg mountains from 2000m to 3500m.

The campsite is plagued by Baboons, we have to be careful keeping everything closed up.

The next day on Tuesday, in great weather, about 28C and sunny, we spent the afternoon walking to Grindstone cave. It was only about 3.5km, but 350m of altitude gain. We were already at 1500m, so we found it hard, and gave up and turned back 2/3 of the way in.

On Wednesday we headed for Battle cave, about 6km away, and again 350m of altitude gain. The weather was good, sunny and warm. We headed along a river valley following the river on a track cut into the hillside above. We crossed the river, continued on the other side and then crossed at a confluence of two rivers. The rivers flow well, fed by creeks and waterfalls high up the hills. Eventually we got to Battle cave, and unlocked the gate with the key we got from reception. Some of the San paintings under the rock overhang were very detailed, with fine lines for things like spears.

We headed back to camp. We were trying to get back before a cool change came through the area.

St Lucia to Glensheiling to Drakensberg.

Our St Lucia accomodation was one of two campsites behind a guesthouse. The only campsite in town had bad reviews, being run down and expensive. An overlander had come a few years ago to their guesthouse and camped out the back in their garden. That overlander left a review on the iOverlander app, and thus grew their little camping business.

St Lucia is a tourist town. The side streets are full of guesthouses, and the main street is restaurants, tour operators, and shops catering to tourists.

The first day there we headed into iSimangaliso Park. We drove into side loops off the main road to Cape Vidal. The first loop went to a waterhole with maybe 10 hippos all out of the water because it was a cool overcast day. We headed down another loop, but it was eventually closed of by flooding. We drove down to Mission Beach, a rocky beach on the Indian Ocean.

Then along the main road was a traffic jam of cars because a herd of maybe 20 elephants were blocking the road. We waited 30 minutes or so for the elephants to clear the road, so we could pass. We headed into another loop to see if we could follow the elephants, but they had disappeared onto scrub. This loop led to an unsigned posted lookout tower called Kawashelini. This was an interestingly designed lookout tower that was gradually falling apart as a result of lack of maintenance.

We then drove out of the loop to the main road, this time blocked by three white rhino, including a suckling baby rhino.

The next day we walked a 10km route around St Lucia including the boardwalk and the beach. The boardwalk is probably one of St Lucias biggest tourist attractions, a tour bus was there when we walked it. However the boardwalk is falling apart and needs maintenance.

Sunday we headed off south along the N2 to see how far we could get to the Drakensberg. We decided to go right into Durban, only to find some of the N3 was closed, and we were forced into a detour through suburban Durban. Durban is a dense city, way more dense than Joberg. Around 5pm we made it to Glensheiling caravan park for an overnight stay which was located in an area called the Midlands, an area full of food and art places.

The morning we headed into the strangely named town Nottingham Road. We got more supplies at the Spar supermarket, and then headed to Injusuthi campsite in the Drakensberg.

White Rhino blocking the Cape Vidal road

Umlalazi Wildlife Park to St Lucia

Inkwazi campsite was a good place to be based for a few days. We did a few walks, along the beach, through the forest behind the dunes, and along the river. It was warm most days around 30C (until our last morning). It was always humid walking through the forest. We had a couple of Zebras wander in and out of camp over a few days. I rode into town a couple of times to the Spar supermarket to get supplies.

On the last evening a cool change came through, and it rained overnight. The next morning we drove the 120km north to St Lucia.

Walking through the forest on the dunes at Umlalazi Wildlife Park

The beach at Umlalazi Wildlife Park, the rollers coming in from the Indian Ocean

There are many many logs washed up on the beach

Chitove camp to Chivillia Camp to Rossi Pools, Gonarezhou National Park

Chitove camp was even better than Fishans camp. We were right next to the water. When we arrived, a couple of elephants left. We had crocodiles resting on the opposite bank. Baboons, Zebras, Elephants and more came down to the water, somewhere along the bank. There was pretty well something going on all day. After 3 nights at Chitove we headed about 60km to Chivillia. Firstly we needed to cross the Runde at a causeway, which we did without it being much more than 30cm deep. We then stopped on the opposite bank to watch a couple of hundred Cape Buffalo head into the water to drink. We then headed to Chilojo cliffs picnic area. There we watched an Elephant wander across the Runde, eventually coming back to comprehensively scratch itself on a tree near us.

We continued on to Chivillia Camp which was a rocky downhill track. We were a bit disappointed with Chivillia, it was away from the water, and there were not a lot of animals. However the first night during dusk, Karen spotted a lion sitting about 100m away. It roared a few times then wandered off. We were pretty careful around camp the next two nights.

After 3 nights at Chivillia Camp we headed for the long drive south to Rossi Pools camp. Firstly we needed to detour to Chipinda Pools camps to get some extra water. Then it was the well built but steep winding descent to the Nkwangulatio causeway. The causeway was built in 2019, and was well done. We crossed it and continued south. We passed a couple of heavily armed rangers making patrols, then followed the electrified park fenceline for tens of kilometres. At 4:30pm and after a long day we arrived at Rossi Pools camp.

Cape Buffalo opposite our campsite at Chitove

Another huge Baboab protected from Elephants with rocks

Occasionally we have some home made bread

Driving down the park fence line, don’t touch the electric fence!

Fishans camp to Chitove camp, Gonarezhou National Park

We spent 3 days at Fishans camp. We had two elephants wander through camp passing within 3 metres of the camper. We had the occasional Baboon stalk us. A monkey managed to get a small bag of flour. There were lots of birds. We had various antelope nearby almost all the time. The mornings were cool, but build up to a warm day in the high 20s.

The Runde river bed below the campsite, with the solar panels set up

Gregs feet are big, but elephant feet are bigger

the Chilojo viewpoint on top of the cliffs

Looking down onto the Runde river from the Chilojo lookout

Save River Conservancy to Fishans camp, Gonarezhou National Park

Another cool morning, we started the diesel heater for a while. Or we are getting used to the warmer weather, and we are getting wimpy in the morning needing the heater. We headed into Humani compound, and paid for four nights camping. We headed south, stopping at a dam along side the road. it had a couple of locals washing clothes. However in the dam we counted 7 crocs, that we could see. About 100km south we got to Chiredzi. We visited the Pick n Pay supermarket, finding we couldn’t get any tissues (this has been the case at several supermarkets), or any aluminum foil. We also couldn’t find any bulk supplies of water.

We headed out of Chiredzi towards the gate of Gonarezhou National Park about 50km away. A very helpful ranger gave us some camping options. In the park if you book ahead it can be as much as $USD65 per night per person. However if you just roll up it can be as cheap as $USD27.50 per night per person. However there are park charges and other charges, meaning that 10 nights was costing us $USD1000. We topped up our water supply at one of the campsites and headed via the winding and at times rough track into Fishans. We passed elephants, kudu, zebra, lots of antelopes, and baboons. Close to sunset we crossed the Runde river via a rough stone causeway, and just on dark made it to Fishans campsite which is about 20km from the Mozambique border.

We drove through a sugar cane growing area

The view of the Runde river from camp at Fishans

Farmhouse Matopos to Hillside Dams Bulawayo

When we got back from driving around Matopos Sunday, we found we couldn’t get back into the camper. It took a while but we figured that the deadlock had vibrated closed and the lock was no longer being operated by the key. We had to cut the deadlock to get in. I was feeling pretty sick, and very cold. I crawled into bed, and slept.

Next morning we headed off to Matopos Research Station where Karen was meeting some colleagues. I shifted some diesel from a drum in the roof box, into the tank. I then got inside and slept for another two hours. About 12 noon Karen came back and we headed into Bulawayo to meet a friend for lunch at the Art Gallery. After visiting someone else we headed for Hillside Dam Conservancy for a couple of nights camping.

We struggled with power at Hillside. We would get power then trip a relay, and lose it. Then we would have it for a while and load-shedding would start, and we would lose it again. We went in at lunch time to see a friend who operated 4 “tuck shops”. Tuck shops are little stalls that sell a variety of food and household goods.

The another visit, and we were back at Hillside for the evening.