Desert – Page 2 – Clancy Abroad

XaXa camp to Xade 02 camp

After dark I took out my spotlight and managed to get an overexposured picture of a couple of owls flying around. At 2am I heard a lion down towards the waterhole. The roaring continued for a few minutes then went silent, in the morning I saw no sign of the lion.

I had calculated 40km to Xade 02 camp, but I had miscalculated, and it was actually 60km. I was slow to get going and so I did a lot of the journey in heat. Firstly I went down to the waterhole to see. A few vultures, but nowhere a many as yesterday. No other wildlife. I drove 14km to rejoin the main track. I passed another burnt out rusted 4wd by the side of the track. The track was sandier than the previous day, and I spent more time in second gear doing 15kmh. I also saw three Kori Bustards on the track. Another elephant skull was also by the track.

I turned off the main track towards Xade 02, about 1km off the main track. It was cleared enough (there had been reports it wasn’t cleared). Its a little uphill out of the pan, that is covered with brushes with yellow flowers. The plants I think are ‘swarthaak‘ an Acacia like species. They are only growing in the flat part of the pan, that probably gets some water when there are rains. I need to add, because until you get to Africa, you might not realise, that almost every plant in Africa, at least eastern and southern Africa is spikey. They grow thorns, some big, some little, but there are always thorns. It makes it really hard to get through the scrub, because you constantly get caught by the thorns.

I set up for camp. I was here for two nights. It will be good to not be on the move for a day. It got cloudy later, a rare thing. I have had only one cloudy day in three weeks. It made for some good sunset pics. I haven’t seen another vehicle now for 5 days.

UPDATE: About 10pm on the second night, I got woken up by a roar outside. I opened the door and in the almost full moon I could see something walking through the grass about 20m away. I grabbed the spotlight and there was a male lion. He stopped, looked at me, and then continued walking away.

The waterhole in the morning at XaXa, with a few vultures

Swarthaak with yellow flowers growing on the pan

It got cloudy (rare at this time), so some nice sunset pictures at Xade 02 campsite

Bape camp to XaXa camp (or Xaka?)

I knew I had a long way to go, 120km, so I was up at 6am to leave as soon as I could. A few things went wrong but I did get going by 7:30am.

2km up the track I found very fresh Elephant tracks, it looked to me from the previous night. I then did a sharp turn west. I realise that traveling east and west is easier. The dunes which are low and far apart tend to run west east. So when you are heading north you are constantly crossing dunes, which makes it much harder going. When heading west you are running mostly in the interdune space that tends to be less sandy. The track west is somewhat overgrown. You constantly hit bushes either side. I should have pulled my mirrors in, and that mistake cost me one broken mirror on the drivers side. As well I managed to rip off the rear right-hand mudflap. The mudflaps are a running joke, I rip one or both off every trip, I am always fixing them.

I went through a section where elephants had pushed over trees, and generally caused mayhem.

I stopped for a stretch on the track at one time just randomly and in front were Elephant tracks, and at the back I thought there were lion tracks. I was making good time, I spent a lot of time in third gear meaning I was doing 20km and hour or more. 80km in I saw some giraffes on the road ahead. I crept up, and could see two adult giraffes and one baby. They got off the road, but they were happy to watch me while I watched them. I left them to it, with one of the Giraffe I could hear but not see ripping things of trees.

I turned over the road to Xade up to XaXa (which on the park map is called XaKa, but tracks4Africa has XaXa). I went to the solar powered waterhole that was full of vultures, and another flocking bird that I couldn’t identify. The vultures were riding the thermals all over the place. I drove up the sand dunes to the campsite that looks down on the plains.

Stopped on the track for a stretch. There is nowhere to pull off

Khankhwe Pan to Bape camp CKGR

Well I am deep in the Kalahari now. It is 72km from Khankhwe to Bape. I have not seen another vehicle now for two days, however I have gone through two villages much to my surprise.

I left Khankhwe about 9:30am. I am going to have to leave much earlier tomorrow morning. I have 123km to drive tomorrow, and the sand is much easier to drive on in the cool of the morning. The whole route is fairly sandy. I stopped part way and lowered my front tyre pressure even lower.

The first thing I encountered was a burnt out and rusting 4WD. I wonder what happened there.

17km out of Khankhwe suddenly there was a young girl running to me from the scrub. I stopped to talk to her, and within a couple of minutes her Mum and several siblings had turned up. There was a village about 1km away, and they were just out looking for animals. The girl really wanted my Bluetooth speaker that was sitting on the dash. She knew the brand name as well. I did point out she needed a phone to provide the music for the speaker, let alone a solar panel to charge it, none of which she had. She just wanted to dance to music, teenagers the same everywhere, even in the middle of nowhere. This village Kukumane had 50 people in it. No cell phones, internet or anything like that. No vehicles, they got their supplies by donkey cart that I guess would have been a two day drive away. They were a friendly lot, I took their picture and continued up to the village. I talked to a guy in the village. I didn’t totally understand but I think these were San people who didn’t want to relocate. They were living the nomadic herder lifestyle of their ancestors.

It was hot and slow driving in the sand. A lot of the time I was only doing 15kmh, if I was lucky in a stretch I got up to 25kmh.

The road started to deviate from the track4Africa map, and I found myself in another village. Within a minute or so I had a dozen people outside my window. They were friendly, told me how to rejoin the road, and I was on my way.

Another 20km or so and I arrived and Bape campsite. This campsite is just a clearing, no drop toilet or anything. It is wilderness.

A burnt out area of the CKGR that the rangers at Khutse warned me about.

The trip so far through the Kalahari in red

Moreswe Pan to Khankhwe Pan

Another cool morning, about 12C, but by the middle of the day it’s 32C. Real Desert weather. I saw some ostriches on the pan but not much else. I wonder if the diesel powered pump for the waterhole is too erratic for the animals to trust it.

I packed up and got going by 9:30am. It was a 60km drive to Khankhwe, at about 25kmh. I stopped at the Moreswe waterhole, but there was nothing there, not even birds. I headed north passing Elephant droppings on the track quite often, but didn’t see any elephants. I saw a few antelopes along the way, and stopped in a Molose waterhole to see a group of antelope and a sole Cape Buffalo. I saw some other campers at Molose, and stopped to talk to a ranger who was headed south. About 1pm I arrived at Khankhwe Pan. This is the last stop before crossing the CKGR. It is 72km to Bape campsite. Later in the afternoon I jacked up the rear wheel so I could rotate the tailshaft, and I greased the tailshaft.

Lake Eysai to south of Unyambwa

I packed up at Lake Eysai. It had been a good campsite. My new solar controller and solar panel connection improvements showed with power soon after dawn.

I followed my tracks back to the road and headed south. The road was no large but it was well graded. Very little traffic, a few motorcycles, no cars. I suddenly ended up at a dry river bed and I could not figure out were the road went. I took a track and asked a lady washing where the town was on the main road. She sent me east, and I drove between piles of mud bricks to eventually see a crossing of the river. The road then got very vague. I was following my GPS, but I would often be 200m away from the road as shown on the GPS. A motorcycle went past and I followed his track for a while. The road just meandered through the scrub. There were little village compounds every now and then, surrounded by spikey african thorn bush. I don’t know if this is to keep animals out of keep animals in. I was all very primitive, and every village I went past, people stopped to stare at me.

After 20km or so I came across another river, this one with water in it. There was a barrier across the road and a couple of locals standing around. I got out to talk to them figuring they wanted money. They just put their hand out. I asked “how much”, but they didn’t understand. I went back to the car and got 1,000Tsh. I offered this, but another older man came along and shoke his head and held out a fist. I didn’t get this, eventually he counted out 5 fingers, so I gave him 5,000Tsh (about $A3). They took the barriers down, I walked the river just to check the bottom, but it was sandy and no deeper than 30cm. I locked the hubs, engaged 4wd, and easily crossed the river.

The road continued to meander. I passed a couple of villages who were pulling water out of wells dug in dried sandy river beds. This was definitely not Dar es Salaam. I got close to the town on the main road. Here I crossed another dried river bed with wells dug in it. There were dozens of people carted drums of water on two wheeled carts away from the river bed. It all looked pretty grim.

I got on the main road, which was still dirt. I headed over a newly build bridge over a river and flood plain.

It was then a wander around different side roads, all dirt until I got to Singida. About 20km out of Singida was the first police stop I had been through in 3 days. However they were friendly and let me go quickly. Once through Singida it was down the bitumen of the T3 looking for wild camping opportunities. I decided as it got closer to 6pm, I would wait for the turn-off from the T3 to the T22 that headed to Mbeya. I turned of and was very surprised that the T22 was dirt. This meant I had 518km of dirt road to drive down to get to Mbeya.

Only about 1km after the turn off I saw a track to the side. I backed up drove into the track, then walked further down. It looked like an abandoned field. I drove about 150m down and parked on the side. It was pretty invisible from the road, and I didn’t see anyone all night.