water – Clancy Abroad

Planet Baobab to Eselbe camp to Kukonje Island

Planet Baobab was a great campsite. I managed to charge some things having 240v power. It was about 90km to Nata. Along the road, maybe 10km out of Nata I got stopped at a road block. It was Dept of Wildlife who were checking for poachers and other illegal activities. They said it was a bit common in this northern more remote part of Botswana. Then into Nata where I drove first to the Choppies supermarket. There I was approached by a guy who wanted to regas my airconditioning. He was enterprising, didn’t believe I didn’t have airconditioning, and I had to lift the bonnet to prove I didn’t. He then wanted to sell me tinting, but I told him I wasn’t interested, I could only do the side windows and they spend most of their time part way down. I got supplies at Choppies, but there was still stuff I couldn’t get. I got some apples, they were good, also bananas, but they are just so ripe,it’s such a long journey from South Africa. I looked at the chocolate donuts, but I have had bad experiences with chocolate donuts before in Botswana. I then headed to a water supply place to top up my drinking water. It was $A0.10 per litre, so I filled up my 20 litre container.

Then it was a drive up to the northern part of Nata to Eselbe camp. It is a nice campsite, Rupert who runs it is a nice guy. It’s camping and backpackers, it’s a bit hippy. I did some repair stuff. I am trying to find ways to cool the camper at night. The camper gets to 39C and it retains its heat, so I have brought more fans this time to try to blow cool air into it after the sun goes down.

Next morning I paid Rupert and he gave me some good information on how to get to Kukonje Island, and that I should not deviate from the main track. The pans are notorious for bogging people in incredibly deep mud. I had much trouble starting again, and maybe I am narrowing down the problem, maybe it’s those pesky fusible links again. South through Nata, with another quick stop at Choppies. Then south on the A3 with lots of road works. This is the difference between Botswana and South Africa. Botswana might have bad roads in places, but they seem to be doing something about it when in South Africa, almost nothing ever gets done.

I got to the vet fence and then turned right. Rupert from Eselbe had warned me there might be some difficult creek crossing, but everything was dry. One was steep, but not hard to cross. It was about 50km along the vet fence. There are lots of vet fences in Botswana stopping cattle from some areas mixing with other areas and spreading disease.

Eventually I got to the end of the vet fence headed south. About 5km along I had to turn right onto the track towards the pan and Kukonje Island. There was an abandoned vet fence control area with abandoned buildings. Onto the pan. It looked OK. However you could see where people had left the main track, they had started to sink into the pan. The vet fence continued onto the pan, but was falling down for large pieces of it. It was a 10km drive to Kukonje Island.

When I got to the island I found it had been a park with rangers and designated campsites, but it had all been abandoned. I passed a camper at one campsite (I had not seen anyone else for an hour or so). I continued past and went to campsite 4 near a large Baobab. The flies are a bit thick around here, the only animals on the island I think are cows.

Heading across Sua Pan to Kukonje Island

Baines Boababs to Nxai Pans south campsite.

It was a great campsite at Baines BaoBabs. Isolated, You are essentially on an island in the middle of the salt pan.

I headed off around 9am. Saw another vehicle (who was probably from camp 2) at Baines Boababs. Then it was the 14km track back to the north/south track. Then back onto the north track for about 20km to Nxai south pans. Along the road I saw a dozen or so Giraffes , the first ones I had seen since the CKGR. I went to the office to show my paperwork, and found they have a shop. I am really in touristville here. I bought a cold ginger beer. There were elephants wandering around the admin buildings. I drove the 3km to the campsite. I set up, and the afternoons entertainment was having elephants wander past every few minutes. I went to the ablution block that was carefully defended with lots of spikes to keep the elephants out. One elephant just across from me pushed a tree over for it to fall near a another camper. It was non stop elephants.

Later in the afternoon I drove to the water hole where there were more elephants, and ostriches and Cape Buffalo, and springboks. There were about ten other 4wds parked at the waterhole, most of them rental 4wds.

Spikes outside the ablution to protect it from elephants

Elephants eating the local trees. Very unappetizing, just wood.

Camelthorn Farmstay

A day stationary. I fixed some things. I fixed the float in the right hand water storage tank. I had changed the float last year, but I installed it the wrong way, so I changed how it worked, and now I can fill that tank up. I cleaned up the connections to the starter motor to see if it fixes my mysterious not starting problems when it’s hot. I fibreglassed yet another mud flap mount, probably the third time I have done the right side. As well I did lots of clothes washing. I also visited the waterhole both at dawn and in the afternoon. The dawn visit was pretty calm, not much going on, other than the 10+ hippos wandering about. The afternoon was the normal zebra madness.100+ zebras, 4 elephants,hippos and more. Crazy.

The electric fence protecting the viewing platform

Changing how the float works on the water storage tank

Powerline wild camp to Camelthorn Farmstay

The wild camp next to the powerlines was good. Quiet, a few cow bells, no people. I got going and drove the 10km back to Rakops. I arrived at the ATM. Joy! There was a queue. So I joined the queue (I think I was person number 6). I got out the maximum I could withdraw twice. The max withdrawal was about $A300. So equipped with all this cash I headed to another of the supermarkets. The first one has almost nothing. The second one was better stocked, and I bought some apples (I had run out a while back). I wanted some potatoes,but they only sold them in 10kg bags, so it was too much for me. I tried the hardware for some disposable gloves (greasing and oil changes) but didn’t see any. I contacted Camelthorn to see if I could get a campsite, and they got back to me to confirm. It was about 90km to Camelthorn. The last 6km was a sandy track, and I had to stop and lower the tyre pressures a bit.

So I arrived at Camelthorn, great campsite.They have a viewing deck that looks over a waterhole in the river that I went down to look at. There was close to 100 zebras, more than I had ever seen in a group.Plus there were a couple of Elephants, a couple of Hippos, some wildebeests , and a lone antelope.

I went back in the evening. There was a floodlight, and I could dimly make out an elephant and some zebra, but not much else.

I did some washing.Its been two weeks since I have had enough water to do clothes washing. The best of all was the shower. I had spent two weeks using a solar shower bag with 4 litres of water in it, it was great to have unlimited water.

The zebra and more from the viewing platform

Xade 02 to Piper Pan 02

In the morning I got out of the camper tentatively. Got hold of my Bunnings long handled shovel and looked around carefully in case there was a lion anywhere around, the lion from the night before. No lion – all safe. It was very cold this morning 10C, the coldest morning I had since South Africa.

I packed up to go, it was only 10km to the Xade gate, and I wanted to explore options.

I got to the gate, and after discussions with the helpful guy manning the gate, he found out I could get two bigfoot campsites in northern CKGR, and exit out at Rakops. This is sort of what I wanted to do all along, but got scared off with alternator troubles. However I thought I had enough diesel to do it. Its 266km. I had to pay at the Rakops exit.

I loaded up with more water, and headed of towards Piper Pan 02. It was a late start, so it was going to be a hot drive. I crossed more pans than I was used to, with several bits of eroded road on pans that had got wet last rains. I arrived at Piper Pan 02 just after 3pm. This is my 12th day in the Kalahari.

UPDATE: Another Lion visit around midnight. He pushes a storage box over, and drags the mat in front of the camper about a metre. I just see him in the moonlight. Other than that he doesn’t make any noise.