| Journal Entries | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|
Bastille day and 9 months on the road. Go for a Z$30 breakfast at the Vic Falls Hotel, before packing up and leaving, without paying for camping. Then waste some time buying engine oil and diesel before finally getting out of Vic Falls at 11:30. Get to the border at 12:30 and it’s a breeze, 5 mins for Zim and about 15 for Botswana. Have to buy insurance but it’s P15 for 5 months and covers all countries South. Carry on making for Nata. Road good, straight and flat apart from one section being repaired. Scenery boring though, fairly dense savannah scrub with occasional sightings of game. Lots of birdlife around. Have one police checkpoint and it’s the full CAR check, light, horn, indicators, wipers. No problem though. Stop and bush camp about 17:00 and do an oil change. Fanbelt snapped and was replaced earlier in the day. Restarted taking Paludrin. | ||
Stop in Nata to get some water as intend to bush camp short of Maun but end up getting there by 14:00. In time to find Standard Chartered charge P30/transaction - no thanks. Mark has enough to get us four beers at the Duck Inn where we meet Stan & Liz. Book a flight over the delta for tomorrow morning then go out to bush camp. Saw some wildlife on the road but fairly boring. Maun is not what I expected, a modern frontier town but somehow smart and tidy. No noticeable large hotels. Duck Inn is strange, just a corner bar by the airport. | ||
An interesting day. Up at 07:00 to get to the airfield in time for a 08:30 flight. 9 of us plus the pilot. I was in the seat behind the front passenger (Simon) so had quite a good view though was also over the wing. An hours flight and it’s certainly different than I expected - not nearly as wet, but the reeds and vegetation may be disguising what was really there. Good flight at about 100 feet, didn’t really see much game - one huge herd of buffalo, but would be happy to spend more time flying around. Cost P89/person. Changed $120 in Barclays at P2.45/$. Rest of day spent around Maun getting provisions, having a late breakfast and waiting for 16:00 to go out to Swamp Thing. Eventually left at 16:30 having paid P80 for a week out there. Pete is being a real pain, complaining about the cost and just not deciding what he’s going to do, leaves Bottle in a quandary as he doesn’t have a partner for the makoro. Drive out to the site was fairly uneventful apart from passing a joint from our vehicle to the blue one. That was until the water splash. It was deep and watching the company vehicle go through first helped and didn’t. OK for first quarter then down , then uneven coming out. I took it in low first but Kev reckons too fast. Probably right, because I accelerated when we hit the deep bit, my floor well started floating and the charge light came on, so I was concerned what was happening and wanted to get out. Got through OK anyway, though the spare battery box was well flooded. | ||
Money check. $1000, TCs $30, £300 TCs £30 i.e. approximately £1000. Spent approx. £1000 since April 14th , say £10/day. Quiet day. Should have been organising for the trip but of course it didn’t happen. Dried out the vehicle and chilled out. The tour group that should have arrived tomorrow appeared tonight so don’t know what the morrow will bring. Pete seems 90 degrees out of phase with what everybody else is doing. | ||
First day of the trip. Takes an age to get organised, then our porter decides he is sick. Eventually get away about 10:00 and leisurely head off with Jack as out poler. Doesn’t speak much English. Pete and Andy have to return for a new makoro as they are slowly sinking, but Mark and I are dry despite some large patches on our boat. Scenery is varied from small narrow channels encroached by water fig and reeds to quite large lagoons.
Still haven’t found out what the ‘Ocktavo’ bird is. – well I have now, its sound is onomatopoeiad to ‘work harder’ by the locals, it is the Cape pigeon. Lunch stop brightened by two French girls looking for their group. | ||
We were told by Worm we would be leaving between 7 and 8 so are all ready at 07:45 - except the polers. They take time to pack up then go and collect their share of the meat. Not popular with the clients. Expect smell to be bad but isn’t, but the wet makoros now have blood mixed with the water. Trip is about 3.5 hours through a narrow twisty fast flowing channel. Have lunch at our campsite then go for a four hour game walk, in a group of four. Our tracker is good, pointing out the tracks of a variety of animals, but his English is limited. See ostrich, elephant, impala, a snake (also saw a small brown one at camp). Evening entertainment supplied by the polers (Worm and Jack) playing the local musical instrument (a bow) and the elephant game - the searcher directed by Yes/No tunes. | ||
Wake to find Worm, Stan and Liz setting off for a game walk. Hurriedly organise for ourselves to go. Get a group of four, Mike, Mark, Kev and myself plus two of our polers and go across. Reasonably successful, seeing plenty of elephant, red lechwe, saassaby, impala, hyena (very close) and a quick glimpse of sable (I think). Get back at 10:20 and have a late breakfast before starting back. The others leave well in front of us. Fairly uneventful trip, winding our way through the channels. Spot some more elephant, a white painted reed frog, assorted birdlife and a large group of tourists with four makoros full of necessities (e.g. plastic chairs). Mike floods Kev and the makoro at the lunch stop. Get back at 16:30 but the tour group is there before us, so no point in queuing for a shower. Start drinking vodka and orange and the evening slips away. Talking for a while to Paul and Hillary, a peace corps couple, but sobriety soon dwindles. | ||
Lazy day in the campsite. Do a couple of the long term, do it tomorrow jobs, stuck a patch on my thermorest and replaced a seal on the front jerry can, plus sewing up my docksiders. Finished ‘Searching for Mr Heartbreak’ by Jonathan Raban - good book. Campsite gets quite busy in the evening and the rhino and its associates have gone AWOL. | ||
Head for the water splash just before 10:00, better speed this time but not constant. Get through anyway then take the wrong route out, but we hit the tarmac safely as the thermometer reads 20.8 ° C (it was 20.8 km to the tarmac on the correct route). Get into town and do a shop but it’s more expensive than we had money for. Simon changed some more allowing us to get a beer at the Duck Inn and some more fuel before heading out. Stan and the Cowboys were ahead but got concerned when went past distance for Toteng without seeing any junction. Stopped a bus to check and then got to the junction about 3km later at Sehitwa. Continued and caught the others just short of Etsha - they had just stopped. Drove into and through Etsha to camp on the flood plains as recommended by Dave of Swamp Thing. | ||
Reconfigured for desert driving, i.e. put the sand ladders back on their hooks. Tightened the fan belt and noticed oil around the bell housing. Rear Main Seal? I hope it’s only oil spilt in the change but a later check looks ominous. Headed off for the Tsodilo Hills, my main interest being just how bad the road was. OK for the first 28 then patches of deep sand for the next 24, but low 2nd was as bad as it got. Just sit and grind through. Took 2.75 hours but Stan on the bike found it a lot harder. Found him parked in a bush round one corner. It’s 3 hours after we get here and still no sign of Stan. The rest of the party return about 17:45 just as I’ve walked off to get a photo of the hill. Kev, Mark and Liz head off to find Stan, returning about 2.5 hours later. Stan’s fine but has had an epic. Tried the sand, went back to the cattle station, took off the cases, tried again, chain too loose, no tools, back to the station, walked for 10kms - gave up. He’ll head out tomorrow. Gets very windy so dinner is a bit of a chore. Don’t sleep well. Get some good info from an Austrian in a well set up G wagen (GPS, Inmarsat etc). | ||
Took the same road out on the advice of the Austrian. Takes 2 hours this time as I push along. Then up the road to Shakawe where we catch up with Stan. We leave him at the police station to wait for the others and we go on to the border. Miss the main road and do some more soft sand before getting to the border. Get through in about 15 mins.... Continue on to Popa Falls and wait outside for the rest. They’re about 1 hour behind. Decide that as we can all stay on one site it’s worth spending the night. Pleasant grassy spot reminiscent of Epulu but much better facilities. Nominee for the best shower in Africa. Spend time talking to a variety of people. |
Last Changed 23rd November 1999 (Link to full resolution picture); 22nd Sept 2009 (ported and restructured)