December 2 - Botswana

Again, it was another long haul to get up to the top of Botswana. It is always a difficult decision as to whether we should break the journey up into smaller bite-size pieces or just bite the bullet and get the worst part over with. With kids it's always difficult, but nowadays there is the added assistance of the iPad which keeps them entertained for hours on end, and stops them from becoming bored. They call it Zombie-land but hell who cares? It's better than bored, bickering children.

  For us there is no such luxury! We have to confront that road, kilometer after kilometer, so we have to find things of interest. It is quite fascinating what you end up noticing about the environment, like the wonderful yellow flowering trees that you see at this time of the year and the clouds of white butterflies that seem to appear out of nowhere. There are patches of farming areas around Ghanzi, which are lush and have the biggest, fattest cows that you have ever seen; and then areas that are completely overgrazed with a huge herd of thin, starving cattle and hundreds of goats that run aimlessly across the road, trying to find the remaining tufts of green grass.

  Ernest described to me his trip that he did on a motorbike 38 years ago. In those days there was no tar road, only a 'two-spoor' dirt track that was hard, compacted ground in some places and soft sand in others. He said they came off their bikes many, many times, as it was impossible to judge when it was suddenly sandy and the bike would dig in. Eventually, they learnt to read the road and a slight change is color in the sand meant trouble.

  A large part of my day was taken up trying to kill the remaining mosquitoes that were still in the car from the night before. I swear those horrible pesky things are just one big brain. They knew exactly where my hand was going to land and avoided my every effort to get rid of them, so we were destined to arrive at Guma with still at least 20 mosquitos flying right under my nose and taunting me.

  The last 100 kilometers of the road to Guma was horrific. The potholes are like craters and you have to ride on and off the road all the time. It is rather like being on a rollercoaster. Guy was luckier than us, as he can ride right over some of the holes but we had to zig zag for nearly 80 kilometers.

  The turn off to Guma was well marked and the first 3 kilometers was a wide, beautifully-graded road and was fantastic, but after that we hit a two-spoor road and then the fun began!

  We had been warned that the road was very sandy, but Ernest, who fancies himself as a fundi when it comes to sand, thought he was just going to sail through. Ah ha, what arrogance! Within the first kilometer, we went down and stuck nicely. I must give him his due: he went into reverse, low range, foot flat and we popped right out. Then we stopped and let our tire pressure down to 2 bar and we sailed through the  rest of the way. The big truck had no trouble at all – it certainly is a mean machine when it comes to rough conditions.

  Apart from the sand, the drive to the camp is quite spectacular. The camp is on the western side of the Okavango swamps and looks like the terrain on Chiefs Island. You drive across these colossal, dry flood plains with short grass, and clumps of thick forests that looks like the queen's park with manicured lawns and forests. Absolutely beautiful! The two boys, Garrick and Aiden, sat on the roof of the big truck and enjoyed the ride. They had to dive down the hatch a few times when Guy was going through the forest but their little heads popped up again as soon as the danger was past. Garrick didn't make it down in time on one occasion,  and nearly got hung out to dry on a huge thorn tree. They managed to pull a big sausage seed off of a sausage tree, and just generally had a ball.

  The bird life in Botswana is spectacular! Tracy says that they saw Lilac-breasted Rollers, a Kori Bustard, Coucals, Woodland Kingfishers, Ostrich with tiny babies, a Lille bee-eater and plenty of water birds. The plains are also full of fat cattle, so there are obviously no predators, but we saw a lot of elephant dung, so they must wander in and out of the area.

  Mark unfortunately didn't fare too well, his steering arm broke on the way up so he spent some time welding it at Kang and never made it to Ghanzi to overnight there. We only expect him to catch us up late tomorrow. No problem! Guma is such a great place that we have decided to stay an extra day anyway.

Back home we are already been missed

Sky is waiting