Journey back to the great rat race

Yet another early start, I'm starting to look forward to going back to work so that I can sleep in but this is my last opportunity so up I rose and ended up taking a surprising number of photographs.  The light changes so much and so quickly here that one really has to be on the top of one's game to capture it.

Caron even deigned to let me capture her on film, which is a rare occasion indeed.

 After the early morning stroll, it was a quick breakfast and by 10:00 we were away and on our way home.  Rob and Viv wanted to drive all the way home whereas we were content to break the drive over two days so we took it a lot easier and stopped several times on our way out.   We stopped to dig out some clay to give to Caron's mother who is a potter because I was wondering if the clay may be good for ceramics.

We also saw a grave in the middle of a pan while taking the scenic route out of the pans.  It seems like a pretty cool place to lie in repose while one becomes one with the mud.

We eventually arrived at the border at 19:00 after having to drive very carefully for the last few hours.  It seems like saturday afternoon everyone goes to the taverns that are plentiful alongside the road so there were more than a few drivers under the influence.

From the border it was a short drive to groot marico where we had a very comfortable night and the next day it was a very easy few hours drive home.

Time to change gears ready for work again tomorrow.  At least I will be able to sleep in a bit.

Idleness is over, back in the saddle

I got up really, really early at about 05:30 to take photo's of some of the baobabs we walked past either yesterday or the day before by the light of the setting moon.  The light sky is the breaking of dawn in the east.

After all the idleness of the last few days we decided to do just a little bit of driving and headed out north to explore a little bit.  While we were driving north rob spotted a dead tree which looked like it was destined for our fireplace and yes, I was aware of the irony of watching the English scavenge for wood yesterday and here we were doing the same thing albeit very far from the campsite.  Probably from the same area that the firewood that one can purchase in the campsite comes from.

The one branch looked particularly good so rob and I hooked our axes over it and pulled.  Unfortunately for me, I'm a lot shorter than rob and I ended up standing almost directly under the branch which was NOT a good place to have been standing.  When the branch broke with a loud crack it hit me right on the crown of my head and wasn't so far from knocking me unconscious.  Silly when one thinks back on it but that's hindsight for one.

We continued to drive north with the precious branch on the roof, crossed the veterinary fence and then turned east and drove out onto the pan which looks so innocuous but must be done with a fair amount of caution.

We stopped on the pan and had some fun digging holes in the pan just to see what was there.  What we found didn't fill us with a whole lot of comfort with the cars standing just metres away.  Although the pans look parched and dry as a bone, that is just a crust and less than 5cm below the crust, it is moist and by 10cm below it is decidedly wet to the touch and very soapy in texture.  I can easily imaging just how little traction a rubber tyre would have if one sank through the top 5cm.  So long as one doesn't break through the crust I think everything is fine but if one breaks through I think a whole lot of pain can follow.  I have heard of cars sinking through the crust and just keeping on sinking down into the mud to be lost forever.  In the photograph below the blade of the spade is in the mud up to the hilt and it really didn't require any effort at all to drive it in.  I think the moral of the story is, don't go there.

Once we were off the eastern pan we travelled west along the veterinary fence which, I think, goes right across the whole of botswana.  We travelled over some more pans which were a bit churned up and I could see the fine talc like dust billowing behind the car so I had to get Caron to drive up and down the pan while I tried to take a photograph of it.  She wasn't enthralled at the idea but did it anyway.

While I was busy shooting this, a small herd of horses came galloping over the pan being driven by herds boys which was quite a sight although the photo's don't really do it justice.

Arriving back at the campsite we could see the heat haze as we approached it and we ended our last full day at Kubu Island with sundowners and snacks on the rocks in front of the big baobab and watched the sun sink below the horizon.  It was quite magical.

Since it was our last night, Rob and the children slept outside under the stars.  Unlike most wilderness places in africa it is quite safe to do it here because there really aren't any animals around due to the complete absence of surface water.

Day three of idleness

Yet another lazy, lazy day.  We woke up late and lay in some more so by the time we actually emerged from our tent the day was already getting quite warm.  Today it was my turn to make bread while Viv and Caron went for a stroll together.  The bread turned out passably well as in, it was edible.

Rob and I are starting to look for 'things to do', I think the limit of the amount of time that I can spend doing nothing is rapidly approaching.  One of the nearby long drop's door hinge had broken which meant that it was impossible to close the door so Rob and I spent some time repairing it.  The hinge was pop riveted to the frame and the rivets had come adrift.  We actually had a riveter and rivets with us but unfortunately they weren't quite the right size so we ended up drilling out the remains and then sewing the hinge back onto the support with wire.  Not the way my grandfather would have done it for sure but it works and will probably hold up for a year or two.  So no more view from this particular room!  I am sure that the people in the campsite immediately in front of the long drop would appreciate the lack of a view.


Around midday a party of English, as in from the UK, people arrived and started to set up camp pretty much inside our campsite and we had to shoe them away to the next campsite.  They are clearly not used to camping judging from the antics that we watched with amusement while they set up camp.  They had just finished when we saw the two boys that they had with them scavenging for firewood amongst the already sparse vegetation.  Rob said that the last time that he had been at Kubu island one could walk through the thickets they were so thick so it seems that a decade of ill-behaved campers is having a very detrimental affect on the vegetation which isn't such great news.

Although the English may have been irresponsible from an environmental point of view they were at least friendly and came over for a chat and the kids ended up spending most of the afternoon playing together.

Being very allergic to bees, I now keep a careful eye on them and they seem to scout the campsite for anything interesting about twice a day and if they find anything then their buddies arrive en-masse which is not so good for me.  Still doing my very environmentally unfriendly trash burning exercise, distasteful as it is.

We had a treat after lunch when Caron brought out the ice cream she had been hiding from me from the bottom of the freezer.  Hot day, sitting in the shade wolfing down ice cream in the middle of a the Makgadikgadi pans.  What is not to like about that picture.

In the late afternoon, I convinced everyone to walk far out onto the salt pans to pose for some family portraits which worked out really well.

I continued taking photographs into the sunset and early evening of baobabs at night using a torch and, as luck would have it, a passing cars headlights.

Nightly burning of the rubbish which is a really distasteful task for everyone even if it was only me doing the actual burning.  Rob continues to bite back some remark about how bad it is for the environment and I agree with him but I think that it would be a disaster if I was stung by a bee and not just for me; it would ruin everyone's holiday.  The trick to burning rubbish is to have a very hot fire with plenty of flame so that the rubbish itself catches alight quickly and even the vegetable matter dries out quickly and then burns.  The cans quickly clean themselves and when these are crushed with the mallet when they are cool it leaves very little waste for us to take with us.

Day two of the great idle

I had a very early start, out taking photos by 06:00.  It is strange how 06:00 is a normal even late start to the day when working but on holiday it feels really, really early.  Being out this early meant that I was working my way around the north shore of the island before the sun actually rose which made for some great photographs.

 The 'sun' in the following photographs is actually the setting moon.

I didn't quite make it around the whole island and ended up cutting across the middle to make it back in time for breakfast which consisted of pan cakes making a change from the normal muesli and yoghurt.  Sitting under the trees in the cool of the morning, eating delicious pan cakes with old friends; life is just great.

Rob made more bread, I think I am going to have to travel with the Dalgleishes more; I could get very used to a daily supply of fresh bread for lunch.  I helped Rob put up his awning in the morning which was very simple consisting simply of shade cloth and six poles with guy ropes.  The big advantage of this is that it is quite high and allows any wind to blow through beneath the awning which makes it very cool to sit under.  Much cooler than the one that we have which although the shade is deeper is less cool to sit under.  Definitely food for thought when designing my own awning in the future. I am amazed at just how much gear Rob manages to pack into his bakkie, he even had room for a volleyball net and court which we also put up for the kids to use.  Playing volleyball in the kalahari has got to be a special place to play it.

The Steenkamps packed up and started their journey back to the big smoke and even though they were with us for only a few days, it was nice to have met them.  Watching them leave I was very happy not to have been departing with them, I am really starting to get into the swing of things and just idling away the time doing pretty much nothing.

In the afternoon we played boules with the dalgleishes and it turns out, I am worse than useless at the game so I was very happy when we all decided to walk around the southern shore of the island going past what is left of what used to be a huge baobab that used to give shade to campsite #1.  I'm not sure why it died, I think it was just very old.  The carcass of the tree was very interesting because it isn't like a normal tree which even while dead maintains it's structural integrity.  Baobabs literally disintegrate into pulp, it was very weird to see.

On the return trip along the spine of the island to the northern point where we were camped we climbed up to the trig beacon to have a look at the view from there and I spent most of the rest of the afternoon wandering around with the camera minding my own business.  I tried some fill-in flash pictures of the moon rise which sort of worked.

Day one of idleness

We were up and about early, for holiday that is, before 07:00 so that I could catch the morning light. Rob and Viv had already moved over to the eastern side of the island to greet the day so we weren't actually that early.

The view from the top of kubu is amazing looking out over the salt pans which don't end for as far as the eye can see.  Although it is called an island, kubu island has no water around it at all.  This apparently changes during the wet season when there is up to knee deep water on the pans and kubu island is, at least more or less, actually an island surrounded by water.

We put up our new awning in the morning because, although we are in shade, it isn't deep shade and I need something to hide under.  The awning was a rushed purchase where one isn't quite sure what one actually wants but one runs out of time to make a decision and, as is normally the case, the decision turns out to be less than optimal.  There are so many awning designs available so clearly, nobody has actually aced it and I'm going to have to work out something for myself.

We took a midday walk far out into the pan which is cracked and quite firm but it would be a big mistake to take the seeming uniformity of how it looks for uniformity of what lies underneath.  Even just walking on the surface one can feel the sponginess of some sections in comparison to other sections.  We followed some tracks far out into the pan and could clearly see where some people had tried to turn around only to get all four wheels stuck; that must have preceeded some really frantic digging to extricate themselves.

Back at the camp Rob made some home made bread which we all enjoyed but other than that it was a very quiet day.  Perfect.

Ethene and Lize homeschool their children which led to a bit of a discussion about homeschooling but we restrained ourselves and didn't wade in.

 

We really enjoyed the relaxed pace particularly after the driving for the last three days.

Kubu Island at last

We were up at 06:30 and ready to roll at 07:45 having winkeled the rest out of their hidey holes.  Teegan had been sick during the night so Rob and Viv hadn't had much sleep and were looking a little bit bleary eyed.  We only saw number 6  & 7 this morning and were very grateful that we had taken #8 quite by luck.

I drove at a steady 105-115km per hour because I just didn't feel comfortable at higher speeds given the weights I'm carrying and the roads.  The problem with the roads is not that they are bad but that they are really quite good with the odd bad patch which is very difficult to see sometimes so it is just much easier to drive a bit slowly and then not have to worry so much.  The signs are a little sporadic and sometimes they are missing so one ends up guessing some of the time just what speed one should be doing.  The rule of thumb is to slow down to 80 if there is any sign of habitation next to the road even if there wasn't a sign to indicate 80.  Also, having left a patch of habitation behind and not having seen a sign indicating that one can resume 120 doesn't necessarily mean that you shouldn't speed up.  You could end up driving 100km at 80km/hr so one really does need to keep track of what is happening.

We finally turned off the tar and onto the dirt after 3 days of driving and I promptly let my tyres down.  Rob and Ethene didn't bother and, as it turned out,  didn't need but being the cautious fellow that I am, down they went.  I had some fun descending a steep technical section where the shore of the mega lake used to be while rob and ethene went around on the chicken run.  From there it was a simple drive over the grass and salt pans and finally to arrive at kubu island.  The tracks can sometimes be a bit confusing but one just has to basically follow one's nose and one will find the way quite easily.  The problem is that 'the road' isn't one path, it consists of several that constantly stray over each other as one or the other becomes impassable in the wet season.

We finally arrived at the main campsite which is pretty awesome, no facilities other than long drops.  That means, no water, no electricity and not even much in the way of shade.  Our campsite was huge, we could have doubled the size of the party and still had space to spare.  We wanted to move where we had the fire but they weren't having any of that and we had to arrange the campsite around where they had located the fire.  Not ideal but really not too bad.

We had just set up camp and there were already bees congregating around the dustbin so I told rob that I was going to burn all the trash.  He wasn't enamoured with the idea, mind you neither was I but it really does make a difference and keeps the campsite very clean and bee-free.  I think that someone with an eco-conscience would have taken me to task for burning everything but at the risk of being stung again, I am willing to take some abuse.

While the rest of the adults were finishing setting up camp, I took all the kids up to a huge baobab which they just had to try and climb which they eventually accomplished.  It was a lot harder than it looks like in the photograph and once they were up, they couldn't get down and Rob eventually came up with a climbing rope which we used to lower them all safely to the ground.  No more climbing of baobab trees!

As the day started to cool off we went for a stroll around the island, it has to be one of the most photogenic places on the planet.  It seems that no matter where you point your camera, there is a great picture waiting for you.

A fantastic start to the weeks camping ...

Francis Town here we come

We were up and away early the next morning because we still had a fair drive to Woodlands self-catering cottages about 10km north of Francistown.  Turning back onto the main road we went past the most magnificent avenue of baobab trees which I had to stop and take a picture of.

The border crossing was a completely different affair from last time.  I think because we were there very early on a Sunday combined with the fact that it wasn't easter weekend created a completely different experience.  Arriving on the S.A. side there was a really well kitted out landcruiser 4x4 which was, along with everything on it, brand spanking new.  It was like someone had walked into a  4x4 shop and just taken one of everything but didn't really know what they were buying or how to use it.  It did look impressive though and I tried to get Caron to buy into the raised suspension with the bull-bars on the front with the spare wheels mounted on the solid bumper at the back but she wasn't biting.  At all.

We were almost out of the border post, at the exit when we were stopped by the food police who proceeded to go through the fridge and haul out all vegetables and fruit irrespective of whether or not they could be harbouring fruit flies.  The only vegetables they missed were the potatoes which were buried at the bottom of a crate which even we would have had difficulty in finding.  The contraband fruit and vegetables all went onto a huge pile of festering, rotting vegetation that had been baking in the sun for a few hours.  We were a little nose out of joint particularly about the vegetables which we knew weren't actually a problem but there is just no point in arguing with them.

It was a very easy drive up to Woodlands and we stopped a couple of times to have coffee as well as to stock up with the fruit and vegetables which we had just been relieved of at the border.


Rob and Viv had only left this morning so they were driving the same distance we had done in two days and only arrived quite late in the day.  We also met up with Ethene pronounce Ettiene and Lize as well as the attendant off-spring.  Teegan wasn't feeling so well so she wasn't the bundle of joy she normally is.

We all had supper at our place which was number 8 of the 6,7 and 8 that we had booked.  As it turned out #8 was worlds apart in terms of luxury from 6 & 7 and in a positive way.  Sometimes lady luck she smiles and sometimes she doesn't.

We were all looking forward to the final day of driving tomorrow, at least for a while.

Time to depart

The start of our second trip was a little less rushed and, because we more-or-less knew what we were getting ourselves into, we definitely weren't as anxious; at least I wasn't.  We started packing at 07:00 and we were on the road by 10:00 which sounds like a long time but to pack a 4x4 ready for duty does take a while.

This trip we didn't experience any traffic jams at all and had breakfast at the steers on the restaurant over the highway. I must admit that I was loathe to leave the vehicle unattended since everything on the roofrack is easily accessible and removable.  Sometimes I think that we, as in South Africans, are way too conscious of theft but given the frequency with which it happens ...

We arrived at the baobab cottages mid-afternoon and had a bit of a hard time getting the correct turn off and accidentally turned off into a bar which looked a bit dodgy.  Got back on the main road and took the correct turn off about 100m further on and from there it was simple.

The baobab cottages had a line of five or six, i think, baobab trees bordering the road and a very comfortable if rustic self catering cottage.  There was a great fireplace in front of the cottage and we had a very peaceful evening staring into the fire while work receded into the distance.

Aside from the baobabs the farm had a variety of dilapidated farm equipment in artistic decay.

The owner of the cottages turned up a bit after we had arrived and we recognised him from the tavern we had almost driven into.  He was a little happy but very pleasant and congenial.  There was rugby on so we retired to the other cottage which had a TV but no people to watch while we drank some wine and unwound.

The evening was quite cool in contrast to the day and we really enjoyed the peace and quiet.  The cottage had an outdoor shower which was great, the hot water on my cold skin felt just fantastic.