Friday after lunchish we started our weekend-expotition to Kutse, a game park bordering Central Kalahari, together with Hamish and his sons Mpo and Tumi.
Traveling was an adventure in itself. At Mma Mpo’s house, just outside of Gabs, Maud discovered a leak in the fuel tank, which Bram kind of repaired. Than we had to shop for a week in Molopelole; you never know how bad you get stuck. After which we almost got stuck without even reaching Kutse, because of the continuous rain and thunderstorms, while the road changed from bad tar to muddy dirt.
It was pitch-dark when we figured we should be near Kutse, but instead of the gate we found what looked like a deserted workers camp. We decided to go on and praised the Lord when we found a gate. Deserted by this time, so we opened it ourselves – and left Kutse, we discovered, when we later hit the road sign to Gabs. At least we could knowingly enter the park now. We decided to set up our tents in the presumed to be deserted workers camp. It was still raining, but after hot tea and wet peanut butter sandwiches we felt this would be a fun expotition and went to sleep.
Suddenly we heard running engines and people calling us. We were actually camping in a very busy Wildlife camp. Some lions decided to go on their own expotition, to the village nearby Kutse, and all the game wardens were trying to trace them and chase them back into the game park. They allowed us to stay and retry the gate in the morning.
No need to shower that morning; it was still raining. After a wet breakfast and breaking up camp we finally entered Kutse officially. Driving to a campsite was a game drive also. We saw a lot of Gemsbok, and a few Red Hartebeest, Impala, Springbokkies and Duikers, and a lot of amazing birds. As a bonus the desert was full of flowers thanks to the very good rains this year. A blooming desert has a beauty beyond words.
Our campsite looked out over a meadow where ostriches grazed, and miraculously had no soldier ants. The only setback of making a camp in the blazing hot sun was that the tough white men got burned, after which they decided to use Maud’s ‘girliestuff’, also called sun blocker. Luckily we collected dikgong while game driving, so we could make a nice fire to braai Hamish’ boerwors and steaks. Tumi made everyone happy by discovering his love for dishwashing & cleaning; this 6 year old guy was ready to fight for his right to do the dishes, table, cool boxes, tent poles etcetera.
The afternoon game drive was absolutely fabulous. Mainly thanks to Mpo we saw a lot of different antelopes, ostriches and giraffes. And then the Big Event: two lionesses, which Mpo spotted while they were resting in the high grass. All of us except the getaway driver climbed on top of the car, and Bram managed to drive very close by the big cats, which decided to do a kind of fashion show walk around for us.
Dinner, campfire, stars, full moon – everything you need for an abfab evening in your little camp. When Maud woke up in the morning she was in moffies & girls heaven. Imagine waking up at 6:00 in the morning, hearing the rain and muffled voices, creeping out of your tent, and see these absolute studs Bram and Hamish walking around in just tiny underpants and big green rain poncho’s, pottering around with their fire to braai the breakfast boerwors & steaks, and making coffee.
We enjoyed breakfast looking at our ostriches grazing in front of the tents and did a game drive again. By far the strangest animals we met were a bunch of grumpy Afrikaner boers with females and cubs, and of course a lot of Gemsbok and other bokkies. Alas, we didn’t manage to get stuck, as Mpo & Maud planned, so we had to drive back to Gabs after lunch.
Next goal: the slippery, slimy banks of Limpopo river.
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