Friday, April 27, 2012

Berrybush


Finally a Mabuasehube picture with Bram in it, thanks Miena! Looks like he’s trying to open the fridge – camping makes hungry & thirsty


And then on our way to Berrybush, Tshabong, via the beautiful new Middelpits, Bokspits, Tshabong road. Looks like one donkey needed to go take a leak.


Fabulous to be back at Berrybush so soon! We were here also beginning of December with Bram’s brother Henk-i. It’s always great to see Jill, it’s a wonderful place to stay, the food is excellent, the dogs are lovely, and so on.


Breakfast for the student group from the University of Botswana that’s here to do fieldwork. Bram finally has a chance to get some work done also. At home there are so much projects going on, and so many things that also have to be done in between, that it is hard to work fulltime on one thing...

The Berrybush Cow.


Hot shower, clean clothes, and then sundowners, snacks and a dog on our laps again – so relaxing! 


Fred & Sam – yes, it’s really two dogs.


Dave and Maud, a bathtub, and three dogs that don’t really want to be washed.


After three super days with Jill and Dave we drive back home, where five slightly offended dogs are waiting for us. This stay was extra nice because we met Jill’s friend Mike, who lives in Gaborone, quite close to us. It’s always good to make new friends!

Friday, April 20, 2012

Fyfan: it's a dream ride!


On our way to Mabuasehube and Berrybush, part 1: via tar from Morwa to the beginning of the cutline close to Khoka. Bram can take many ‘on the road’ pictures because Maud decided she’ll damn well drive her own car, even on tar in between all those bad chauffeurs who never should have passed their road test. As long as it is not too busy that is.


The cutline from Khoka to Mabuasehube main gate gate is way better then we expected; no driving 20 k’s an hour through deep sand at all. We can keep it in high 2 all the way, and do about 40 k’s an hour. So we’ll easily reach the camp where we appointed with Mien & Bernard well before dark.


GMP1 at Mpayathutlwa pan (giraffe’s stomach) – we all made it before sunset! So no rescue expotitions, no driving back the cutline to Khoka to look for us, or the cutline to Hukunsi to find Mien & Bernard. As for Frank & Jelle, we didn’t know if they were really on their way, so it was a nice surprise to see them driving in.


Sundowners at the pan’s edge, with an excellent view on the dipologolo (game). 


The one and only lion Bram & Maud saw, real close to the campsite just before ours. We did see spoor, and heard them later on, but no more close visual encounters... Which doesn’t mean they weren’t close; this lioness was walking around only a couple of meters away from a bunch of happy campers who clearly weren’t aware of her at all. Our friends saw 11 lions at the next pan, 10 k's away.

Room with a view: tshephe (springbok).

We shared this campsite with the Van Niekerk’s, three South Africans who got lost on their way to their site, and once they found their bearings again by reaching Mpayathutlwa pan didn’t want to gamble on having enough fuel to make more detours. Those 4x4 chew fuel like there’s no tomorrow, especially in the deep Kalahari sand, so no matter how much you take (we took 200 litres), you always wanna be careful.

Why walk all the way to the waterhole if the campsite offers both tourists = edible stuff and water? The phokojwe (black-backed jackal) easily adapts...
We are so lucky that the Van Niekerk family ended up with us, after being send away in a very rude way at the first campsite they encountered. They are very nice, and, an incredible stroke of luck, they invite us to do the wilderness trail & camp on their permit. Per day there’s only one party (minimum 2 vehicles, maximum 5) allowed on that trail. They booked it already May 2011. That shows how timely you have to be; we only started booking 2 weeks before departure, so we were way too late for all the special camps.


Our second night we camp at Gma4, Mabuashube (‘red soil’ in Sekgalagadi). Again there’s a lot of game on the pan, mainly antelopes (springbok, gemsbok, eland, red hartebees, wildebees) and jackal. It’s fabulous to see so many phofu (eland), the second-largest antelope in Africa. They are so impressive, especially the head-bull, but they tend to be shy.


It’s autumn, and icy-cold in the evening, night, morning. This is the time of the year when you start to notice the desert-extremes; hot days, but no more sweaty hot nights – in winter it can freeze overnight up to minus 15 degrees Celsius. So, get that fire started well before sunset, and convert the tailgate into a bar!

Amazing how the sun always sets once you pour your sundowners.


While one daring Flying Banana goes looking for food in the cab, the others decide to inspect their looks. You'll see the southern yellow-billed hornbill everywhere, and they tend not to be shy at all.

Maud's diphaphatha still don't look like they should, but they are digestible - and fresh.
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Our chef camp cook. Bernard seriously upped the standards for camp grub; delicious nice breakfasts, big lunches, yummy dinners – Bram will be so disappointed when it’s back to tins & soy mince on trips without the Chef.

Guess what - long drops & showers at some campsites nowadays. And water - pretty salty water, so you still wanna use your tanks filled with sweet water for coffee & tea & cooking.


Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, at the South African side. After ploughing our way through the deep sand and over the dunes for a couple of hours we finish the Mabuasehube-Nossob Wilderness Trail, and hit the good gravel on the SA side. There are a lot of waterholes along the road, so game is concentrated there instead of on the pans. Since we have to do a lot of k’s today the good road is convenient but otherwise we don’t care much for this part of the park.


The landscape is still beautiful, but it’s way too busy, and hysterically regulated. The camps our side consist of a wooden pole & sign saying ‘campsite’, and there’ll be one party only per site. At the South African side the camps are totally fenced in and packed with tents and campers. When you are on the road you can’t even take a leak without being harassed about not being allowed to leave your car at all times. How did they teach their lions to not attack people when they are getting out at the one not fenced picnic site, and otherwise eat everyone who dares to leave the vehicle?

Now where's that lion?


Our 4x4’s have been chewing petrol even worse then we estimated while driving through the deep sand. Okay, we didn’t need our jerry cans yet, but refuelling at Nossob is a must.

Maud, Mien, Bernard - bit bewildered by all the traffic and people in Nossob Camp after our Mabua days...

Setting up camp, breaking down camp.

And good old Henni is still going strong.


Our last night we spend at Two Rivers, after topping up our fuel at Twee Rivieren (yes, that’s the RSA side). Around here the gorgeous red dunes that also mark the first part of the road to Tshabong start.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Easter Fun

 Easter 2012 – we planned to do nothing but prepare for our trip, cause we would leave second day of Easter early early... But as always the plan didn’t quite work out – just too many opportunities to go party, and why deprive ourselves of fun?

After a nice Easter brunch at Lindy’s (no pictures of that event cause we were too busy with our cross buns, wine, beer, and snoekpate:-) we went to Inez & Peter for Easter egg hunting, and a late lunch / early dinner braai.

 The more beautiful the eggs are, the better Easter Bunny hides them...  Camola discovers one of Inez’ stunning creations.


Kukama (Gemsbok, Oryx) – we saw a lot of those in Mabuasehube. The San use the long, sharp horns to stab men who have been fooling around with other men’s wives to death.


Ons Afrikaners sal Braai! On each and any occasion – us Europeans and Latin Americans happily blend in. Just never ever compare a braai with it’s bleak copy ‘barbeque’, rather call it ‘barbeknoeien’.


Thutlwa. Mind you, it’s kick can easily kill a lion.


Inez’ Easter Bunny – it was so nice that we just couldn’t stop eating, and eathing, and yes, cut me another slice please.

Toen kwam er een Olifant met een lange Snuit
En die blies het hele verhaaltje uit...

Friday, April 06, 2012

LoL & ZUM

Ladies of Leisure, the onset... No idea what we are measuring, probably baboon spiders or dwarf aloes. Checking out Maud’s garden & getting cuttings was only one of the many activities we had to cover that day; being a LoL is a very, very hectic job!
LoL (the ladies of Leisure club) was officially born the day after this picture was taken. Maud missed that event, yes, busy busy busy, partying somewhere else. We have one male member (pun intended) – he’s afraid he’ll be stuck with men only, doing ‘bassadi not allowed’ things, and he definitely doesn’t like that. So we have to be all feminine and take pity on him.

ZUM by the way is the club that was started for Bram: ZUre oude Mannen.If there's anything going on there, it's Top-Secret...

Praying mantis.

Tears’ Birthday Braai – great company, good food, and a couple of drinks. And we got to show off our new cruiser:-)

Busy busy busy – the Sunday after Tears’ party we took the cruiser to Mokolodi Indigenous Nursery to get the tree aloe Maud had seen there a week earlier. And some extra bougainvillea. And of course another plant, four actually, managed to jump in. Then on to the farmers market – bit disappointing, cause there was hardly anything there. Except when you have an eye for the ladies of course. The market was next to Sandra, which provided the Dutchies with an excellent opportunity to get together for coffee, kruidkoek, speculaas, and, most important, a reunion with Jon, who just drove over from South Africa for a week. Our cruiser was properly Christened by Sandra & Rory with champagne – we had to drink it of course; don’t want the first scratches to be cause by breaking bottles...

March ended with two excellent rains; 42 and 24 mm, and some drizzle on top of that.

Everything looks so much better after a bit of rain!

Another prating mantis, enjoying Maud’s marigolds. The marigolds are meant to chase the caterpillars from their favourites, the citrus trees. Do they do that by attracting mantises who’ll eat the caterpillars, or are they actually caterpillar-repellent?

A leisurely Saturday afternoon with Jillian and her son PM – and a bite to eat, plus a sip or two of this and that. Jillian rarely has a day of, so it was great we finally managed a relaxed get together!

While the ladies were- extremely busy, Bram and Shorty crafted a new rear bumper for the cruiser. The first test trip starts Monday, second day of Easter yeah! We go to Mabuasehube (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) with Mien & Bernard – loads of deep sand to cross. Guess it is really remote; can’t even find a decent link, but this on shows the South African side: we'll be on the other side of the border
After surviving that we’ll go to Jill & Berrybush to relax, hang out, and help out a bit – looking forward to that very much! Berrybush