New Zealand, Feb. 2018: The Northland Loop

Lipah Beach, Bali, April 14^th

I have just gotten back from 7 weeks on the North Island of New Zealand and it seems as good an excuse as any to finally restart my travel blog, which has been inactive for most of the past year.  There will be more blog posts to come, on the New Zealand trip, other travels over the past year, and upcoming plans.  I haven’t been completely inactive on the writing front; I’ve just been diverting my scribbling energies into writing a book based on my Silk Road cycle ride, and haven’t been doing enough new travels to divert me from that task.

I've created a Google Map of this section of the trip that you might want to open in another browser tab by clicking here.

One of the Muriwai gannets in flight

I set off from Bali on February 13^th to join Terri, who had set off a week earlier than me to catch up with her family.  It had been 26 years since my only previous trip to the country, and that had concentrated mainly on the South Island.  This time Terri and I decided to restrict ourselves to the North Island, both to see the attractions of this part of the country in greater detail, and to visit members of Terri’s large family and her sprawling network of friends.  We rented a small car, filled it with camping gear and set off from Auckland airport in high spirits.

We started off with a night in Auckland, visiting Terri’s cousin Jocelyn and her husband Bob.  We had a wonderful dinner and a quick spin around the bays around their house after I spent a few hours catching up on the sleep I hadn’t had on the flight over.  

A view of the wild west coast beaches of Muriwai

The next day we headed through Auckland and out west, across the Waitakere mountains to the wild black sand beaches of the West Coast.  We started with a visit to the clifftop colony of Australasian gannets at the small town of Muriwai.  I loved the energy of the pounding surf against the steep rock ramparts and the swirling aerobatics of the birds, which reminded me of birdwatching in the Falkland Islands back in 2015.  Then we drove north to the small town of Piha and spent a few hours hiking north on a good trail through the coastal bush to deserted beaches before heading back to the car.  It was my first time to really pay attention to New Zealand’s birdlife, and as I leafed through the pages of our newly-purchased bird guide, I realized that in comparison to most other countries, New Zealand has a very restricted number of bird species, and the most commonly seen are species from Europe or Australia such as sparrows, mynas, starlings and blackbirds that were deliberately introduced to the country by early European settlers.  These introduced bird species, and even more the land mammals such as stoats, rats, mice, hedgehogs, possums, cats, goats and deer that the settlers released into the wild, have had a catastrophic effect on the NZ ecosystem, driving many endemic bird species to the brink of extinction or over it. 

The view back down to Piha

The deserted beaches south of Karekare

We spent the night camped in a Department of Conservation (DoC) campsite full of large kereru pigeons, an endemic species.  We awoke to find the tent fly dripping with condensation from the heavy dew that we experienced every time we camped.  We spent the day on an even prettier hike, this time south of the village of Karekare, under steep volcanic cliffs and through extensive sand dunes, then through a fern-filled marshland on a new boardwalk and up onto a forested ridge providing spectacular views of the wild beaches.  The dunes were full of small ponds full of waterfowl, and the path was in wonderful condition, a contrast to Terri’s memories of muddy DoC trails from her youth.  We came back to the car smiling from 4 hours enjoyably spent, then drove north towards the dairy farm that Terri’s daughter Selena and her husband Michael run near the town of Wellsford.  We ended up camping in a free campsite nearby on the edge of a big inlet.

Terri and 4 of her 5 GKs

We spent the next day with Selena, Michael and their five young children, getting a tour of the farm and feasting on waffles cooked up by the oldest children.  In the late afternoon we said our goodbyes and drove off to our first AirBnB of the trip, a room in a house near the Dome Mountains owned by a Russian couple.  The setting was very peaceful and rural and we had a fun walk around the surrounding countryside before cooking up dinner.

The next day we had a double-header of pretty hikes.  We started out with a climb up to the summit of the Dome, a couple of hundred metres above the road, through a well-signposted forest that taught me the names of a number of the characteristic New Zealand native trees.  We saw our first tui of the trip jumping around in the forest canopy while emitting an impressive array of squawks, squeaks and parrot-like vocalizations.  We were to find that the unmistakeable voice of the tui is one of the most distinctive sounds of any NZ bushwalk.  From the top of the hike we had a clear view down over the main road and across the peaks of the Northland region, and were excited to realize that we were walking along a stretch of the Te Araraoa, the 3000-kilometre-long hiking trail that runs the entire length of New Zealand; we would encounter it several more times in the course of our travels.

Looking down onto the beach at Mangawhai Heads

Terri on the Mangawhai Heads trail

We had lunch, then drove north and east for our second walk of the day, the spectacular cliff-top trail at Mangawhai Heads.  It was one of the scenic highlights of the entire trip, a new walkway that clings atop precipitous cliffs over the east coast beach at Mangawhai before dropping down onto the beach for a scramble across the rocks onto the main beach of Mangawhai.  It may have been the single most impressive coastal panorama of our 7 weeks, and we both fell in love with the laid-back feel of the small town of Mangawhai.  We came back to the car and raced off north, past other pretty beach towns, to the city of Whangarei where we stayed with my old friend Eileen and her family on a wonderful sprawling property just outside town, had a big barbecue and soaked in their Jacuzzi staring up at the southern stars late into the night.

Reunited half a lifetime later with Eileen

Looking down from Bream Heads

We went off the next day for another hike, this time at Bream Heads, an hour east of the city.  It was a much higher, steeper and muddier track than at Mangawhai, but sweeping views provided ample reward for the additional effort required.  We retreated to Whangarei and another night at Eileen’s.  She and I hadn’t seen each other for 22 years, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

Terri and her niece Amy

Team Hundertwasser in Whangarei

The funky public toilets of Kawakawa

From there we were headed north, as far north as you can get in New Zealand without needing a boat, to Cape Reinga.  On the way out of town we stopped in to see the new downtown of Whangarei, neatly gentrified with cafes and a big sailing harbour, where a proposed museum for the artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser is about to be built, after a quarter century of stops, starts and arguments.  Eileen has been involved over the last few years in these efforts.  We also caught up with Terri’s niece Amy, recently moved to Whangarei.  The drive north was a long one, through intermittent heavy rain from a passing cyclone, Gita, which meant that the Bay of Islands, a famous scenic highlight, ended up being scratched from our itinerary.  One place that we did visit were the quirky Hundertwasser Public Toilets in Kawakawa, surely the most beautiful public toilets in the world.  We ended up stopping for the night at another AirBnB run by an energetic Filipina woman on a dairy farm an hour’s drive south of the Cape, where we repacked for a two-day hike, leaving behind some valuables that Terri was concerned about having in our car overnight.

Terri with the Cape Reinga lighthouse behind

Me looking down on Te Warahi Beach

Our overnight trek south from Cape Reinga ended up being one of our favourite parts of the entire New Zealand trip.  We drove north, leaving our car at a little campground and catching a very expensive lift to the end of the road.  The cyclone had passed and the weather was sunny and clear.  The views were incredible, over an ocean boiling with massive swells that were crashing into high cliffs.  We shouldered our packs and set off from the Cape Reinga lighthouse, headed south along the first section of the Te Araroa trail.  The trail alternated between clifftop and beach sections, and the first beach section, dropping onto Te Warahi Beach, featured a rather dicey descent where a rapidly rising tide almost swept Terri away.  Once we were safely onto the sand, the walk along the wild, windswept dunes was exhilarating, and we were lucky to spot a blue penguin, the smallest penguin species in the world, standing on the beach, looking so bedraggled and bemused that we wondered if he was lost or disoriented.  A couple more beaches along, we found our DoC campground, the Twilight campsite, situated atop another bluff with breathtaking views over the pounding ocean.  It has recently been upgraded, with new toilets, a cooking shelter and a solar-powered water pump, and we had the place entirely to ourselves.  Grilling steaks and sipping a lovely NZ merlot, we spent a memorable evening.  Terri channeled her inner muse to come up with a short poem about the penguin:

Poor little pengy washed ashore

A more forlorn thing I never saw

Battered by Gita's cyclone roar

Stranded alone forever more.

Looking back north to Cape Maria van Dieman

Sunset over Twilight Beach

A New Zealand pipit seen near Twilight Beach

Our first view of Ninety Mile Beach

The next day we hiked further south, over more headlands and then down onto Ninety Mile Beach (it should really be called 85 Kilometre Beach; there’s a bit of hyperbole in the name), a huge length of undeveloped sand that ran south to the horizon.  We marched along it for a couple of hours, past hundreds of gulls and oystercatchers, before turning inland along the Te Paki stream.  We had to walk up the riverbed, often through the shallow stream, flanked by huge sand dunes.  Eventually we came to a roadhead where we stuck out our thumbs and got a lift back to our car with a young South Korean woman who was on a working holiday visa, a very popular way to see New Zealand.  We packed up the car and drove south, stopping to explore the Karikari Peninsula which Terri had heard good things about.  We eventually camped in another DoC campsite on the peninsula, an idyllic spot next to yet another beautiful beach.

Pied stilts on Ninety Mile Beach

To you it's a river, to the DoC it's a hiking trail.  Te Paki Stream

The dunes across the inlet from Opononi

From there we continued south, past the Bay of Islands, where I got third time lucky on the weather.  Despite its fame as a beauty spot, neither Terri nor I were very impressed with the place, as it’s awash in overseas tourists and very overdeveloped compared to the beautiful places we had seen further north.  Having ticked that box, we drove south along the west coast, past Maori villages, wilderness, the spectacular beach town of Opononi and eventually the kauri forests.  We stopped at Tane Mahuta, the largest surviving kauri tree, for photos.  Kauri are an iconic species of the New Zealand native bush, but between rampant logging in the 1800s and 1900s and an outbreak of a fungal disease, kauri dieback, the future of these forest giants looks a bit grim.  We camped for the night in Trounson Kauri Forest, an example of a “mainland island” pest-free wildlife sanctuary.  We spotted a rare native bird species (the stitchbird) and heard brown kiwis calling at night, but we had no luck spotting them on a nocturnal ramble through the woods. 

Mighty Tane Mahuta

Some of the big kauris in Trounson

Just before we camped, with the last scrap of phone signal (always an issue in rural New Zealand), I sent off an e-mail to Quality Schools International, a chain of international schools, who had offered me a teaching job for next academic year in Tbilisi, Georgia.  I enjoyed each of the three trips I have undertaken to Georgia over the years, in 2009, 2011 and 2015, and I decided to accept their offer.  I am looking forward to exploring the Caucasus mountains in greater detail, as well as perfecting my Russian language skills and making a start on Georgian.

Patterns in tree bark, Trounson

We awoke on February 24^th to a loud chorus of birdsong emanating from the forest, always a good indication that the efforts to trap and poison the plagues of rats, possums and stoats have yielded good results at Trounson.  We had another walk through the forest in daylight:  it was an enchanting, mystical place dripping with moisture, ferns, moss, fungi and lianas.  We heard kiwis again, and spotted a couple of baby birds hidden inside a decaying tree trunk.  The rest of the day was devoted to driving south through dairy farming country, via a quick social visit with Selena, Michael and their family in Warkworth. 

The beach at Tawharanui

In search of a place to camp for the night, we blundered into another great conservation spot on the Tawharanui Peninsula.  The campground was full, but we took a couple of hours to wander through the replanted native bush in search of rare birds, and were rewarded with encounters with both the pateke duck (the brown teal) and the North Island robin.  The entire peninsula has been fenced off (with the fence extending deep underground) and the introduced pest species have been removed.  This provides a model for the long-term goal of eliminating these species entirely from the entire country by 2050, an objective recently announced by the government.  We took our leave regretfully and ended up camped cheek by jowl with hundreds of other campers in a grim, expensive holiday park in the village of Sandspit.

The kotare, or sacred kingfisher, seen at Tawharanui

The North Island robin, Tawharanui

Sandspit rock formations

Sandspit redeemed itself partially the next morning when we wandered along its beach and found beautiful sandstone formations.  We didn’t linger long, though, as we had an appointment to keep with Terri’s long-time friends Gavin and Michelle.  They live in Algies Bay, just south of Sandspit, and are keen outdoors folks.  One of their favourite pastimes is sea kayaking, and they happened to have a spare tandem kayak for Terri and me.  We loaded up the kayaks and set off after lunch for a brisk 2-hour paddle out to Motuora Island, another predator-free offshore refuge.  It was perfect weather with very little breeze or swell, and we had a wonderful crossing, even spotting 4 more blue penguins swimming in the bay.  We could see all to way to the North Shore of Auckland in one direction and out to Great Barrier Island in the other, a huge marine playground.

Loading up the kayaks in Algies Bay

When we got to the island, we were amazed to find that we were going to have it entirely to ourselves overnight, as the few daytrippers loaded up their boats and headed off in the late afternoon.  We went for an exploratory walk, then settled in for a delicious meal of grilled steaks and couscous.  Once the sun had set, we headed out again for a night walk.  As had been the case in Trounson, we could hear kiwis calling in the darkness, but both Gavin and Michelle said that they had never been lucky enough to see one in the wild.  Fortune was smiling on us, however.  We spotted a couple of moreporks, a delightfully named native owl that are more frequently heard than seen.  We turned back towards the campsite, having given up on kiwis, when suddenly there was a crashing in the bushes and a brown kiwi came tearing out onto the path.  He took one look at us and our lights, turned tail and was safely back in the undergrowth within a few seconds, but it was long enough to get a good look at him.  We were elated as we trooped back to our tents.

Fearless adventurers about to embark

The paddle back to the mainland the next day was a bit harder, as a brisk breeze had sprung up overnight, kicking up a noticeable swell.  We took a different route back, ending up in an estuary in which a tall ship, the Spirit of New Zealand (used for school groups) was moored.  We paddled right underneath her, feeling dwarfed in our kayaks.  The trip finished with a shuttle of kayaks back to Algies Bay and a great meal with Gavin, Michelle and their newly-arrived niece and nephew-in-law from Australia.  I really enjoyed sea kayaking, as it’s something I’ve never really done, at least not overnight.  It’s a different way of seeing the world, and allows access to very different places than you can get to by hiking or cycling while still getting lots of exercise.

Overall, our 13 days in the area north of Auckland were a major highlight of our New Zealand experience, jam-packed with activities, spectacular scenery and memorable wildlife encounters.  It was almost sad to head south on February 27^th, passing through Auckland on our way down the east coast of the North Island, which will be the subject of the next blog post.  I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip, dear readers.  You might also want to cast a quick eye over a Google Map of our trip, found here.

Terri and I in paddling action

Stanley's Travels in Review: Top 13 Camping Spots in Southern Africa

Thunder Bay, April 20

When you're on a long overland trip, camping out of your vehicle, at first you don't pay as much attention to where you're camping as you do to what you see during the day, but over time you start to appreciate the finer points of a campsite that make it just right.  After all, you end up spending a lot of time in and around your campsite, so it's always a bonus if it's a memorably beautiful spot with a great sunset, splendid views, a roaring campfire, a feeling of isolation and no noisy neighbours.  Looking back on Stanley's Travels, I realize that it wasn't until about halfway through the trip that we really started to appreciate some of the incredible places that we got to park Stanley.  I think that on our next loop through Africa, we will try to arrange the trip to spend as much time as possible in beautiful places in the middle of nowhere, enjoying the surroundings, eating well and having sundowners and crackling fires.

I was going to make this a top 10 list, but as I went through the preliminary list, I got to the point where I didn't want to cut out any of these great places to camp, so I made it a baker's dozen of great places to camp instead.

1.  Nsobe Camp, Bangweulu Wetlands--Zambia

In the shade of our own termite mound on the edge of the plains

Cycling through the lechwe herds

Pancakes cooking on an open fire

This inexpensive, isolated campsite was absolutely perfect for us.  After a long, tough slog along a rough track to get there, Nsobe was a wonderful refuge.  On the edge of a huge grassland plain, a number of isolated campsites are each tucked into the shade of a couple of trees growing out of the top of a giant termite mound, the only shelter for miles.  It's pitch-black at night, making for great stargazing, and the staff bring firewood and heat water for showers.  The sites are far enough apart that you're barely aware of other people, while in July, when we were there, distant grass fires make for dramatic sunsets and flickering firelight at night.  You feel as though you're alone in the middle of nowhere, with thousands of black lechwe antelope and thousands of smaller grassland birds all around.  Just 8 km away is the ranger station at Chikuni, where you set off on foot to look for rare shoebills in the papyrus swamps, while wattled and crowned cranes dot the grasslands nearby. It a wonderful place to stay, and it's hard to tear yourself away once you've arrived.

A perfect place to camp!

Smoke-enhanced sunset

2.  Wild Campsite #2, Damaraland--Namibia

Location, location, location

Hardy desert trees

We camped wild a few times in Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, but we really should have done it more often. Damaraland, the strip of semi-desert (karoo) inland from the Skeleton Coast, was perfect for just pulling off the track and finding a spot to set up for the night.  When we return for more adventures in Stanley, Damaraland will likely be the first place we head.  This particular campsite, just off a very rough 4WD track that we followed from Brandberg West to Twyfelfontein, was wonderful.  We stopped atop a small rise that gave sweeping views over the surrounding desert plains.  We were surrounded by rare prehistoric-looking welwitschia plants, and when we walked along the nearby dry riverbed we saw lots of droppings and footprints of desert-dwelling black rhinos, although we didn't spot the animals themselves.  There was a sense of complete middle-of-nowhere-ness that was exactly what we wanted.  Although we weren't that far off the track, there is only about one vehicle a day using that track, and we saw no other humans for a day and a half.  Sitting around a flickering campfire watching satellites and meteors moving across the Milky Way was an unforgettable experience.

Late afternoon light on the nearby hills

3.  Ngepi Camp, Campsite #22--Namibia

Another perfect view over the Kavango River

Great road sign

This was a place that we loved so much the first time that we came back again a second time.  The Kavango River in the Caprivi Strip of northeastern Namibia is an idyllic place to sit back and watch the river flow, maybe with a fishing line in the river or with a birdwatching guidebook in your lap. There are a lot of campsites along the river, both on the Namibian and the Botswanan side of the border, and I'm sure a lot of them are fairly similar in terms of views, isolation and beauty, but Ngepi really won a special place in our hearts.  The people that run the place are exceptionally friendly, funny and efficient, and the hilarious signs all around the camp are worth searching out.  The particular campsite that we took the second time we stayed there, #22, is the furthest from the main lodge and as a result is the quietest and most isolated.  You hear hippos grunting and splashing in the river nearby (and out on the grass at night, once you're in bed), and elephants and leopards calling from across the river in the national park.  The firepits are well-made, and the views out over the Kavango are fabulous.  The entire property is a birdwatcher's dream, with dozens of species skulking in the bush or splashing around in the river.  The campsites are pretty widely separated, particularly as you get towards #22, and the overland trucks which are the mainstay of Ngepi's business model are all housed at the other end of the camp, so that you barely notice their presence.  It was such a peaceful, beautiful, restful place that we chose it for our last destination of the trip in March, 2017. I'm sure we'll be back again in the future!

Note:  Since my camera gear had been stolen by this point, the photos here come from other sources: one from Alli's Excellent Adventures, and the other from Angel and Quail on Trail.

4.  Kapishya Hot Springs--Zambia

Hot spring perfection!

This is another oasis in the wilds of northern Zambia that was hard to tear ourselves away from.  We stayed there for three nights and could easily have stayed longer.  The big attraction is, of course, the hot springs, a big rustic pool with hot water bubbling up through the sandy bottom.  We spent hours relaxing there under the forest canopy, watching kingfishers darting along the river.  The grounds make for great birdwatching, and there is lovely walking to be done in the bush that surrounds the lodge.  The campsite is quite removed from the lodge and wasn't at all busy when we were there, so we felt more or less on our own.  Great views out over the river, lots of firewood to stoke up a campfire, and a feeling of peace and tranquility that is very seductive.

It was impossible to drag Terri out of the water!

5.  Kori Campsite #3, CKGR--Botswana

A rather comical slender mongoose

Birds lured in by our portable bird watertrough

The southern parks in Botswana (the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) are amazing places and not much visited compared to the parks in the north of the country.  The Botswana DWNP have done a great job of providing a relatively small number of very isolated rustic campsites (the only facilities are a firepit and a long-drop toilet) out in the middle of nowhere, with no fences separating you from the animals.  Kori Campsite, in the Deception Valley, was absolutely perfect; with the nearest campsite at least half a kilometre away, you're not really aware of other people.  There's plenty of game around, just over the track in the grasslands of a nearby pan:  big kori bustards and secretarybirds, playful bat-eared foxes and jackals, lots of springbok and gemsbok.  Right in the campsite there are slender mongooses and plenty of birdlife, including playful yellow-billed hornbills.  It really feels like being a San hunter-gatherer as you sit around your flickering campfire under the stars, listening to the yips of jackals and hyenas in the night.  Most of the campsites in the CKGR and the Botswanan side of the KTP are similar, and it's worth putting in the effort ahead of time to try to book these sites for some unforgettable nights out in these arid Edens.

Terri loving our pre-dinner stroll across the grasslands

6.  Pomene Lodge Campground--Mozambique

Setting up camp

Flamingoes in the lagoon

Perfect view out towards the beach

We had heard of Pomene for years before our trip, as it was the subject of a nature documentary that we saw on TV when we were living in Switzerland.  We were almost talked out of going there by travellers who said that it wasn't worth the long sandy drive, but we decided in the end to go.  We were very glad that we went, as it was a superb place.  Out at the end of a 60-kilometre sand track that needed our tires deflated almost to zero, Pomene Lodge is located at the end of a sandy spit lying between the Indian Ocean on one side and a beautiful lagoon on the other.  Our campsite looked out towards the ocean, out of which we watched a full moon rise, and a brief stroll brought us out to a perfect sunset-viewing spot looking west over the lagoon.  There were hardly any other campers around, and it was quiet, peaceful and very beautiful.  Every morning women from the local village would walk by with fresh fruit (including amazing passion fruit), bread and fish for us to buy.  We rented sea kayaks from the lodge and had a wonderful paddle across the lagoon and up a forest-lined river.  There was great birdwatching, with flamingoes in the lagoon, and we spotted dolphins frolicking in the lagoon mouth a couple of times.  A long but beautiful hike down the beach gets you to the old ruined Portuguese-era hotel at the point, and (more to the point) the amazing blowholes.  Well worth the trudge.  All in all, it was a very elemental, naturally stunning setting, and we would gladly have spent more time camped at Pomene if we hadn't run out of money (they only take cash at the lodge).  

Ho hum; another perfect sunset

7.  Leeupan Bush Camp--South Africa

Nice setting for Stanley 

Sociable weaver nest complex

This place occupies a special place in our hearts.  We first heard of it in October from a fellow camper in Upington, Northern Cape, South Africa.  We had passed it by as we left Botswana and entered South Africa, and we were too lazy to drive back north to visit it.  It remained on our mental radar, though, and when we beat a retreat from persistent rainy weather in January, we took a detour into the middle of nowhere specifically to camp at Leeupan, and ended up staying three wonderful nights.

Leeupan is located close to the Botswana border, not far from the village of Van Zylsrus, right in the heart of the South African section of the Kalahari.  The landscape consists of a series of red sand dunes running parallel to each other, covered with typical African bush vegetation.  The campsite is on the other side of the main gravel road from the Leeupan farm, and so it's very, very quiet.  There are some basic facilities (flush toilets, showers), but the main appeal is the isolation, the wildlife and the stars at night.  When we were there it was pretty hot during the day, and Terri escaped from the heat by soaking in the "swimming pool", which was really the water reservoir but which served the purpose of cooling us off.  The sunsets were spectacular, and there was plenty of firewood around to stoke up a decent-sized blaze every night.  The evening temperatures dropped to a very pleasant cool, and we sat out every night beside the fire watching for satellites passing overhead and for eyes glinting in the night on the ground, as nocturnal grazers (mostly springbok, but also a springhaas) came in for water at the little drinking trough that the owners have set up.  It was a perfect temperature to sleep at night with our roof hatch open, letting the stars and the moon bathe our faces with a faint glow.

Ooh La La cooling her belly

There were lots of leopard tortoises and birds to be seen, including a very impressive sociable weaver nest complex, but the unique feature of Leeupan that had us driving a couple of hundred kilometres out of our way is that it's next to the Kalahari Meerkat Project property.  These are the meerkats featured in the nature documentary series Meerkat Manor, and Leeupan was the only place that we saw these ridiculously cute social mongooses in the wild. We talked to Lorraine, the very friendly owner, and told her that we were eager to see meerkats.  She talked to her farm workers, and they indicated the vague area that they had last seen the meerkats.  We went for a stroll in the late afternoon and suddenly there were a dozen meerkats under the leadership of the indomitable Ooh La Laa scuttling around energetically, frantically digging into the sand in search of scorpions and crickets to eat.  We stood and watched them for a good long while until one of the Kalahari Meerkat Project volunteers came around to do her evening behavioural observations and we had to leave.  It was a special encounter and was the icing on the cake of a beautiful camping spot.

We love meerkats!

8.  Bruintjieskraal Campsite #12, Baviaanskloof--South Africa

Not a bad place to park

We stayed here for only one night, as we were in a hurry to escape rain and get up towards the Kalahari and Namibia.  It was, however, an incredibly beautiful isolated campsite with a swimming hole and fishing spot right next to the vehicle.  There is a covered private kitchen area that would be useful when the weather is poor, and an excellent private ablution block.  There are a number of campsites spread along the length of the river, but #12 is by far the largest and most isolated; we couldn't hear or see any of the other guests in this popular weekend retreat from Port Elizabeth.  The scenery is very pretty, as the campsite is set in a narrow gorge (a kloof, in Afrikaans; hence the name). It's also a good base for hiking and mountain biking.  It's certainly a place that we would go back to if we found ourselves in that corner of South Africa again.

Morning view from our campsite

9.  Pontoon Camp, Kasanka National Park--Zambia

The campsite attendants stoking up our fires

We were out of cooking gas, so we used the open fire

Pontoon Camp is a beautiful spot in lovely Kasanka National Park.  It's right on the edge of a marsh lined with dense papyrus reeds, into and out of which slip the normally shy sitatunga which are the most aquatic of the antelope family.  Every morning and evening they would make an appearance, coming out onto the grass to graze.  There were lots of waterbirds as well, particularly the coppery-tailed coucal and the African jacana.  The campsite is in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and there are only 3 spots, each with its own showers and toilets and fire pits, widely enough spaced that you don't really notice your neighbours.  It's very quiet and the night is full of owls, bats and spiders whose eyes sparkle in your flashlight beam.  The campground has a couple of attendants who kindle fires, heat the water for showers and generally take care of you hand and foot.  Highly recommended.

Sitatunga buck

10.  Otjiwa Lodge, (Campsite #10)--Namibia

Simple, clean and rustic--the way we like it!

This was another place we liked so much that we came back a second time.  It's only about 2 hours north of Windhoek, and we stayed here a couple of times when returning to the city.  Otjiwa is a private game reserve with a fancy lodge but also 10 well-maintained campsites.  We stayed both times in campsite 10, the one furthest from the lodge and other campers, and it was magical.  There's great bush for walking, lots of birds and a feeling that you're much further away from civilization than you really are.  Both nights we stayed here we had great braais (barbecues) over the campfire and sat out under the stars in perfect contentment.  We don't have any photos that I took here, so I lifted a couple of photos from the Otjiwa website and from madbookings.com

Very secluded campsites nestled in the bush

11.  Khami Ruins Campsite--Zimbabwe

Lovely location under the trees

We stayed here almost by accident.  We had planned to visit Khami, some of the most atmospheric historical ruins in Africa, but when we got there, we saw what looked like a perfect place to camp at a little picnic site.  We asked at the site office and it turned out it was set up for camping, despite the lack of a sign.  It turned out to be a wonderful spot, very atmospheric, under the canopy of some towering trees.  I love camping at historic spots, and we were right between two sets of stone ruins.  We climbed up the hill to one set of ruins to watch a full moon rise, and it was absolutely breathtaking.  

Sunset serenade atop the ruins

12.  Elephant Sands--Botswana

The cottages have a great view over the waterhole

Up close and personal

We ended up spending only one night here, blundering in after dark, guided by our GPS to the nearest campground.  It turned out to be a serendipitous jackpot of a choice.  The campground is very atmospheric, popular with overland groups.  It's built around a big waterhole popular with elephants who wander in at all hours, day and night, to have a drink.  The elephants wander right between the vehicles and tents and buildings and seem completely unconcerned about humans being present.  The bar/restaurant area is a perfect place to sit and watch the elephants drinking, wallowing in mud and doing pachyderm stuff.  It would be great to go back there and spend a couple of days just hanging out with the elephants.

13.  Chelinda Campsite, Nyika Plateau--Malawi

Sitting around our campfire

Terri trying to charm the passing elands into posing for a photo

This remote campsite, high up (almost 2000 metres above sea level) is in a very pretty area. The campsites each have a roofed structure to spread out in on rainy days, and have fabulous views out over the plateau.  Eland, bushbuck, reedbuck, zebra and roan antelope all wander by the campsite, and the bushbuck were right beside Stanley when we woke up.  The campsite staff light campfires before dawn and before sunset, and they're necessary to take the edge off the mountain chill.  Lovely hiking and cycling around the campsite, with lots of animals to see, particularly herds of roan, the loveliest of antelope.

Bushbuck in our campsite

I think the remoteness and wilderness in a country like Malawi where overpopulation presses against you more visibly than in the rest of southern Africa is a welcome relief.  As well the mix of cold and wildlife is unusual for most of Africa and is something special.  I am a big fan of the Nyika Plateau.

Elands passing by the campsite