Underway: Sprinting through the Kalahari

 

Departure from Cape Town (at long last!)

Drifters Camp, Maun, Botswana

Terri and I are relaxing here in rather idyllic conditions, in an overlander camp right on the banks of the Boteti River, full of birdsong and flowers and peace and quiet. It's a great place to take a couple of days off from travelling and recharge physically after setting a fairly gruelling pace for the first week of our expedition, which we have christened Stanley's Travels: the CEC Expedition, where CEC stands for Cape Town-Europe-Cape Town, our intended overall route.

The call of the open road!

Camping in Brandvlei

After a few days of last-minute preparation, repairs and shopping (including having a small incipient crack in our chassis welded), we set off from our little guest house in Kuilsrivier (another suburb of Cape Town, where we had been staying since our return from Hermanus on Sept. 28) on the morning of Sunday, October 2nd. We were both anxious to get moving after spending too much time (and money) waiting in Cape Town for things to get done. It was exciting to load everything into Stanley, lock the hatches and drive off (via one last stop at Cape Gate shopping mall, where we had spent a lot of time over the previous two weeks, to exchange some cables and a hard drive which weren't the right thing). It was a long drive north through increasingly arid landscape and then up and over the steep Van Rhyn pass to get into the Karoo, the interior plateau that makes up so much of the land mass of South Africa. We drove along, past rocky outcrops and clusters of purple wildflowers and big nests built by crows atop telephone poles, through a landscape increasingly devoid of human settlement, to the tiny, dusty one-horse town of Brandvlei, where we found a small campground at the Halfpad tourist house, popped up Stanley's roof and slept in him for the first time in over four years. It felt unspeakably good finally to be underway on our trip after four years of planning and waiting, and three weeks in Cape Town. We cooked up some boerewors on a charcoal fire, and went to bed happy after our first 550 kilometres.

A purple carpet for the Karoo

The purple flowers that lined our route

Khi Solar One power plant, Upington

We woke up refreshed and ready to continue our dash north. We headed up through Kalahari landscape, with more vast emptiness punctuated by sudden splashes of colour from wildflowers. The previous day's crow's nests atop telephone poles were replaced by enormous nest complexes woven by sociable weavers which almost enveloped entire poles, occasionally toppling them over from the sheer weight of twigs. We eventually dropped into the valley of the Orange River and made our way through irrigated vineyards (a shocking contrast to the drab colours of the Kalahari) into the town of Upington, where we had spent a few days back in 2016. We marvelled again at the Death Star-like solar plant Khi Solar One on the outskirts of town. We did some last-minute shopping and I made a vain attempt to convert some Swiss francs into US dollars before giving up and driving off. We drove past a series of pans, including one used for setting land speed records, then passed a series of parallel red sand dunes before making our way into Kalahari Trails, where a meerkat sanctuary helps to rehabilitate former pets back into life in the wild. No sooner had we arrived than a wild group of meerkats, including an enormously pregnant matriarch, showed up and looked photogenic for us. We set up camp and settled in for three days in this idyllic spot.

Sociable weaver nests

Return to the Kalahari!

Meerkat family at Kalahari Trails

The first day there we walked (and jogged) around the property, climbing dunes and then dropping down into the flat land between. There are no lions or hyenas on the property, so we weren't worried about unfortunate predator encounters, but we did see springbok and gemsbok (oryx) grazing or bounding away through the veldt. In the afternoon Mareli, the resident guide and meerkat whisperer, took us to see the group of young rehab animals who were hanging out at one of the other campsites on the property. We spent a happy hour taking photos, watching the meerkats scurry around and dig for scorpions, and even picking them up (they're very habituated to people, from being former pets and from being handled by Mareli). Meerkats are incredibly charismatic creatures, perhaps partly because they seem so humanoid when they stand on their hind legs to look around. It was an unforgettable afternoon, followed by a stunning sunset over the dunes.

Typical meerkat pose

Mareli uses hands-free mode

Terri and Fleur the meerkat

You lookin' at me?

Gemsbok

On October 5th we got up at an ungodly hour, pulled down Stanley's roof and set off for a day of game spotting in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. We pulled up at the park gate at 6 am to find that the gate only opened at 7, so we sat and read until the staff drove up, processed us and let us into the park. We set off immediately up the dry Nossob River in search of the lions and cheetahs we had seen before back in 2017. We weren't so lucky this day, but at least we spotted lots of wildebeest, springbok, ostrich and gemsbok. After a brunch stop beside the road, and then a nap back at Twee Rivieren gate, we set off again in the late afternoon.We were rewarded for persistence when we saw meerkats in the wild for the first time; Terri spotted two separate groups and we sat and watched their amusing antics until it was time to drive back to Kalahari Trails, tired but happy after a day watching some of Nature's most interesting creatures.

Colour in the desert

Eurasian hobby

Pale chanting goshawk

Wildebeest

Secretarybird bestriding the grasslands

Springbok

Two lappet-faced and three white-backed vultures

October 6th saw us crossing the first border of the trip, between South Africa and Botswana at Bokspits. We made a classic rookie error by not checking the border customs requirements of Botswana, which forbids the import of raw meat and some fruits and vegetables. Luckily the customs officers let us lightly cook our sausage and bacon in our frying pan so that it no longer qualified as raw, before letting us go. We drove off shaking our heads at making such an elementary error. The road on the Botswana side was perfectly smooth and utterly empty as we paralleled the border all the way to the town of Tsabong, where we found a place to camp at the Tsabong Camel Park after two abortive attempts to get to a different campground that ended up being closed and derelict.

Tire pressure lowered to increase tire footprint in soft sand

Our resident leopard tortoise

The following morning we went out for a long walk around the property to stretch our legs after long hours of driving. Then we set off towards the Botswanan side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the Mabuasehube sector. It was a grim slog, with the track in much worse shape than we remembered it from 2016. We deflated our tires for better buoyancy in the sand, changed into low-range four-wheel-drive and Terri drove on, grinding grimly along through soft sand drifts for hours until we finally emerged at the Mabuasehube gate of the KTP. We didn't have reservations, but were hoping to strike it lucky. When we entered the park gate complex, we found nobody at the desk, but eventually a disheveled-looking ranger emerged to let us know that we could camp at Lesholoago Pan for one night and then at Manamodi Pan for a second night. He also warned us that wildfires were raging in the bush. We drove off towards Lesholoago and soon saw what he meant; around us most of the bush was charred black, with some stumps still smouldering. It was an apocalyptic landscape, and one almost entirely bereft of game, except for a few hardy steenbok who were pawing at the blackened grass. We got to Lesholoago and set up camp. It was a lovely spot overlooking the pan, but all around us had been burnt, and it felt ominous. 

Lesholoago sunset

We had company in the camp: two cheeky ground squirrels, a gaggle of spurfowl, a leopard tortoise sheltering in the latrine building, and a black-backed jackal with sore legs, possibly the result of burning his feet on the hot coals of the ashy veldt. The campsite had a desolate air of decay and neglect, a strong contrast to what we had seen in 2016. We had a wonderful steak dinner grilled over charcoal (our own, not the remnants of the park vegetation!) and sat out watching the sunset and the stars.

Forlorn footsore jackal

Hyena

October 8th was a long, hard day. We got up very early, pulled down Stanley's roof, packed up rapidly and were driving by 5:45 in search of game. For several hours we drove along park tracks (thankfully hard-packed enough that Terri could drive them in two-wheel-drive) through a post-apocalyptic grayscale of burnt grass and shrubs. There was almost no game, other than a few hardy steenbok. Eventually we made our way to Mpayathutlwa Pan, the only pan in the area that had so far escaped the fire, and found plenty of game out on the pan, including a magnificent male lion that we saw from a great distance through binoculars. We took some photos, then pushed on to Manamodi Pan, where we had a campsite booked for our second night. There was a spotted hyena at the waterhole, but the campsite was strange, lacking a toilet and looking utterly neglected. The winds were howling, covering us with ash and soot as we stopped to cook up a late breakfast. It was an utterly unappealing spot to spend the night, especially as it seemed likely that the fires were going to return. We made the decision to cut our losses and head out of the park to Jack's Pan, a place we had failed to reach back in 2016 thanks to some poor navigating by me.

Steenbok

We drove back to the park gate, finding it utterly deserted this time, adding to our conviction that morale and professionalism in the park staff was at a low ebb. We ground our way along the park boundary along a mildly better sand track, then turned onto a cut line headed towards Jack's Pan. Terri made good time (in two-wheel-drive) until we were within sight of the turnoff to Jack's Pan, when we suddenly encountered a fast-moving wall of flame that had Terri turning around in a hurry. We gave up on Jack's Pan and drove back along the track, then another 100 km of tough sand driving to reach pavement near Hukuntsi. There we refilled our tires using our portable compressor and I took over at the wheel from a rather tired Terri, who had been driving for nearly 10 hours. We were relieved to get to Kang and comfortable roadside campsite. The Botswanan side of the Kgalagadi had been disappointing and exhausting! 

The following day Terri was content to play passenger for most of the day as I drove us 580 km north along perfect tarmac to Maun, and then another 30 alarming kilometres in the dark to reach Drifters, an oasis and a balm to the soul after the scorched hellscape of the previous few days. We spent the first evening catching up with Heike and Oskar, a German couple we had met in Cape Town, and then spent yesterday and today editing photos and videos, doing workouts, eating well and watching the prodigious birdlife flitting amongst the trees. We had one of the best sunsets either of us had ever seen last night, and we are hoping for a repeat performance tonight.

After covering 2700 kilometres in eight days, we are planning to adopt a much more leisurely pace over the coming month or so, starting with a visit to the emptiness of the Makgadigadi Pans over the next few days (wildfires permitting). Travelling is great, but it's usually the time spent not driving that is the most memorable!

Almost Ready to Hit the Road!

Kuilsrivier, Cape Town, September 28

A Cape dwarf chameleon found living in a tree at African Overlanders

It's 8:30 pm and we're installed in our new home for the next four nights, a small guesthouse in the Cape Town suburbs. We are much closer to departing on our around-Africa adventure than we were two weeks ago; when we check out of this guesthouse on Sunday, we should be ready to start driving north towards Botswana.

My former physics student Michelle and her fiance Carl

Five new Goodyear Wranglers to carry Stanley north

When I last updated the blog, I was in a holding pattern, waiting for Terri to arrive, and waiting for our car to come back from the garage with a new differential. Terri arrived on time on Friday, September 16th, but our bakkie (as a pickup truck is called here in South Africa) did not arrive that Friday as originally promised. We waited, waited some more, did some video editing for our new YouTube channel, sorted through photos, got our Carnet de Passage en Douanes from the South African AA, and did a lot of reading, drinking tea and braaing (grilling) delicious steaks, boerewors sausages and sosaties (meat skewers). We also got to reunite with my former student Michelle to whom I taught physics in Switzerland 12 years ago, and who now lives and works in Cape Town; it was great to get away from African Overlanders and into the genteel surroundings of a Stellenbosch winery!

Stanley put back together again at DB Custom Welding

We ended up waiting an entire week longer than initially promised, until finally, late on the afternoon of Friday, September 23rd, we got Stanley back. It was a frustrating wait, but at least he came back in working order. We immediately raced out and got new tires installed (most of ours were pretty shredded!) and then, only a day and a half later, we handed over the vehicle again, this time to Dewald, an aluminum welder who repaired, strengthened and re-seated the camper canopy back in the loadbed of the truck. On Monday of this week (only two short days ago!) we finally got the vehicle back, its two halves reunited into one whole unit. An hour and a half of frantic wiring by Danie, the mechanic at African Overlanders, and we finally had a working camper.

Terri on top of the huge map of Africa at Cape Agulhas

Most of the gear that will get carted around in the camper is locked into a container at African Overlanders, as we were under instructions from our differential guys not to overstrain the new differential for its first few hundred kilometers. We packed a minimal kit into the camper yesterday morning and set off for Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point on the African continent. It was a longish drive (about three hours), good for testing out the diff, the engine and the general operational readiness of our setup. Stanley passed the test with flying colours, and we got to Agulhas happy with Stanley's performance.

Straddling two oceans at Cape Agulhas

Yesterday was a perfect day in terms of weather, and Agulhas looked stunning, with sunshine glinting on the big breakers crashing onto the shore. Big kelp forests bobbed in the water, streaming through the swell of the waves, while cormorants and gulls sat on the limestone rocks that studded the shoreline. There was a well-conceived monument to Africa's southernmost point, in the shape of a 16-metre-long concrete map of the continent, with a few big landmarks like Kilimanaro, the Zambezi, the Nile and the Atlas Mountains standing out. We wandered across the monument, visualizing our own upcoming journey, then drove a bit further along the coast to a picturesque shipwreck just offshore. It was a really beautiful spot, and put us in a good mood after too many days spent waiting for our vehicle.

That evening we drove partway back to Cape Town and slept in the beautiful tourist town of Hermanus. The town of Agulhas looked wealthy, with plenty of grand houses, but Hermanus looked even more well-to-do, with grand houses lining the clifftops that wouldn't have been out of place in wealthy New Zealand or Australian beach communities. Both towns run on tourism, both domestic and international, and also seem to attract well-off retirees from all over South Africa. They are also visibly less worried about crime than a city like Cape Town, with far fewer razor-wire-topped walls and security gates to be seen.

Sunset over Hermanus

The clifflined shore of Hermanus

This morning we walked along the cliff-top walkways that encircle the bay in Hermanus, past the hundreds of species of endemic plantlife that make the Cape Town coast one of the most biodiverse places of earth, particularly in terms of botany. There were a couple of dozen of species in bloom, and I took lots of photos of colourful flowers, as well as cute and cuddly rock hyraxes (dassies) who were soaking up the sun and munching on the vegetation. This was, however, only a sideshow; the main event was taking place out in the waters of the bay, where a couple of dozen Southern right whales were swimming along lazily, surfacing frequently, turning sideways to stick fins out of the water, blowing spouts of water into the air, and generally making great photographic subjects. It was really very pretty, and made for a memorable walk.

Thar she blows!

A pair of Southern right whales

A somnolent rock hyrax

Kelp forest

Then, after a luxurious seafood lunch on the shore, gazing out at the whales, it was time to head back to Cape Town. We still have a few things to do before leaving town: a small crack in Stanley's chassis needs to be welded, we have to get his steering tightened up, we have new stickers for his side hatch to be applied to smarten up his rather road-worn appearance, and we need to get all of our gear safely squared away inside the camper for transport, plus our diff guy wants to have one final once-over on the diff to make sure there are no unexpected problems in the future.

By Sunday we hope to be northbound, headed towards the Kalahari and wildlife. This two-day interlude in Agulhas and Hermanus has reminded us how much more we prefer beautiful open spaces and wildlife to the humdrum existence in big cities like Cape Town. We look forward to even more wide open vistas and more wonders of the natural world as we make our way north into Botswana and Zambia!

Me and Stanley at Cape Agulhas; it's all northbound from here!

Slowly Getting Underway

 African Overlanders, Stellenbosch Farms

My little rondavel

I have now been here at the venerable overlanding institution of African Overlanders on the outskirts of Cape Town for a week, staying in a rondavel, the small, round thatch-roofed huts typical of southern Africa while Stanley is repaired and improved. Terri arrives tomorrow morning on a flight from Switzerland and by the middle of next week, we should be moving, although I'm reluctant to commit to that as delays are almost inevitable.

It has been a busy week. I arrived on Thursday and staggered around in a jet-lagged fog, looking at Stanley (I last laid eyes on him in July of 2018, when we put him into storage here) until I fell into bed. 

First view of Stanley

Our battered hatch-cover stickers

Friday was spent getting Stanley's engine serviced: all the fluids and filters got changed, new (and expensive!) glow plugs were installed (only 1 of the 4 old ones were in operating condition!), new brake pads and rear shocks were installed, and Danie, the mechanic here, had a good look over the entire undercarriage.

Getting a throrough once-over

Danie at work on the shocks

The camper half of Stanley hanging forlornly

On Saturday we winched the aluminum camping canopy out of the bed of the truck so that it could be repaired and re-seated. It blew sideways and backwards in early 2017 in a huge gust of wind (we had our canopy deployed, and it caught and amplified the force of the wind), and as a result it was no longer seated in the proper position. This put a lot of strain on the 4 bolts that held the camper in place, and they slowly bent and pulled out of position. In turn the camper canopy itself deformed and buckled in places. It really got bad during our 2018 trip around northern Namibia, so we decided that it was time to get it seen to. It was a very strange experience to have the canopy sitting on a trailer in the workshop here, with the pickup truck looking small and very naked, with the rear end sloping upwards since there was no longer the weight of the camper and its contents to compress the burly leaf springs on the rear wheels.

Some bucked and cracked aluminum and a useless bolt

My first-ever view of the bed of the pickup truck

Sunday being a day on which nothing is open in South Africa, we resumed operations on Monday by dropping off the pickup truck at a gearbox and differential specialist. During his inspection under the vehicle, and while test driving Stanley, Danie had noticed that the prop shaft underneath the vehicle seemed loose, and that there was a definite "clunk" at times as the vehicle was put into gear. Then when he looked at the oil that he drained out of the differential, he saw the glint of small bits of metal, meaning that something metallic was grinding itself into nothingness inside. We dropped off the truck and they diagnosed that a new differential was going to be needed, as well as a re-balancing of the prop shaft. It's a relatively expensive procedure, but necessary to keep the vehicle a going concern; the mechanics figured that sometime in the next 5000 km the entire differential would have ceased working, and it's definitely better to have it diagnosed and fixed here rather than, say, in the middle of the Kalahari Desert in Botswana!

Later on Monday a specialist aluminum welder came to African Overlanders, but decided that he couldn't really do the job properly on site. Instead on Tuesday we rented a big trailer, transferred the camper insert onto it and drove it to the welder's workshop. It was supposed to be done by tomorrow, but I've just had a call saying that it can't be finished until next Tuesday for reasons unknown.

Trundling off to the welding shop

Tomorrow (Friday), the pickup truck is supposed to be released from the differential workshop, so at least we will have transport, although we won't be able to put the canopy back on the truck until Tuesday. Then there will be lots of reconnecting wires and making sure everything is in working order. On Monday we will put on an entire set of new tires (including the spare), as the tires we have on there now have been sitting for 4 years and are dry and cracked. 

On the paperwork front, we have gotten ourselves a Carnet de Passage en Douanes (a CPD or carnet), an expensive piece of paper that is essentially a passport for the vehicle, guaranteeing that if we drive it into another country, we will drive it out again and not try to sell it in the country. It involves putting down a really large deposit (in our case nearly US$9000!) that will sit in a bank account here in South Africa and which will be released once we return the carnet, properly stamped for its entries and exits, to the Automobile Association of South Africa. It's a bit nerve-wracking, because essentially it means that we can't have Stanley break down in (say) Kenya so completely that he can't be revived. Stanley needs to be kept running long enough to make it back to South Africa, and that's always a bit of a risky bet. 

Terri transferred the money to the AA yesterday, and today we got word that the carnet has been processed and is about to be sent here by courier. This is the first time that we've needed a carnet; on our two previous iterations of Stanley's Travels, we only ventured as far north as Zambia, and since we have South African license plates on the car, we didn't need a carnet (unlike overlanders with European-registered vehicles, who require a carnet for most border crossings). Apparently Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt are the four countries for which we most need a carnet, and we're hoping to hit all of them on this trip.

I've been messing around with video editing software lately, trying to get proficient enough that we can start putting out YouTube videos. I'm not sure we're going to become YouTube stars like the travellers that Terri follows, but it will be a new way to share the experience of overlanding, to go with our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter presences.

We're hoping to make it through Botswana and up to Livingstone, Zambia by late October to catch up on the goings-on at Olive Tree Learning Centre, the community elementary school that Terri has been funding, running and growing since 2007. Then our schedule is pretty open and flexible; we would like to spend a lot of time in Uganda, as well as poking around Rwanda and Burundi. We're not sure how long we'll spend in Tanzania and Kenya, as almost everything we're interested in (national parks, hiking, camping) is quite expensive, priced for wealthy Europeans and Americans who fly in for a couple of weeks. Then comes the more difficult part of the trip, as we're not sure that Ethiopia and Sudan will have their borders open for overlanders, as both countries are undergoing military and political turmoil. As I said, we will need to have a very flexible schedule, in case we need to turn around and drive back south from Kenya.

Tuesday was my birthday; I turned 54 and I keep shaking my head in wonder that I have somehow gotten so old without really growing up. I definitely feel my body more than I once did (my knees and elbows in particular), so I figure that's a signal that we need to get these big adventures underway sooner rather than later.

At any rate, it feels good to be back on the continent of Africa where Terri and I have built up such great memories. We will keep you posted on how things develop from here!

My morning view of iconic Table Mountain