CKGR – Stuck In Low Gear

The Khumaga Ferry and Makgadikgadi National Park

Andrew — Thu, 10 May 2018 10:26:00 +0000

Sunday Pan, Central Kalahari Game Reserve to Makgadikgadi National park.

We left our camp at Sunday pan around 0630 for a leisurely drive out the park, game viewing on the way with not too much distance to cover to get to the Khumaga campsite in Makgadikgadi National Park.

The drive out was uneventful, but also I should mention that after leaving Deception valley and heading for Matswere gate and Rakops the road becomes endlessly undulating and monotonous. Of course it was the same as the way in, but guess the novelty of arrival made us take less notice. I suppose we have been spoiled by the variation and beauty of the tracks along the pans in the park.

We made our way to Rakops and again they had fuel for us, saving us a ~60km backtrack to Mopipi. A few other travelers arrived all at the same time, but it seemed there was plenty of diesel to go around. We ended up averaging 5.2 km/ltr in the reserve, not great. But fully burdened and in sand and four wheel drive I suppose one shouldn’t expect much better. For comparison we’ve been averaging around 6.5km/ltr or even a bit better while on tar and some good gravel roads. I expect if we didn’t have the drag of all the crap on the roof or we drove a bit slower we’d beat 7km/ltr without too much trouble, but for now that remains elusive.

We didn’t rush in Rakops, and bought some produce (oranges, tomato and rape greens) and generally checked around for what town had to offer should we need to provision more in the future. Certainly the stores were not stocked with premium goods but, rice, flour, maize, curry powder (important!), peanut butter, various sauces, canned fish and meat, oil, coffee, tea, cleaning supplies, bottled water, beans and more were all available.

I also found Rakops interesting for it’s sophistication, but I suspect that those who have been there may laugh at that word. On the surface Rakops is a dusty town with a mix of dirt and paved roads, little in urban planning in evidence and with cement buildings and traditional rondoval style bomas spread all over. It was windy and clouds of dust were blowing through the air, adding to a sort of backwater feel. Looking past that and we saw people on their smart phones checking the news and in the stores, though they may have partially bare shelves, they took credit cards and had computer based scanning and inventory just like a store you’d find at home. We saw an “Emergency Evacuation Meeting Point” sign and other indicators that this is a perfectly well organized place. On top of that people were all courteous and friendly to us, and as far as we could tell there was no price gouging even though we were clearly foreigners. This is the sort of thing I like when I look around, and the sort of thing I think some might assume Africa doesn’t have. So though things might be a little rough around the edges in parts, but if you look past the surface generally things are pretty together.

Not too far up the A13 tar road (1.5 hrs?) we turned off to the village of Khumaga and made our way the Boteti River and the ferry. The ferry is a modest craft, a small steel barge big enough for one of us and maybe a trailer or two small cars. It had two 10 hp outboard motors (one of which was a “Parsun” – never heard of one, but it was a four stroke), one on each end, and it facilitates the crossing of an equally modest river, maybe 50 meters across.

The road down to the ferry is deep sand, and there are donkeys and cows and shit all over the sand road to the ferry. And there was no ferry operator. We inquired with a woman siting in the shade of a tree on the bank of the river and she said the ferry operator was at lunch and would be back.

While waiting we did consider driving across. A cow was kind enough to make the crossing while we were watching and the water came up to it’s shoulder briefly, so about the height of the hood for us, but mostly would be wheel high or so. We have a snorkel, it’s a land cruiser, what’s the problem?

That is quite a deep water crossing, and one is always advised to check the crossing by walking it, not only to verify the depth but also to feel the bottom for traction. How firm is it? And to walk it we’d clearly be walking in a almost still river full of cow excrement. On top of that I don’t think I could handle the indignity (idiocy?) of getting the vehicle stuck in a water crossing while there is a perfectly good ferry 10 meters away. So, as I’m sure many other proud drivers of sturdy 4x4s, we meekly, and maybe wisely, waited for the ferryman.

After a lot of waiting (and me desperate to use the head) the ferry operators, two of them, finally arrived, possibly a little drunk. After an overly dramatic salute to Jenny that they were reporting for duty they hopped to it and we were across in no time. It was almost too fast, the ferry being hardly bigger than the land cruiser and listing quite a bit when Jenny drove aboard. It was a lot of fun. After the two minute crossing we splashed down the ramp and were across into the park.

We were camped at the Khumaga Campsite about 2km from the gate, but in retrospect I wish we had tried one of the more remote camps deeper into the park. The Khumaga campsite (we were in No. 3) was perfectly fine, but after the isolation of the CKGR it was quite different to be close enough to see your neighbors. The Khumaga campsite is run by a 3rd party operator, and as I understand it the camps deeper in the park are run by the Botswana Parks, so are booked differently and are less expensive.

However, there were showers! The ablutions (this is a feature of every South African/self drive safari report, the quality of the ablutions is always detailed. I will endeavor to follow suit, though maybe with less consistency) were impeccable. First, they had water, which is great. The CKGR is a long drop toilet or nothing, i.e. shovel, depending on your campsite. Here there was running water and solar hot water, so…hot water! There is no water available in the CKGR and we were uncertain what our consumption would be, so to play it safe we had only taken one very modest “shower” in that six days. So feeling a bit ripe we had luxurious hot showers, and only one insect came to shower with me, not bad for the bush.

Later on I used the toilet, and incongruously there was a motion activated soap dispenser in there. This stuck me as hilarious. There was a sign on the door that said “Keep door closed or snakes, insects and monkeys will enter” and already the the power had gone out while I was showering, monkeys had snuck into our food stores and we had just been looking at elephants and yet here was a motion activated soap dispenser. I hate those things, but unlike the ones you find in airport bathrooms this one actually worked, so that was nice. Africa is a funny place.

That night while cooking dinner we heard lions again. In case you’re wondering it didn’t produce the same result as last time. Maybe they were too far away? Regardless, now that we are “veterans of the bush” we responded somewhat differently. I said “I’m going to do some Lion Prep.” And Jenny responded “Cool, dinner is almost ready, can you pour me a glass of wine?” Lion prep consists of making sure the vehicle doors are unlocked, in case we need to rapidly alight to the safety of the cruiser, but also putting my book, camera, drinking water and a pee bottle up in the tent, in case we’re stranded by lions in the tent for some time. This is unlikely, but after reading a report of some people being stuck in their tent all day because a lion had decided to camp out right near the ladder of the tent a few minutes of preparation seemed appropriate.

I don’t think this blaséness is as foolish as it sounds. Lions are not common, it’s not like raccoons getting in your trash (that’s baboons and monkeys) and it seems that at night they often announce their presence while calling each other. Of course we must be cautious, but lion attacks are uncommon and particularly in a tightly grouped campsite the odds are in our favor.

The next day we went on morning and evening game drives. In this park we were advised that the game was all concentrated along the river, so that is were we focused our efforts. We managed a water crossing, but not too dramatic, maybe the height of the rims or maybe the tires at most. Still, fun times. The river valley was beautiful, and we were treated to a spectacular sunset with some big bull elephants that arrived almost as if directed and posed for the sunset. Staying along the river bank we unfortunately didn’t make it to the Makgadikgadi plains and salt pans proper, so we did miss out on this. I would like to check out the other camp sites and the salt pans on a future trip.

The drives in the river valleys had deep sand, and once or twice we did use low range to ensure a smooth passage across a few sections or up from the river onto the ridge road. We saw lots of elephant, giraffe, kudu, impala and a few hippos. Also a huge amount of birds, if only we knew what they were!

The Makgadikgadi proved a great stop, and after two nights we were on to Nxai Pan (pronoucned “Nai”, as we gather anyway). In the future I think I’d spend an extra day here to explore inland, but the staff seemed to think this was unnecessary, and probably they know that is best as far as game. We elected to drive to Nxai Pan out through the park instead of going back across the ferry. On our way out we had a brief sighting of 2 cheetah crossing the road, but they hung back about 100 meters in the bush and we lost sight of them. Onward to Nxai Pan.

CKGR and the Game Drive

Andrew — Wed, 09 May 2018 10:57:00 +0000

We spent five nights in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Each day was filled with a similar routine, the game drive. Rise before dawn for an early morning drive, take a midday break for lunch and a few chores or reading and then head out for an evening game drive.

The primary activity of any safari is the game drive. This is normally undertaken in the early hours of the day or the late afternoon, when animals are most active and you have the best chance of seeing game, and hopefully predators on the hunt. Occasionally we talk ourselves into maximizing game viewing with an all day game drive, but after the day heats up, the wind dies and the game becomes sedate while conserving energy in the heat of the sun this usually results in road weariness and some “Why are we doing this?” irritability sometime after lunch.

In the CKGR game is more sparse than in other parks, but so are people and so though sightings are less frequent they are often made alone. This makes each sighting something to savor and quite special.

For us we try, and emphasis on try, to be on the road before sunrise. Sunrise now is about 0640, so we’ve been aiming, without success, to get on the road about 0615. But usually we’re not too far after this.

Jenny does not like to get up in the morning, and it becomes a tug of war between our very cozy tent and her bladder. When it is dark and cold outside it is doubly hard to coax her out of the tent. But the potential of sighting lions and other wildlife is much better in the early morning. So usually I get up and start the kettle, and when I am making tea or coffee Jenny gets up and and on her way out of the tent prepares it for folding up.

One positive of the roof top tent is that you don’t need to take all the bedding out when you put it away, but of course you do need to fold it up every time you drive off, and so our bedding must be folded just so to make the tent collapse and fold cleanly. About a half hour after I get up we’ll have the tent packaged up, coffee and tea made and have the land cruiser started and we’ll be shortly on our way.

Then the drive begins. And a game drive is sort of an odd exercise in fatalism, luck and vigilance. Of course we have no idea where the wildlife might be, and inevitably you must pick almost immediately from leaving your campsite, left or right? North or South? One direction could be a cheetah kill, the other maybe just a lazy kudu munching grass in the distance, and you have no idea when you make your choice. If you arrive at a pan or a water hole should you wait to see what shows up, or should you keep going? We must surrender yourself to chance, we just don’t get to know, But of course everyone else is in the same predicament, and in a relatively empty park like this it means that often when passing one of the half dozen cars you see in a day that you’ll each slow and roll down your window and chat about what you have seen, or haven’t.

We found that on more than one occasion we were giving tips to professional safari guides on where we had sighted predators, when normally they would have the home court advantage. But with such a large park (over 50,000 sq km) even the pros have to cast around to find game to make their clients happy.

Click to view slideshow.

Over those days we saw the usual suspects, drought resistant oryx (gemsbok), springbok, black backed jackal, bat eared foxes, large herds of giraffe (25 in one group), hartebeest, wildebeest and ostrich. A few kudu, some small “boks” (klipsringer, dik dik, steenbok? I don’t know how to tell them apart). A lone warthog. Numerous birds of prey, as well as the usual kori bustards and secretary birds.

Predators are all over the CKGR, but still their territory is wide and sightings are not guaranteed. On the first full day we had no cat sightings, though there was a report of a cheetah two camp sights away that came to investigate their site for 20 minutes or so.

On the second day we saw two cheetah hunting giraffe, much larger prey than they would normally go after, but there was a calf (foal?) with them, so perhaps the two of them would go after it? In that case an annoying safari guide got too close and ruined the hunt.

The next day we saw three cheetah, but from very far away. After a failed hunting attempt on some oryx we were able to watch them from a great distance, but they never came close to the road. This is also a inevitability of game driving, the action may not be accessible to you. Offroad driving is not permitted, so you must stick to the two spoor tracks. And of course the cheetah, or whomever, do not always have the courtesy to hunt by the road. But the roads are through the pans, and the pans are where the prey species are, so it is not as improbable as it may sound.

Later that same day we came across a pride of 10 lions in the last hour of daylight and it was magnificent to watch them making their way across the pan. With all the eagle eyed spotting and searching we practice none of that was required for this sighting, Jenny just said “Lions” and there they were, less than 100 meters off the road. We watch them till sunset, and when we left them, in the usual way of any cat, they had plopped down for a break with no apparent haste to get on to anything else.

On the morning of our last full day in the CKGR our alarm went off at 5:30 AM to wake us for our regular early morning drive. Just a minute later we heard a lion’s roar. It’s hard to say how far, we’re certainly not veterans of the bush and sound carries well in the silence, but it seemed much louder than what we heard on the first night. Later we read in our guidebook that the call of a lion can carry five miles, but this one seemed much much closer.

In the moment hearing the roar of a lion was certainly a fast way to wake up. Instantly our senses were heightened, straining to hear another roar. We were no longer at our customary position at the top of the food chain, and it was exciting to think that we might find lions at first light, or even they might walk through our camp while we were in the tent.

We heard them again, closer again this time, and were now unsure what to do. It was loud, they were close, and it certainly imprudent to proceed with our customary routine of getting up and making coffee and tea and folding up to tent. So we waited.

It was curious, the anticipation and uncertainty of wondering just where such a powerful animal was in proximity to us. Our pulses picked up a bit, we became quiet, hyper aware of every noise and movement, and there was a sense of anticipation and uncertainty and a tiny bit of fear. I have read many accounts of time spent in the wild in Africa, stories of camps in the bush and lions in their midst, but what no one has mentioned is how this feeling is similar to arousal. There is the same wondering of what will happen next, the heightened awareness and excitement and anticipation. Leaving the tent seemed unwise, and unburdened of the need to get up so early we followed our, uh, instincts, and waited for the next roar.

Not long after we heard the lion again, this time closer still, but looking out in the low light we couldn’t see anything. We congratulated ourselves on not trying to break camp earlier and waited again. At about 6:20 the lion’s call faded a bit and we decided to break camp as fast as possible.

In less than 10 minutes the tent was stowed and we were in the safety of the vehicle and on the road, looking for a morning lion sighting. We found tracks on the road, less than a 100 yards from our camp.

Conveniently the lion had walked in the road and left tracks that even our modest tracking skills could read, so we followed him west about 5 kilometers, periodically stopping to check the tracks and in the end found a large lone male sleeping in the road. So I guess we didn’t really need our superior tracking skills in the end, but it was really great to see who was responsible for what we had heard in camp.

He ended up not being very active, moving from the sun in the road to the shade of a bush, but we were every close and all alone with the lion.

It was a great start to the day, and we proceeded to drive a long circuit through the park to our final camp, Sunday No. 3, at Sunday Pan. The park from west of our Letiahau camp to the Passarge watering hole didn’t seem as interesting to to us, but the Passarge Valley was amazing. In the future we hope to camp closer so we can experience the Passarge area in the early morning or late evening, but for the time being we were satisfied with our drive to see what the park had to offer.

We did see some people flaunting the rules, camping in undesignated spaces, driving off road and harassing animals, and camping in sites without reservations. We really hope that this sort of behavior doesn’t ruin things for others in the long term. We didn’t see a single park ranger or staff member in six days in the park and there is minimal infrastructure. This is how we prefer it, but certainly the only way a park can survive like this is if individuals act responsibly so as to not spoil it for all.

In the end we were very impressed with the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and look forward to coming back. It is spectacularly isolated and remote, and with the lack of crowds and having wildlife that feels truly wild we were deeply impressed with our visit.

Click to view slideshow.

Deep Into the Isolation of the Kalahari

Andrew — Tue, 08 May 2018 05:11:00 +0000

396kms, 8hrs 15min total travel time

To the Central Kalahari Game Reserve

We were late arriving at the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR). Tracks4Africa (T4A) estimated our travel time at 5 hrs, but for us, naturally, it took us over eight, thought that was including stops. We made a strategic error with not stocking up on fire wood at Khama, hoping for better quality wood at our fuel stop in either at Mopipi or Rakops, and wasted quite a bit of time searching around for it.

We fueled up in Mopipi to full capacity, our 130 liter main tank and two 20 liter jerry cans. This should give us a total range of around a 1000kms, but of course using 4×4 and the deep sand we would encounter in the park would cut into that substantially. We were able to top off at the final town before turning into the park, Rakops, the little we’d used to travel from Mopipi so as to enter the park as full as possible. Rakops is reportedly out of fuel quite often, so we didn’t rely on them having supply. We met others in the park that failed to get fuel there.

We found things are quite different in central Botswana rather than the southern parts we had driven through thus far. Gone were the shopping complexes and SuperSpar groceries. Instead Mopipi and Rakops are dusty towns with few shops and mostly bare shelves. And no firewood. After a lot of hunting one shopkeeper looked at me quizzically and said “Buy firewood? No one buys firewood, you can just go collect it for free. Why would you pay money for something that is free?” He took a moment to complain about the elephants causing damage to his farm, but went on to explain that the elephants have knocked down the trees for us, so dried firewood will be easily available on the road towards the park. “Just watch out for scorpions when collecting wood.” Noted.

Just as we were driving out of Rakops we saw a few bundles of firewood alongside the road. We pulled over and a guy came jogging out to make the sale. Though collection of scorpion infested firewood had a certain attraction, we decided, in the interest of time, to just buy what we needed and be on our way.

Side bar, for the uninitiated, Tracks4Africa is a South African company that makes maps for 4×4 and overland travel in Africa. They have detailed paper maps and digital maps you can load into your gps that are verified by user data submission. This means that travel times are actually based on real travel times, as opposed to google maps more optimistic times, and this helps account for the less than perfect road conditions common across Africa. Our experience is that T4A travel times are pretty accurate, but of course they cannot account for driving style, seasonal road conditions and who knows what else.

The Cruiser was deeply laden and looking a bit low on the waterline, with us now at our maximum load, full of extra fuel, firewood, provisions and beer. We aired down the tires for maximum traction and drove gently to take it easy on the suspension and headed into the park on a sandy dirt road. It was 78 kms to our campsite from where we turned off the tar. Our progress along the road into the park proved that we were unable to maintain the 40 kph T4A was estimating and we watched with some trepidation our ETA on the gps tick later and later.

It would be our first camp that was properly in the bush, no fences and completely on our own and we wanted to make camp with some light left. This park has lions, cheetah and leopards, and in an unfenced campsite you must be prepared to retreat to your vehicle or tent if they decide to inspect your site.

Driving in we could see evidence of the rainy season, there were deeply crusted ruts where drivers had clearly struggled in the mud, but now the roads were dry, with occasional braids in the road where drivers had made their way around the worst of the mud pits. We sailed along, albeit slowly, with no trouble and made our way to Matswere gate.

Matswere gate is not like the big park offices at Etosha or Addo, there are no souvenirs or cold beers or last minute chances to buy a memory card for your camera. The park office is basic, with a courteous staff member in an open room and a desk covered in a couple dusty brochures and some well used ledgers. We showed our reservations and she signed us into the park. We looked at the ledger and for the last few days the park had 3-5 cars entering per day, so not exactly busy at the gate.

About a ½ hr into the park we came upon a broken down car blocking the road. We said hello and asked if there was anything we could do. No he replied, the car had a broken ball joint, the front tires were splayed, but calls had been made and parts should be on the way in a couple days. In the mean time he had set up his tent on the side of the road and he would be camped till support arrived. He said he was headed back into the park with diesel and provisions to resupply a safari deeper into the park, but it looked like for now they would have to wait.

The land cruiser managed to drive off road around him without trouble, but it was a good reminder to us of how easy it is to have your plans changed. In the event of breakdown or other trouble, in addition to spare parts and a first aid kit, we have a satellite phone to call for help, so we feel we’re as prepared as we can be.

As the gps told us we’d be later and later we continued on, through scrub acacia and grassland. With about an hour of daylight left the road dropped us onto the pan in Deception Valley. It was a quite a sight to behold.

The light was low and golden and the pan was dotted with feeding antelope, jackal and ostrich. The grass was highlighted in the sun and game silhouetted. It was really stunning and a absolutely fantastic welcome to the Central Kalahari.

The road turns south and becomes the hard crusted surface of the pan and we drove through small herds of game and a few stands of trees all while being thoroughly impressed. We made it to our campsite, Kori No. 1, with about 10 minutes before sunset, just in time.

We weren’t really sure what to expect from wild camping, so we set up camp in haste, figuring it’d be best to have our eyes available as dusk fell, to look out for predators as opposed to messing with the tent. As advised, we set up the camp with as much natural protection as we could. We formed a U shape with a stand of shrubs on one side, the land cruiser at the bottom of the “U” and our camp table opposite the shrubs. With the cruiser at our backs and the fire in front of us we had at least some assurance that nothing was sneaking up directly behind us, and anything taking a direct approach had a fire between us.

The sun was set and as the stars came out we cooked a dinner of peri-peri (chili) marinated chicken over the fire with hobo pack potatoes (potatoes cooked in foil in the fire) an life was very very good.

We felt a spectacular sense of isolation and remoteness here. The closest camp is maybe ½ a kilometer away. The closest town, 78km. There is no man made noise, no light pollution, no sign of people of any kind. The stars were unbelievable, like those I have only ever seen at sea in the mid ocean, but perhaps better than that even. It was easy to forget the road weariness and the distance we are planning to travel, and we just savored the absolute privilege it was to see the open sky and empty Kalahari like this.

While lying in the tent about to go to sleep that night we heard the guttural grunting call of lions communicating with each other. It is pretty special to hear wild lions calling at night while in your unfenced campsite, and though we didn’t hear them again that night we were excited for the next day for what else the Central Kalahari had in store.

Logistical Notes:

Firewood in Rakops was on the right side of the road as you drive into town towards the fuel station when approaching from the south. 25P/bundle, good quality.
Firewood was available at Matswere gate, 20P/bundle, good quality.
We averaged 25kph on our way into the park. Not sure if we’re just slow or the road is normally in better condition, though it’s condition seemed reasonable enough to us. I have a hard time imagining anyone towing a trailer progressing much faster than us.