Wednesday
24th
July
In spite of Khwai
Development Trust more than doubling their campsite prices (to about £45 for a
night with absolutely no facilities/service provided) as of the
22nd, we decided to
continue with our plan to go there, but not to stay for any great length of
time. The
campsite was recommended for game-viewing by Ade and Darin, whom we met last
year at Drotsky’s. It’s 120km from Maun, but we knew that some of the road would
be difficult. The night before, we let the tyre pressures down for travelling
off-tar, so we were limited to only 70kph – oh, that’s our normal top speed! In
the end it took us almost seven hours to make the trip. The first 40km or so was
tar, no problem. Then we got onto the gravel road, which also had a lot of sand
– quite a variable surface in fact, requiring a lot of concentration from the
driver and only 40kph top speed. We saw little animal life until we were much
nearer to the Khwai River: then we saw a group of elephant, followed later by
another really lovely group crossing the road in front of us. We stopped to give
them some space and also so that we could enjoy watching them. The road got
worse. Actually it was pretty hard going even for the passenger, being joggled
around for hours on end. My stomach was getting very knotted up. Eventually we
saw the sign for the campsite and turned in that direction, but soon we noticed
that a bakkie was following us. We stopped and he drew level with us, looking
not very friendly, with dark glasses and no smile or greeting – very unusual for
Botswana, as far as our experience goes. He informed us that we would have to go
to the village, a further 18km through some pretty deep stretches of sand, to
make a booking. This was the opposite of what the Khwai office in Maun had told
us, but we turned around feeling really fed up. In fact we were ready to stay
somewhere else and not give the KDT any of our hard-earned at all. We thought
we’d see if there was any space at Khwai North Gate campsite inside the Moremi
Reserve, so when we got to the village we drove through it - but didn’t get far,
as the bridge into the park could only take 5 tonnes. It was a pole bridge and
the old broken one was clearly visible - we didn’t feel like chancing it. A
ranger from the park came over to chat to Barney while I popped in the back to
get us some bread and cheese – it turns out that the old bridge collapsed under
a truck.... There was nothing for it; we would have to stay at the KDT site
after all. In the village we easily found their office and spoke to Johnson, who
was also puzzled about the enormous price increase – apparently the managers had
given no adequate explanation even to their own colleagues. He was actually
quite keen to call his manager and let us have our say there and then – but it
was already after 3pm and we needed to get sorted before dark. So back along the
very difficult road and we took a different turnoff to the campsite. The sand
road led towards the river and then through bushes and trees along the river
bank, where we could see that each campsite was occupied, most of them by what
appeared to be tour groups. Luckily the very last one was empty and we
gratefully parked up and got the kettle on!
Barney started a fire while I started
chopping vegetables, feeling a bit weird to be doing such a mundane task with a
big herd of impala a quarter of a mile away and a huge herd of buffalo a little
further away on two sides of us. Also various game-drive vehicles kept going by
with groups of tourists and we were beginning to feel as if we were part of
their spectacle. After a while we noticed that people in two of the cars weren’t
looking at the buffalo, but in quite another direction. Also the buffalo in the
river had suddenly all dashed out and returned to the main herd. We got our
binoculars out and saw that there were seven lions not far away directly
opposite us on the other side of the river. Suddenly cooking outdoors seemed
like less of a good idea. We got in the cab to watch them instead. It wasn’t
long before tour guides started parking their vehicles right in front of us, so
we clambered up onto our private game-viewing platform (the roof), where we
could see over everyone else’s heads. We watched the seven lions gradually
becoming more active, having a few mock-tussles and waking each other up. They
moved bit by bit across our view towards the river. It seemed that they were
going to cross the river somewhere and start to hunt. It was really quite
something to see them apparently psyching themselves up for the hunt. Once the
sun went down and the light started to go we fairly quickly got ourselves and
our vegetables indoors. Being the lions’ dinner was not in our
plan!
Tonight we’re listening to the sounds of
Africa outside – hyenas calling, hippos grunting, buffalos snorting and frogs
croaking – brilliant!
24th
July
In spite of Khwai
Development Trust more than doubling their campsite prices (to about £45 for a
night with absolutely no facilities/service provided) as of the
22nd, we decided to
continue with our plan to go there, but not to stay for any great length of
time. The
campsite was recommended for game-viewing by Ade and Darin, whom we met last
year at Drotsky’s. It’s 120km from Maun, but we knew that some of the road would
be difficult. The night before, we let the tyre pressures down for travelling
off-tar, so we were limited to only 70kph – oh, that’s our normal top speed! In
the end it took us almost seven hours to make the trip. The first 40km or so was
tar, no problem. Then we got onto the gravel road, which also had a lot of sand
– quite a variable surface in fact, requiring a lot of concentration from the
driver and only 40kph top speed. We saw little animal life until we were much
nearer to the Khwai River: then we saw a group of elephant, followed later by
another really lovely group crossing the road in front of us. We stopped to give
them some space and also so that we could enjoy watching them. The road got
worse. Actually it was pretty hard going even for the passenger, being joggled
around for hours on end. My stomach was getting very knotted up. Eventually we
saw the sign for the campsite and turned in that direction, but soon we noticed
that a bakkie was following us. We stopped and he drew level with us, looking
not very friendly, with dark glasses and no smile or greeting – very unusual for
Botswana, as far as our experience goes. He informed us that we would have to go
to the village, a further 18km through some pretty deep stretches of sand, to
make a booking. This was the opposite of what the Khwai office in Maun had told
us, but we turned around feeling really fed up. In fact we were ready to stay
somewhere else and not give the KDT any of our hard-earned at all. We thought
we’d see if there was any space at Khwai North Gate campsite inside the Moremi
Reserve, so when we got to the village we drove through it - but didn’t get far,
as the bridge into the park could only take 5 tonnes. It was a pole bridge and
the old broken one was clearly visible - we didn’t feel like chancing it. A
ranger from the park came over to chat to Barney while I popped in the back to
get us some bread and cheese – it turns out that the old bridge collapsed under
a truck.... There was nothing for it; we would have to stay at the KDT site
after all. In the village we easily found their office and spoke to Johnson, who
was also puzzled about the enormous price increase – apparently the managers had
given no adequate explanation even to their own colleagues. He was actually
quite keen to call his manager and let us have our say there and then – but it
was already after 3pm and we needed to get sorted before dark. So back along the
very difficult road and we took a different turnoff to the campsite. The sand
road led towards the river and then through bushes and trees along the river
bank, where we could see that each campsite was occupied, most of them by what
appeared to be tour groups. Luckily the very last one was empty and we
gratefully parked up and got the kettle on!
Barney started a fire while I started
chopping vegetables, feeling a bit weird to be doing such a mundane task with a
big herd of impala a quarter of a mile away and a huge herd of buffalo a little
further away on two sides of us. Also various game-drive vehicles kept going by
with groups of tourists and we were beginning to feel as if we were part of
their spectacle. After a while we noticed that people in two of the cars weren’t
looking at the buffalo, but in quite another direction. Also the buffalo in the
river had suddenly all dashed out and returned to the main herd. We got our
binoculars out and saw that there were seven lions not far away directly
opposite us on the other side of the river. Suddenly cooking outdoors seemed
like less of a good idea. We got in the cab to watch them instead. It wasn’t
long before tour guides started parking their vehicles right in front of us, so
we clambered up onto our private game-viewing platform (the roof), where we
could see over everyone else’s heads. We watched the seven lions gradually
becoming more active, having a few mock-tussles and waking each other up. They
moved bit by bit across our view towards the river. It seemed that they were
going to cross the river somewhere and start to hunt. It was really quite
something to see them apparently psyching themselves up for the hunt. Once the
sun went down and the light started to go we fairly quickly got ourselves and
our vegetables indoors. Being the lions’ dinner was not in our
plan!
Tonight we’re listening to the sounds of
Africa outside – hyenas calling, hippos grunting, buffalos snorting and frogs
croaking – brilliant!