That was a bit deeper than they thought!

 

12^th May

Gosh, this place is lovely, right in the heart of the National Park; the amount of wildlife visiting this site has been astonishing. 

Several roads throughout the park can be accessed by vehicles other than 4X4’s, so with that in mind, we set off for a few hours exploring on our own.

 

A picnic area was our first stop. Up until then, no animals had been seen, but we were ever hopeful. After a brew and biscuits with just the birds and insects for company, we again continued on our way. 

It was about this time that a message came over our WhatsApp asking for help. Sheila and Steve had somehow got themselves well and truly stuck trying to cross a large pool of water. At first, we were amused, but another message came through saying they were sinking! Oh eck…now that was serious. Luckily, one of our group raised the alarm with Ryan, our mechanic, who, incidentally, was still in bed, that a tow was urgently needed.  We found out later that Ryan had found a ranger with a 4X4 and, with Ryan's tow rope, got to them about 40 minutes later to pull them out. 

Picture courtasy of Andy

Meanwhile, Andy noticed Ian and Vanessa coming up rapidly from behind in their motorhome and tried to stop them doing the same. Deciding to turn around, hadn't checked to see if it was possible, and consequently, he too got stuck! Gosh, talk about an eventful day! Luckily Ryan was still there to help them out too.

As for us, we found a bird hide that overlooked a small dam. Zebras and Kudu came to visit, it was so peaceful we decided to stay a couple of hours and have our lunch just watching the watering hole.

On the way back giraffes were seen really close and one female appeared to have two calves. I have been told this never happens and it could be that the other mother was nearby. 

That night we had another braai. This time by team 3. Fabulous food, including pan-fried wedges, sweet corn, sausages, onions, and side salad. For desert foil wrapped bananas with caramel sauce. yummy.

 

Early stsrt agsin tomorrow, another game drive....yeah. 

 

We cross the border and maybe we should have ignored the sat nav!

 May 11th

Away at 8 am this morning. We had a good 90-minute drive to the Border. The plan was to all follow Kobus, but one of our group had gone earlier to get diesel and was not where Kobus expected them to be. As second in the convoy, Kobus asked if we would take the lead whilst he went to search. 

Following Kobus is like trying to keep up with a Formula 1 racer, so with our more sedate pace of 90kph, the convoy stayed together. Kobus eventually caught us up, overtaking the convoy one by one until he took over the lead again. The speed increased substantially! 

Another agricultural post had to be passed. This time, all our shoes had to be dipped in disinfectant. As we were a convoy, we caused a bit of a hold up!

The border was chaos, lorry after lorry waiting to cross. We motorhomers sailed past them all, parked up and had exit passports stamped for leaving Botswana. Then, another short drive to the entry into South Africa for yet another stamp in our passports, before taking our vehicle across the  Limpopo River and into South Africa.

Border post Botswana side

There had to be one of our gang who got it wrong! Simon thought he could get to the front by bypassing us all on the wrong side, but ended up holding up the lorries coming through the wheel disinfectant bath instead.

Crossing the Limpopo River to the South African side.

And the line of lorries stretched for miles. I'm wondering if some of them are still waiting to get into Botswana 2 weeks later!

From there, another 200km of driving awaited us. We followed the sat nav, our convoy had dispersed after the border. About 33km from the destination, our sat nav told us to turn left. Being ever dutiful, we did as we were told and came to a halt at barriers across the road. It was the National Park rangers checking for any guns, etc. Such a nice chap, but did warn us of 30km of dirt road to get to Bontle camping grounds. We could have continued along the main road instead, but the journey would have taken a lot longer. So ever the adventures, we went for it.

 

OMG...the first 5 km had obviously been flooded at some time, and 4X4's travelling this route had gouged out deep ruts. We managed to stay following the tracks of other vehicles; there was no way we were going to stray off the path! The surface did even out, which made travel easier, but there were still a lot of potholes and cracks to negotiate. 

Very relieved to see this

3 km further and we entered Marakele National Park. Here we stay for 3 nights.  After booking in, another 2 km along another dirt track got us to the campsite. We found a great spot with electric hook up and wow...what should suddenly go behind our motorhome? A female Ostrich! Well we are in the heart of the National Park where the animals are free to roam!

 

And seen on route