Johannesburg to Keetmanshoop

Wednesday 28 August

It’s been a whirlwind 3 weeks back in the UK and we hardly know what’s hit us, but we’ve managed to pack in lots of fun, visits with friends and family and the beautiful wedding of Laura and Nigel.

Our last few days were a madcap rush of trying to get our itinerary/route ironed out, book some key spots and get ourselves suitably (or so we thought) equipped.

We pack some soft holdalls with clothes and head for the airport.  We’ve treated ourselves to a direct flight and boy is it worth it.  The flight is quiet and we can stretch out and get some rest. 

Thursday 29 August

We arrive the next morning to a bright, sunny Jo’burg day.  It’s set to climb to 26 today – not bad for the tail-end of winter.  A taxi is waiting to drive us over to Bushtrackers, where we’re picking up our wheels and accommodation for the next 6 weeks.

We’ve got a fully kitted out Toyota Hilux with a rooftop tent.  It has everything we could possibly need: a fridge that runs off a spare battery, extended fuel tanks giving us a range of about 1000km and various boxes full of kitchenware, bedding and other useful bits.  After a quick crash course on the car we’re good to go.

Our first stop is the supermarket where we fill up our fridge and buy some lunch.  With that, we hit the road.  We never had any intentions of going too far today, as we knew we’d be knackered, but we manage to get ourselves 3 hours up the road to a deserted campsite on the banks of the Barberspun dam.   The facilities are a little neglected and there’s a brisk wind coming off the water, but we’re treated to a beautiful red sunset just as we get our braai fire going and I can’t help getting a shiver of excitement for the road ahead.

Our first attempt at setting up camp goes pretty well:

As soon as the sun is gone the temperature plummets and as there’s not much to do on a campsite in the dark we decide to turn in nice and early.  The bed is fairly comfy and there’s plenty of room, but we do have to snuggle up with plenty of layers to keep out the cold.

Friday 30 August

We’re making our way to the Kalagadi Transfrontier Park.  We won’t get all the way today, so today is just a driving day.  It’s fairly easy going with just the odd patches of road works to slow us down.  As luck would have it, on our first proper day with the car a stray stone hits our windscreen leaving us with a nice, spreading crack.  Still, we’re overnighting in Upington – a decent sized town – so we decide to get it sorted out there before it gives us problems.

We arrive late afternoon and pull into a campsite that’s a little more like the ones I remember from childhood.  The people are friendly, the sites are spacious and the facilities are spotless.  There are some vervet monkeys hanging around, but they must be snobs because they give the campers a wide berth and stick round the chalets.  The mongooses (mongeese?) aren’t so choosy though. 

It’s cold tonight and we huddle round the fire dressed in most of our clothes.  I’m sure it will be cosy in the tent, but it’s not really.  It’s a bit of a wake-up call, but at least we’re finding out early that we’re not all that well equipped after all!

Janet adds: Nick’s key to the toilets snapped off in the door, leaving him trapped in there.  He tried to call me for help, but I’d left my phone in the car.  When I didn’t turn up to rescue him he had to make the awkward scramble out the window.  Oh dear.

Saturday 31 August

It’s not a great night’s sleep for either of us and the morning is still bitingly cold.  We get packed up and drive straight over to PG Glass where we dump off our car.  Whilst we’re waiting for the windscreen to be replaced we hit the shops – stocking up with extra sleeping bags, hats, gloves and thermals.  No doubt tomorrow will bring a heatwave and most things will stay sealed.  On the plus side, the Rand’s recent exchange rate plunge means that everything is nice and cheap!

Freshly stocked up and with a sparkly new windscreen we hit the road again.

It’s late afternoon when we arrive at the Kalagadi Transfrontier Park.  Once we’ve taken care of the practicalities (including border control as we’ll be exiting the park into Namibia) we’ve just got enough time for a quick game drive.

There’s nothing too spectacular on show, but the desert scenery is beautiful in a bleak sort of way.  After an hour or so we head back and make camp.

I’m feeling optimistic tonight: we’re freshly stocked up with warm gear, we’ve got a big bag of firewood and a roaring fire to sit by and there’s the promise of more game viewing tomorrow.

Sunday 1 September

Despite my optimism and despite the fact that it’s officially Spring Day in South Africa today, we froze last night.  I have no idea what the temperature got down to, but at 8 this morning it was reading minus 3 and the water we had in the tent with us froze.  So after yet another miserable night’s sleep I’m up before dawn for a hot shower to warm me through.

I have to cheer up when I’m treated to a beautiful sunrise.  

Once the sun is up the day warms up quickly: rising through the teens to peak briefly at about 20 degrees.

The day is spent on the road, driving from Twee Rivieren Camp where we entered the park to Nossob Camp.    Although we’re optimistic, we still don’t see anything on our wish list (cheetahs, lions, leopards…), but there are plenty of springbok, jackals, ostrich, wildebeest and gemsbok (oryx).

It’s about 3.30 by the time we make our camp.  We decide to give up on the driving for the day and get set up early.  The sun is really blasting now, so we take an hour or so to soak up some rays – I know it’s going to be cold tonight.

There’s a hide in camp and at sundown we take a couple of beers over to see if we get lucky.  Once again the big cats are no where to be seen, but the little dogs make a show.  We’re thoroughly entertained by a few jackals

trying (unsuccessfully) to make a meal of some doves.

Try to spot the jackal

As it gets dark we get the fire going.

Monday 2 September

Last night was cold, but not as cold as it has been, so maybe things are looking up weather wise.  The day certainly heats up quickly – by lunchtime we’re well into the 20s.  It’s another day of game driving today as we make our way over to the Mata Mata border post into Namibia.

Once again the big cats elude us, even though we were woken up a couple of times last night to the sounds of lions roaring (an instant bladder clincher).   We do get lucky and spot some sleeping hyenas underneath a tree.  They don’t seem at all bothered that we’re parked up just meters from them.

The border post closes at 4pm and we’d been told that Namibia is an hour ahead of South African time, so we make sure we’re there nice and early.  In the end, there is no time difference and the border formalities don’t take too long.  We’re safely through into Namibia by 3pm.

I’d thought we might be exiting the park late and, as this is pretty much the middle of nowhere, I’ve booked us a campsite on a farm just 500m over the border.  It’s a bit early to be calling it a day really, but it’s a lovely camping spot with only 2 sites and in the end the idiot-romantic in me can’t resist a night out here.

For the first time the temperature doesn’t plummet at sunset and we have a lovely evening sat around the fire under a heaven of brilliant stars.

Tuesday 3 September

We set off driving along a good gravel road that rolls through red sand dunes: it’s how I’d imagined Namibia in my head, so it’s a good start. 

After a while the dunes flatten out, the red drains away and we drive through stark, flat plains.  It’s not dissimilar to Arizona (apart from the absence of trailers and the odd donkey carriage).   Namibia is a vast country, but sparsely populated.  There’s a very small network of tarred roads, so most of our driving will be done on gravel, salt or sand roads. 

It’s lunchtime when Keetmanshoop appears on the ridge ahead.  It’s the biggest town we’ll see for a few days so we’ve decided to stop overnight here and stock up with supplies.  We drive into town hoping to find a lovely little café for lunch and a convenient internet café to catch up on a few bits.  It’s soon clear that there’s no way that’s happening.  Keetmanshoop is about as far as you can get from a charming little town and it’s even struggling to be functional.  There is a Pick n Pay though, so we decide to park up and get our groceries.  As soon as we park there’s a guy at our window asking for R20 to watch our car (i.e. R20 to not smash our windows while we’re gone).  We’re both caught off guard and just hand over the cash.  The shopping isn’t great but we get what we can.  We’re planning to unload at the car and then hit another few shops, but by the time we get back we have a posse of men ‘guarding’ our car.  Apparently someone with a knife tried to break into our car while we were gone and all these fine gentlemen managed to fight him off…so could be please pay them all some money?  Er, no.  We sod off the rest of our supplies, get back in the car and get the hell out of town.

We’ve decided to camp on a farm about 13km out of town.  It’s a lovely campsite, but there are a few attractions added in as a bonus.  Just up the road is the Giant’s Playground a strange landscape of tumbled, stacked and balanced rocks that stretches just about as far as the eye can see.  We spend a half our getting lost in amongst the rocks.

We head back to set up camp.  When we checked in we were told at reception that they feed their cheetahs at 5pm.  Cheetahs?!  Being fed?!  It’s definitely worth a look, so at 5 we wander over to a fenced in area where two mightily pissed off looking cheetahs are pacing back and forth. 

The farmer hands (yes, hands) each of them a rack of ribs and then invites us into the enclosure with them.  Yipes!  Luckily they’re so occupied with their meat that they couldn’t care less what we do, which means we can even go up for a sneaky stroke.

The farmer explains a bit about cheetahs including the conflicts in the areas between cheetahs and farmers (cheetahs can be like foxes in a henhouse – if they get in they won’t just kill what they need to eat, they’ll kill everything they can find).  I’m not too keen on cheetahs in captivity, but the cheetahs here were captured on nearby farms and have been given 40ha to play in (which has got to be better than a bullet in the head).

Once her belly is full the cheetah starts purring like any housecat.  Although now she’s not distracted by meat, it’s time to get out of there.

As the sun starts to set we explore our last attraction: the quiver tree forest. 

Quiver trees are not real trees, but a type of aloe.  This natural stand of them was declared a national monument 60 odd years ago.  They’re weird, but beautiful in the golden light of sunset.

It’s another beautiful evening around the fire gazing up at the starts.  Even better, we seem to have left the cold weather behind (for now at least) and it’ almost balmy.