APRIL-MAY 2003 TRIP REPORT

MIER, KGALAGADI TRANSFRONTIER PARK, KAA-HUKUNTSI AREA & in betweens

John, Ines, Michelle(6) & Carla(4?) Potgieter

André, Riëtte & Janelle Marais, Pieter

Johann, Elanie, Dean(4), Lanike(2), Madé (8 months) Hugo

Rick & Karen Luyt

Herbert, Ilze, Edward(4) & Nina(2) Smith

 

[The good pics are from Johann’s digital, the bad ones from my mikendruk.]

Friday 25 April

Leave home around 11h00.  The Courier is carrying more than ever before on a trip – 100 litres of water, 200 litres of fuel and supplies for two weeks for a family of 4.  On the way to Vryburg, I do my usual fretting.  This time about the amount of movement of the load bin relative to the cab.  I imagine that with the Load Hog helper springs on the rear shackles and most of the weight to the front of the loading bin, the chassis has additional leverage on the rear shackles causing excessive movement.  Make a couple of phone calls, and am assured that with an estimated load of 500kgs, only half the payload, I needn’t worry.  The chassis will happily keep on flexing till doomsday. Late lunch at The Vryburg Steers, with the kids’ play area a winner.  Ignore the warning about speed trapping at Mothibistad before Kuruman as it was getting dark already, and get caught at 80 in the 60 zone.  Will teach me.  Get to Red Sands well after dark, battling to find the turnoff in the dark.  Order food at the restaurant, pitch the tent with the kids’ help, and back at the restaurant in time for the meal.  Uneventful night, except for a strange leopard-like rasping sound a couple of times.

 

Saturday 26 April

Been ogling the Landy across from us, and realise it’s Jacque and Sam from Overland, on Hennie’s trip.  Walk over to say hello.

Pack up and move out to the Raptor Rehab centre (053 71235756) close by.  We’re met by the owner.  My heart goes out to the cause of protecting birds and others against extinction.  She reminds me of a good boxer in need of a good manager – a lot of guts, but maybe lacking a little strategy.

From there we took a back road to Hotazel, going past some fascinatingly remote farms. Took a tour of the town, with all the bells and whistles of a mining settlement.  Then headed north in the direction of McCarthy’s Rest, turning left to Van Zylsrus after a while.  Travelled in the dry bed of the Kuruman River on a reasonably corrugated road.  Lunch and beer in Van Zyls is always a winner.

Turned south to Dune Snooze (053)781-0458 to meet Coenie with Rick and Karen in tow at the entrance road. Took the 6km track to the open rondavels amongst the dunes. Very nice setting – recommended @±R50 per person.  Dinner pack @R30/person, meat, farm bread, salad.  The Hugo’s and the Potgieters arrive after a while.

 

Turns out my trusted gas fridge wouldn’t light up.  The problem, fixed days later at leisure, was twofold.  Due to the corrugations the gas cut-off heat sensor in the burner had shifted after tampering on a recent service, not getting enough of the flame.  Secondly, the gas cylinder was overfilled, resulting in an erratic flame not properly heating up the sensor probe.  After it was fixed, the two recently installed computer fans did a magnificent job of pushing the temperature down. Thanks to all for cooling us until we were fixed!

 

Despite all my paranoia, we saw the only scorpion of the trip that evening – a thick tailed Mister.  John and I do a late night wheel change, and he teaches us to use the repair kit the next morning. 

Phone him for all your tyre work – he’s an expert.

 

Sunday 27 April

Move out, and hit the road to Askam and the Molopo Lodge.  What a road!!  Corrururururugations and some more.  Suddenly an ominous warrr from somewhere on the vehicle.  The exhaust had broken clean off between the two silencer boxes.  Fortunately it was well supported on both sides, and I added some bloudraad.  For the rest of the trip, we had the Real Ford Sound.

Arrived at the Lodge shaken, but not stirred, and had a good value lunch and some beers. André & Kie from Cape Town had been waiting for us.

We hit the equally corrugated road to Twee Rivieren, turning off some 30k’s up at the Geisemap sign.  A scenic track in the dune strait for some 20k’s to Klein Awas pan.  We circle the pan, eventually stopping at Mr Tieties’ farm.  We ask him permission to camp.  He’s happy to oblige, as long as we don’t go dune bashing and trampling his animal’s grazing.  He’s referring to the desert run motorbike rally that had passed there the previous week.  Wee see tracks from the pan into the dunes, and a fireplace heaped with bottles and cans. Ag nee sies man!

 

We line up on the edge of the pan for a camp with an amazing view.

 

Monday 28 April

Break camp, pay a small thank you fee to Mr Tieties and take the track over the dunes to Welkom, south of Twee Rivieren.  Reach a gate with a sign “Game Camp, no Entry”.  Fortunately there is a farmer working nearby.  He says it’s OK to go through, and directs us onto the better track to Welkom.  Had a thrilling ride all the same, crossing numerous dunes.  John and his trailer impressed, even though some of the other vehicles at times had to go back down for a second attempt.

 

A shower, ice cream and fuel at Twee Rivieren, before moving across the riverbed to the Two Rivers offices. We spend two hours going through immigration and booking/paying procedures. (Remember this when planning a time schedule for a large group.) No road safety tokens (10P) are issued at Two Rivers, so I cajole the immigration officer into signing and stamping a note to that effect.  Meanwhile, it dawns on Ilze that she doesn’t want to be on this trip, and from then on she resolutely stuck to that position throughout. Women!

 

Twee Rivieren and Nossob campsites are full, but we manage to get a night at Rooiputs.  Essentially the same price as Twee Rivieren, but the hype about fences and rules at the latter seems worlds apart as we sit at the fire that evening.  We are treated to a beautiful sunset.

The next morning there’s lion spoor through the camp, although some debated the tracks’ owner.

A long drop, cold-water shower and basins are provided, but the water is saline.

 

Tuesday 29 April

We head out north to Nossob, with a good cheetah sighting plus the normal array of gemsbok, blue wildebeest, red hartebeest, raptors and others. 

Dutch people feeding a tame looking jackal at a picnic site underline this problem. The roads are generally less corrugated than outside the park.

 

At Nossob we fill every container with VERY BAD WATER. Looks and tastes terribly soapy, but I’d like to believe its still ground water. We also top up the fuel tanks.  At about 14h00 we head out east to Mabuasehube, taking the signposted turnoff about 3kms north of Nossob.

 

The track is a well-driven jeep track, fairly hard under wheel. 

Corrugations are starting to show, and I’m afraid it may be a mess a year from now.  Blind rises are VERY DANGEROUS. We encountered vehicles from the opposite direction, and if the encounter had taken place a few minutes either way, we would have had a tragedy. I took to hooting at the blind rises.  Not very bush friendly, but it’s either this or separate tracks over the rises.

 

It was clear that we wouldn’t make Mabua where we had booked 4 nights, so we pulled off the track at 16h00 and made camp. 

John heard Noises again on the Pajero – turns out to be a loose bash plate, although fastening it still didn’t quite put his mind to rest.  Whiskey eventually did the trick J. That night was a very special stars and wilderness experience. 

 

Wednesday 30 April

We broke camp, taking out all the rubbish and burying the ashes as usual.  It was mind boggling driving east over miles and miles of yellow flower dotted dune plains, no fences, no other people.  Only animals were the occasional gemsbok and steenbok, all in excellent condition. Also, of course, a couple of meerkat colonies. We passed the Motopi campsites, no more than designated shady spots along the track.  Eventually we reached the tracks inside Mabua, turning north.  At Mpaathutlwa Pan we had a Serengeti-like vista over the open, grassy space of the pan, antelopes and vultures.  This is a special place.

We continued north, the pre-plotted tracks on the GPS helping a lot at the many unsignposted intersections. We had been allocated Mabua Pan campsites 3 and 4.  Being about 2kms apart, we favoured campsite 4 for its shade and its view over the length of the pan. 

Campsite 2 also looked quite nice, being close to a permanent water hole.  Our campsite was equipped with an A-frame, shower, long drop (cleaned daily!) and basin with water, which was too saline to drink.  We set up camp, and the rearguard was brought up by the Marais and the Hugo’s.

 

Thursday 1 May, Friday 2 May.

We stay put at Mabua, doing game drives during the daytime, and one night drive. Altogether the game was scarce.  A brown hyena came pestering us one night, and there were quite a couple of jackals about. Hennie Rautenbach & Cie pop in for a beer and a chat.  They seem to love their ungainly beasts (Series Land Rovers), but even so they are nice people.  Edward and Michelle braaied their own meat for the fist time one evening, and the kids generally had a jol scampering about the campsite. 

I open up our new 18 litre Coleman water dispenser/cool box in which I had prefrozen 5 days’ worth of meat together with 4x2 litres of water after 6 days. The meat is still nice and cool.

The men talking it seriously – André, Johann and Rick

 

The women trying to imitate J - Riëtte, Ilze and Elanie

 

Saturday 3 May

We break camp, and head out to the gate.  It’s all deserted, like a ship at sea having lost its crew.  We check out reception and the offices, but not a soul.  Eventually we lift the boom and leave.  On the eastern boundary cutline, the Potgieters decide to turn south to Tshabong in the tracks of the Marais and the Luyts who had left earlier that morning.  Together with the Hugos, we turn left/north, feeling a little forlorn at going from one of the more remote places on the subcontinent to even remoter areas.  The cutline along the eastern boundary is fairly well travelled, and arrow straight.  On cue with the preplotted track on the GPS, we turn away left/west, to follow the cutline along the northern boundary of the park. 

The sand is deep enough to require one to maintain momentum.  3rd gear 50kph seemed to do the trick, all the while ensuring sufficient fan speed to keep the engine temperature down.  The only gauge which didn’t enjoy this treatment, was the fuel gauge.  It was dropping dangerously fast, and I kept doing mental arithmetics.  I had added two jerry cans from André to my tank in Mabua, and I had 6 full ones strapped down in the back.  At the rate things were going then, it could turn out challenging nevertheless.

 

The road was fairly smooth, except this time we had lateral waves.  We’d be happily pushing along, only to be suddenly thrown from side to side in a zig-zag on the track.  Fun in the leaf sprung bakkie with its low centre of gravity, but I reckon Johann in the Landy was quietly anxious a couple of times.  There’s no fence on the park boundary, and we saw gemsbuck the size of eland on both sides of the cutline.

 

After a couple of hours along this cutline, we approached the GPS point before the new Kaa gate where we were due to turn north.  We found the little unsignposted track again as if on cue, and I wondered how many of the pre-GPS generation had travelled all the way to the Namibia border before realising their error. This again turned out to be a cutline, and we reached the expected 4-way intersection some way up the road. 

 

Although we were eventually due north, we had decided to spend the night at Hennie Rautenbach’s earlier campsite on a pan on the Zutshwa track.  The track twisted and turned through the thorn bushes, and its high middelmannetjie would have quickly dealt with any low-slung vehicle.  The few kilometres along this track showed up an aspect vital to trip planning for these parts.  Whereas on the cutlines we had easily maintained 40-50kph, the bush track slowed us down to about 15kph. A day of this could seriously set back any schedule.

 

The track crossed a pan, and the GPS point supplied by Wouter from Hennie’s group showed they had camped further to the west along the pan.  We found their tracks, and the GPS arrow took us all the way to their fireplace, hot ashes and all.  While we were pitching camp, little Madé Hugo unwittingly ran through the ashes and scalded her feet, fortunately not serious.  One can never be too careful.

 

Springbuck were grazing in the distance while we settled in around the fire, and a couple of gemsbuck also showed themselves. 

Outside the park, this was no man’s land as wild as it had been for always.  The next morning we awoke to a parade of red hartebeest across the pan.  I shooed the family into the bakkie, and we took an early drive around the pan spotting springbuck, gemsbuck, hartebeest and others.

 

Monday 4 May

We broke camp, and headed back to the four-way intersection.  There we again turned northeast along the cutline.  Some way up along the cutline there was supposed to be a track cutting across northwest to Masethleng Pan.  Whether it doesn’t exist, or whether we just didn’t find it, I still don’t know.  We ended going north all the way to another cutline, where we turned northwest towards Ngwaatle.  A red sign informed us that we were in some local concession area, and that we needed to pay at Ngwaatle village for being there. 

 

The village turned out to be a sprinkling of huts.  We followed the main track out of the village to the west without seeing any official looking body.  The track turned into a cutline again, going due west out of Ngwaatle.  I was getting increasingly worried, as we were diverging from the track that I had plotted to Masethleng Pan, south of west.  My preplanning didn’t come up with a due westerly cutline, and I initially confused the two.  After 10kms I decided that we must be wrong.  We turned around amongst protests which I’ve come to expect in such situations, and headed back to Ngwaatle.

 

On re-entering the village we were met by a gesticulating character, whom I gathered to be the concession official.  He got in, and we drove to his hut.  There he produced a receipt book, and we paid about P70 per family per night for the intended stay at Masethleng Pan.  All the while a good number of locals were trying to peddle bead- and other ware.  They were quite saddening.  Previously busmen of the veld, they were now caught up in limbo halfway between that and an impoverished western existence. Still a priviledge to hear the clicking language first hand nevertheless.

 

We were pointed onto a faint track through the village, which later joined a clearer one running east-west to the south of the village.  This was the old Masethleng track, winding its way through the thorny bush and making me thankful that I don’t have a brand new vehicle.  With Ilze at the wheel after a long day, she wasn’t bothering too much with the twists in the road in any eventJ.  After about an hour of this, we came to Masethleng Pan, identifiable from the old windsock pole still holding its own.  We were heading for the woodlands beyond, eloquently described in Mike Main’s book as a paradise of green grass and big trees.  Eventually we got to the big trees, but all that was left of the grass was a desiccated cover of roots in the sand.  Wrong season?  Lesson 246 is confirmed – never expect, only accept.

 

With nothing much appealing about the spot, we turned back to Masethleng Pan. I thought it a good idea to camp in the middle of the vastness for a change. 

Mistake, for two reasons.  Firstly, I only realised later that we were VERY lucky not to be swallowed by the pan.  At that point I failed to make the connection between the deep tracks we were making in the surface and all the horror stories I had read about sinking vehicles.  Beware!  Secondly, the wind came up and nearly blew us to smithereens (scuse the pan).  We would have been better off in the shelter of the bush. 

 

We lived to tell the tale though, and next time will see me doing the cautious thing.

 

Tuesday 5 May

With the appeal of Masethleng being what it was and the spirits somewhat low for some, we decided to turn our steeds towards home.  We went back to Ngwaatle village, and then onto the Hukuntsi cutline from there. 

The tracks on the left hand side were corrugated, and those on the right had the track width of a truck.  I opted for the latter, and the Ford was running mostly with one wheel in and the other out of the track.  We made good time, again 40-50kph, all the same needing to keep a wary eye out for humongous holes, trees and what not.

 

About 30km before Hukuntsi the first cattle made their appearance, and we realised that our bush travels were over.  We eventually reached Hukuntsi, and a tar road L.  We were directed to the filling station, a laid back affair which had only unleaded fuel in stock.  By now I was really glad for the extra fuel I had gotten from André.  The next fuel would be at Kang, about 120kms further along the road, but as it turned out I had enough left to make it with sufficient peace of mind.

 

Halfway between Hukuntsi and Kang we pulled off the road, and took a track for about a kilometre to a cattle grazed pan.  Here we pitched camp in the shelter of some trees. 

We had the last bush fire, and the kids had their last bout of romping about and being up to all sorts of mischief.  A local character ogling us had me a little on edge, but I reassured myself that this was Bots and not SA.  He made another pass in the morning, but nothing more.

 

Wednesday 6 May

After some quiet time with Edward at the early morning fire, we broke camp and hit the long road, the Trans-Kgalagadi, to Lobatse.  At Kang we stopped at the BP for fuel, but 200 metres further down the road there is a brand new filling station (Caltex?) with clean ablutions and some shops – this would be the better place next time..  At Jwaneng we had some Chicken Licken for lunch, and hit the road again for Lobatse.  The road was uneventful and straightforward, with only some construction activities to break the monotony.  Just before Lobatse we saw speed trapping taking place. I was surprised at not having been stopped once for hundreds of kilometres.  The Lobatse border post was deserted, and we crossed both checkpoints in less than half an hour.

 

By then it was about 16h30, and we were tempted to push for home. Eventually common sense and my principle against night driving on non-freeways prevailed, and we pulled into Abjaterskop resort beyond Zeerust.  This Lonely Planet recommendation is definitely past its prime.  For R200 per family, we got a rondavel which had been stripped bare of fittings and accessories, and was badly in need of paint.  Our setup in the back of the bakkie proved more of a kitchenette than that advertised for the rondavel, and we soon had coffee going.  George?, a rep from Pretoria, offered to share his fire with us, and we had a nice braai and roosterkoek, complements of the Hugo’s – thanks!  Ourselves were down to a couple of crackers at that stage.  Fortunately the beds were adequate, and we got some decent rest before being woken by some marauding baboons the next morning.

 

Thursday 7 May

From there it was an uneventful trip home, with the Ford getting a quiet pat on the fender for the umpteenth time for getting us back safely.

 

High points

 

Low points

 

Stats

Total distance: Just less than 3000km

Vehicles: My 1993 Ford 3l V6, 215 000km, Johann’s 1996 Defender 300tdi 100 000km, André’s 1996 Hilux 2.4 120 000km, Rick’s 1993 3l Nissan Sani 135 000km, John’s 1996? Pajero 3000 160 000km?.

Typical fuel consumption: 15l/100km; Worst consumption along the cutlines: don’t know, but it was VERY BAD.

Vehicle breakdowns: Nil (not even the Landy J)

Punctures: Ask John – I stopped counting.

 

Herbert Smith mscape@cpro.co.za (083)654-8201