Blogs from Kalahari Desert, Kgalagadi, Botswana, Africa

Africa » Botswana » Kgalagadi » Kalahari Desert August 29th 2013

Any journey starts with lots of careful planning and when one is about to venture into the wilds of Africa there is an added intensity especially when it comes to camping.And so,many breakfast meetings were arranged with Bruce and Megan Birkett to plan for this onslaught into some special corners of this wonderful place called Southern Africa.The Birketts are veterans of bush camping whilst the Elliotts are relative novices but acquiring some impressive camping toys and gadgets with each trip.For this trip our acquisitions included a brand new Howling Moon tent and Stargazer tent annexe.Susan very thrilled with the annexe which will,according to her,ensure that no wild animal latches onto her backside whilst changing at dusk or dawn.The other new camping essential is a new National Luna 51lt fridge/freezer which will keep grub frozen and,importantly,beer and ... read more

An African adventure

Africa » Botswana » Kgalagadi » Kalahari Desert August 29th 2013

DSC05071

Timgray

Our lives are touched by many highlights and one of them has to be exploring a new wilderness area.Having cleared all of the immigration formalities at the McCarthy’s Rest border post,which must rank as the World’s least busiest,we headed further west through a bit of parched rural Botswana to Tshabong.Not much there apart from a typically dusty little town in the middle of nowhere leaving one wondering what prompted it’s being there in the first place.Importantly this is where a sign pointing left got the pulse moving a little quicker.Kgalagadi Frontier Park has come about as a result of the amalgamation of large chunks of the Kalahari on both the South African and Botswanan borders and incredibly now spans almost 900,000 sq km’s.That’s big! The road leading to the entry gate became increasingly sandy and necessitated ... read more

Final Day in Central Kalahari Desert

Africa » Botswana » Kgalagadi » Kalahari Desert May 23rd 2012

KaylaRichard

Wednesday May 23 was an epic. We left our last safari camp at 7 AM expecting to arrive back in Maun before supper time. It’s about 100 km of soft sand in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, followed by another 150 km on paved pothole road between Rakops and Maun. The donkeys eat the pavement if it has too much salt, resulting in very deep potholes, not to mention the animals that are constantly in the road. Our travelling partners (5 Italians) were unusually quiet as they had not seen any predators during our 8 day safari and were obviously disappointed. However after 3 hours of 4WD on sandy track we sighted two lions mating right near the road. Then Willem spotted 3 cheetah brothers sniffing around a termite mound, and suddenly our travelling partners began ... read more

Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Africa » Botswana » Kgalagadi » Kalahari Desert May 22nd 2012

KaylaRichard

May 16-22 Central Kalahari Game Reserve Penduka Safaris - Mobile Safari Richard writes: Early morning starts (up at 6 AM and away at 7 AM) were the normal for this safari. The temperature at dawn kept us in warm fleece jackets until 9 AM and by 11 AM we we putting on sun screen in 30 C heat. The blue sky has no clouds horizon to horizon, dawn to dusk. This is late fall in the Botswana. The central Kalahari is very, very dry so the plains are brown and the grass is sparse. Rivers are on flood from rain in Angola but it is all underground by the time it reaches the Kalarhi. Wildlife congregates each at their own time around water holes from deep pumped wells powered by solar panels. We see some dry ... read more

Kalahari

Africa » Botswana » Kgalagadi » Kalahari Desert August 7th 2010

Amanda S

Central Kalahari Game Reserve The day after our 11 hour nothing journey we spent some time in Maun seeing if we could use the spare time to visit the Kalahari. The options boiled down to spending a lot on hiring a 4WD and camping or spending not too much more and staying in a luxury all expenses paid lodge. We decided to go for it and spend the money on the latter option. So we spent 2 nights, one full day and two half days in this lovely lodge out in the central Kalahari. It was all excellent and we're very glad that we went. We flew into the lodge, 40 mins in a 5 seater plane. We were fortunate enough to be the only guests in the lodge for the whole of our stay and ... read more

Elephant Sands

Africa » Botswana » Kgalagadi » Kalahari Desert November 6th 2008

Photo 1

Zhan

After Livingstone, most of our tour group split up. Some of us headed home, others are going on to Nairobi or, like me, Johannesburg. For this leg of the trip we are transferred to another truck along with some people who'd traveled from Nairobi. We are now back in Botswana, retracing some of steps that we took from Cape Town. Last night we stayed at the Elephant Sands camp site in the Northern Kalahari desert. There, the most amazing thing happened during dinner. As we were eating, I glanced over, by accident at dirty swimming pool on the edge of the camp site, and there were 3 elephants drinking from it! Some people had already seen them and had quietly made their way over to the pool but most of the camp seemed unaware - the ... read more

Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.004s; cc: 7; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0439s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb