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Published: August 6th 2009
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Jo'burgh motorways
a slight diversion thru Jo'burgh Road trip - Jo’burg into the Kalahari (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park) via Upington
No difficulty getting to the Jo’burg airport to drop Jennifer off, but noticed two interesting road signs by on and off ramps on the motorways: “Crime alert - do not stop” and “High-jacking hot spot” and also noticed police cars sitting on the berms - some reassurance we thought. We did however experience some difficulty getting out of Jo’burg as we somehow managed to get onto the N1 heading north instead of south so we did a complete circuit on the ringroad midst heavy Saturday midday traffic before we got the right road south. Meanwhile we were both busting to go to the loo, as we hadn’t found the place for high vehicles to park at the airport but just dropped J off making sure she actually entered the building safely and left, so it was a rather tense trip - one where we managed to whizz right by a garage pitstop as well. Ahhhh the relief when we ended up in a Wimpy Bar (!!) for lunch and loo.
Sites of Jo’burg from the motorway made us goggle a bit: the city was massive and sprawling, high-rise buildings
outskirts of Jo'burgh
masses and masses of these 'township' houses - Sharpesville was nearby of the CBD scarcely visible in the murky air, occasional huge shopping centres with backlogs of traffic on the off-ramps for miles, vast expanses of ‘township’ (we call it that where there are row upon row of little concrete boxes - since found that this is govt housing for black Africans as an attempt to get rid of shantytowns built from virtual rubbish) stretching south for miles with industrial complexes belching into the air in between. Then we were back into big farms again - for miles.
We had decided by this stage to loop back down and around (SW) to get into the Kalahari Desert from the S African side rather than travel way north into Zambia before meeting Barbara much further north in Livingston (Zambia) on 13 Aug. Trevor, the 4x4drive instructor, had enthused about not missing the Kalahari so we are taking his advice as we won’t have time to get in there from the west side of S Africa as we come down from Namibia. This park is a transfrontier park which means that S Africa and Botswana operate it jointly, although it seems to be set up just like other S African National Parks which
frost - again
Just like home - many frosts means excellent facilities ie very easy camping! You can travel from here into either Botswana or Namibia - and in hind-sight we probably should have arranged to travel into Botswana on a 4x4 track but didn’t figure that out soon enough and we were 4 ½ hrs drive into the park on corrugated roads, past the only border post at the beginning of the park, before we realised.
We have struck an extremely cold spell - they say colder than usual in this area. There have been heavy frosts on the ground nearly every night and we did resort to a luxury lodge for two nights immediately after Jo’burg - well a holiday cabin that costs a bit more because of fancy decor but with minimal heating. We asked for another heater and it still took 24 hours to take the chill off the building but nice to hole up for a couple of days, take rest from travelling huge distances and do some washing - the sun always being very hot! We and a bunch of blokes who had filled the cheap cabins, watched the All Blacks lose on the big camp screen on the 25th - but they
long, long roads
5-6-7-8 hundred ks on long, long straight roads were very polite to us knowing we were kiwis saying ‘well done’! (We haven’t found out what happened on 1 August yet though)
One chap was interesting in that he spoke to us at length: of his childhood in Cape Town in a mixed marriage - his mother was coloured and father Dutch and how he went to a private school with coloured and African kids; of how important it was to go to the best private school - his only son had been sent to board where race didn’t matter as long as you could pay; how this son had rugby talent, spent a year playing in the UK but was back now with an injury and marrying into one of the VERY wealthy SA families!! We think these chaps might have been at a school/class reunion as they were a racially mixed bunch but had caps all the same.
Just massive countryside - all day driving on long straight roads through farmland - huge maize crops, giant silos, some cattle feedlots and gradually it looked drier and drier. Near Upington we saw occasional small groups of goats and black-faced sheep and the odd small farmhouse that was so,
maize for miles
and massive silos at intervals - major farming so isolated. In two towns we came across rubbish strewn across intersections and roads, first thinking a rubbish truck must have overturned then seeing it again realised it must have been part of a protest of some sort - maybe the strikes that someone told us about afterwards. Travelling like this you are a million miles from any news!
We camped five nights in the Kgalagadi Park - again in freezing temps but we had bought a hotwater bottle slept fully clothed for 3 of those nights complete with longjohns and jeans, scarf and beanie!! Cup-o-soups are most welcome each evening - two in a row on the night we did an organised night-drive where we almost froze despite togging up. Tea and frypan toast in bed next morning was most welcome.
This park and the 250km south of it that we travelled through to get there is largely huge low longtitudinal red sand dunes and two huge dry riverbeds/well valleys - none of it is bare as we expected but with grasses, scattered dried scrubby bushes and dotted with live and dead camel-thorn trees. Lightning strikes cause trees to catch light in summer. The riverbeds hardly ever have water
rubbish protest
a bit unnerving coming upon this but everyone was calmly going about their mid-morning business (the book says twice in 100 years) but bore-holes that stem from the early days of settlers and Africans trying to farm here are dotted along with small waterholes for the animals. These are now mostly driven by solar panels but there’s still the odd windmill - as there are all over African farmland. They say they are replacing them with the solar panels as they impact less on the natural environment and are lower maintenance - fair enough but the windmills are attractive - well perhaps the word is quaint and nostalgic.
Actually it is all very scenic as from a distance the grasses in the valley floors look very lush, not exactly green, but you can’t see the red bare sand in between. The camel thorn trees dotted around apparently have roots that are 40-50m deep and so survive this arid environment. The roads are easy really, flat and gently curving white sand on a hard calcite layer however there are quite a few major patches of corrugations each seeming worse than the last. We wonder each time what might drop off! A big grader thing dragging tyres moves around scooping sand back into the corrugations - and
briefly it is improved!
We have resorted to lighting fires just like the local campers! All the campgrounds have brais dotted everywhere and they are used every night - now we too smell of African wood-smoke. You buy a little bag of wood in the camp shop and a couple of frozen steaks or lamb chops which helps keep your chillybin cool during the day - and you’re away. This makes a change from our gourmet pasta and rice one-pot meals on the gas-ring. (Peter your flint is working a treat and striking a light all over Africa!!)
I’ll put the animals from this park in the next blog. One could get very used to this simple and very busy life just road travelling and looking with a bit of cooking and washing here and there! Actually it’s a bit sedentary, road-tripping all day or writing blogs.
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