A Long Drive Back

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Geo: -20.5573, 28.5126

This morning we had planned to leave by 7am. We slowly packed our belongings into the cars and in-between we took photos of the beautiful scenery. The scenery consisted of various rock formations, as they slowly came into view as the sun rose over the hill. It is a shame that we were not able to spend two nights here as originally planned, as the chalet was in such a beautiful, peaceful location with a great outdoor barbecue area - a nice place to have sundowners. We also had a great view of Maleme dam.

In the end we left just after 8am. I was on the lookout for klipspringers- as they are found on rocks. As soon as we drove out of the campsite I saw a klipspringer running across the road. It was about a hour an drive through the national park. On our drive we saw a few more klipspringers, ladies cutting grass for thatch, various birds and unique rock formations.

From the exit of the park it was about an hour drive to the Plumtree border post. The border crossing went very smoothly and quickly. The Ramokgwebana border post started off as a quick process, Paul and I went through first, but then as Francois handed his passport over and there was a power cut. Unlike the other Botswana borders, this one did things electronically, so all we could do was wait for the power to come back on. Fortunately for us, it was only a twenty minute wait. During this wait we enquired about the closing time for the Ramokgwebana border. We really wanted to go through this border as it is much shorter than going through Gaborone and then an hour drive through the park. The good news was that it closed at 7pm, so we should make it in time.

The drive from the Ramokgwebana border to Francistown went quick. Here we refuelled and had an early lunch to sustain us until we got back home. The journey from here to the border was very boring, a long one lane highway for about four hundred kilometres. We swapped drivers, passengers and cars.

As the sun started to set, we were nearing the border. We arrived at the Kopfontein border at 6:30, it was looking very quiet as we pulled up. We were crossing our figures that it was still open- otherwise it would be about a two hour drive to the other border. It was open and very quick to pass through. We were the only people there.

I was looking forward to being back home, but not looking forward to going back to work. We got back to our lodge about 7:30pm. We emptied our cars and called it a night. Before going to bed I enjoyed a long, warm shower – none of the showers I had during our trip was as good as ours.

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Photos

01 Bark
The bark is falling off this tree.

02 Barbecue Area
Our chalet's barbecue area.

03 Rocks
Two large rocks on top of a huge rock.

04 Chalet
The back of our chalet.

05 View
The view from our braai area.

06 Chalet
Another view of our chalet.

07 Prickly
A large cactus with purple figs.

08 Figs
A close up of the purple figs.

09 Rocks
Rocks near our chalet.

10 View
Another view from our chalet area.

11 View
Another view from our chalet area.

12 Chalet
Our cars parked near our chalet.

13 Cactus
The prickly edge of the cactus.

14 View
The view of Maleme Dam from our chalet.

15 View
Another view from our chalet of the rocky hills.

16 Roots
A rock fig's roots wrapped around a rock.

17 Klipspringer
A klipspringer running across the road in front of us.

18 Dam
A view of the dam as we leave.

19 View
One of the many rock formations.

20 River
A dry, rocky river bed.

21 Dam
The Maleme Dam - next time we will camp on the shore of this dam.

22 Pair
A pair of klipspringer about to bound away.

23 Rock
Another interesting rock formation.

24 View
A scenic view on our way out of the park.

25 View
A scenic view on our way out of the park.

26 View
A scenic view on our way out of the park.