Log of a

Trip to

Botswana

in June

201 2

Introduction

Why were we suddenly going to Botswanain June when we had just come back fromMapungubwe in May? Especial ly going for aquick there and back trip to Botswana whichdid not leave much time for catching ourbreath let alone relaxing and enjoying theflowers?

The blame lies entirely with the Tarbotons. Acouple of months ago they had told us of theirlatest scheme which was to go to Mongolia tolook for nesting Steppe Eagles. (SteppeEagles come to South Africa in our summer,but instead of nesting here l ike sensibleeagles they fly off to Mongolia and find a nicepiece of flat steppe to scratch out a nest andraise baby eagles).

So the Tarbotons set off for Mongolia in May,but only got as far as Oliver Thambo airport.Before they were allowed to board their plane,a big fierce Lufthansa chap demanded theirGerman visa. They did not have a Germanvisa. In fact they had been specifical ly told bythe travel agent and the German website thatthey did not need a German visa becausethey were only going to be in transit inGermany.

In vain they pleaded their case to the bigfierce Lufthansa man. They tried to go throughSwitzerland, but needed a visa there too.They thought of going via Beij ing or Seoul butdecided that that was too far out of the wayand they would probably need visas too. Sothey came back to Kokanje. But it is

impossible to keep the Tarbotons in one placefor too long – especial ly if they are not in themiddle of writing a book – and soon they hadworked out another plot: to go to Kasane andspend some time on a river boat on theChoebe and then to go on to Maun to look fordragonfl ies. Would we like to join them for aweek in Maun?

Well we did not have any commitments inKokanje unti l the 1 3th and we definitelyneeded to give Juanita another run so wejumped at the idea with alacrity. As we weregoing to have to drive the 2400 km there andback in not much more than a week, ouralacrity was certainly tainted with a certainamount of insanity.

Sunday 3rd June 201 2

Our Sunday departure was delayed by Jil lbeing committed to take the service at theWarmbaths Methodist Church in the morning.So we got up earl ier than usual and packedeverything into Juanita. (Packing was madeeasier by the fact that not everything hadbeen unpacked). Natural ly we finishedpacking with lots of time to spare and so wehad a good half hour to mooch and wonderwhat we had left behind this time. (Actual ly wehardly left anything of any importance).

Then off to Warmbaths and a great TrinitySunday service. Ji l l fortunately (perhapsfortuitously) preached a short sermon and,what with declining tea, we were on the roadback to Modimolle and on to Botswana by

1 0h00. We passed Kokanje at 1 0h20 havingdone 60 kms to get where we started from.

We made two changes to our normal routeto the border. Firstly, the road from Modimolleto Vaalwater is sti l l very much underconstruction with five or six stop-go sectionsof one way traffic. So we decided to take along cut via Alma to miss the delays. The roadof about 40 km is not that much further, but itis also not in good condition (lots of otherpeople have also decided to avoid thedetours) and we were well shook up when wefinal ly got back to the main road. We werelucky in that we were not delayed at al l by theone remaining detour as we managed toarrive just as the l ight went green and thetraffic pul led off. I am not sure whether thedetour was worth the 40 km of bad road: ittook us just over an hour to Vaalwater whichis not a huge time saving.

Our second departure from usual was thatwe took the R33 from Vaalwater to Lepalale.In the past we have taken the sl ightly longerroute on the Thabazimbi road because of theheavy trucks that use the R33. This time atleast, we met no trucks at al l and had astraight run to Lepalale.

We stopped in Lepalale for a comfort breakand a cool drink and then pressed on toGroblersbrug and the border to Botswana.Crossing the border is always a bit of a lottery.This time we had an easy time of it unti l wereached the police check point to exit SouthAfrica. We were next in l ine to go through, butin front of us there was a chap in a Botswana

registered Condor. The policeman could notfind the car's chassis number where it oughtto be (in the rear left wheel well). So thepoliceman scraped and scraped at the mudcaked there and called a mate of his who alsoscraped and scraped. The mate had a look atthe right well but could not find it there either.A third cop came and looked too and scrapedaway for a bit.

Meanwhile a chap in a Toyota Land Cruiser(only arrogant people drive Toyota LandCruisers) jumped the queue and tried to drivepast the police blockade. To be charitable,perhaps he was a very mild mannered personwho was lost. Another policeman stopped him,checked his papers and waved him through.This nice policeman (he was a sergeant andperhaps sergeants don't care about chassisnumbers) then called us up out of the queue,checked our papers and waved us throughtoo. We never learned whether the other threepolice ever found the chassis number. I dohope that Juanita's chassis number is n theright place, but so far nobody has looked.

In the past one's problems have been overonce one gets through Groblersbrug becausethe Botswana immigration and customs havebeen very quick. Unfortunately though theBotswana immigration department isimplementing a new (computerised) systemand so we had to stand for a long time in yetanother queue while the chap typed all ourdetai ls into a computer. That took anotheryonks. Then the nice lady at the carregistration place (one buys a temporaryl icense and road tax and all when driving into

Botswana) did not have any change.Fortunately, J i l l had a stack of P20 notes andthat made the young lady very happy. Isuspect that the poor girl had been subject tosome abuse by travellers impatient at being

held up.

All told it took us more than an hour and ahalf to get from South Africa into Botswanaand it was past 1 3h30 when we final ly fi l led upwith cheap Botswana petrol.

Botswana is a lovely country, but I alwayshave to note that there is an awful lot of it andthat there is a lot of nothing very muchbetween any two places. So it was a long andboring drive from Martin's Drift (on theBotswana side of Groblersbrug) to Pelapyeand Serowe.

We had booked our overnightaccommodation at a Lentshwe Lodge inSerowe that we found on the Internet and

booked through Safari.com. The reviews onLentshwe Lodge described it as "Rustic butcomfortable" and for once I found myself incomplete agreement with the reviews. We hadno problems finding the place although thedrive went round and around a bit more than Iexpected and at one stage I was a little bitworried that we were heading off into theBotswana countryside away from any lodges.Eventual ly though we went around one morecorner and up a nearly 4x4 type driveway tobe met by Jeffrey (Geoffrey?) who greeted usenthusiastical ly and showed us our rooms.

The main building looks l ike a colonialmansion and a rel ic of times of comfort longpast. Our room, a new addition, was verycomfortable although it was up a pretty steepclimb from where we parked the car. Actual ly,being built on top of a hil l , the whole lodge isvery up and down and not to berecommended to people who can't walk upand down steeps. The parking area wasoccupied by three big Botswana hunting dogswho look a bit l ike ridgebacks without a ridge.Mostly they ignored us.

We cleaned up in our room and went to thepub and chatted with Jeffrey. He told us thathe was a Zimbabwean who had lived herewithout any discrimination or persecution forthe past ten years. (This is a bit different frommost Zimbabweans experience in SouthAfrica). He now had a Motswana girlfriend anda daughter and was not sure where he wouldgo in the future. He said that things were verymuch better now in Zimbabwe and a numberof his friends had moved back.

We had fish and chips in the pub and sawnobody else at al l except for a very large andvery friendly black man with fearsomedreadlocks and an English accent. Hedropped into the pub to complain of ahangover from Saturday night's party and topromise Jeffrey that he would go and getsome money from an ATM to pay for what heowed Jeffrey. Another unsolved mystery.

To bed and we both slept very well

I did not do very well in keeping a diary onthis trip and my entry for Monday was onlywritten on Friday when we were in Serowe.

Even in the best of circumstances a diary isactual ly difficult to keep when camping – thistrip was even worse because we seemed tobe always on the run. Anyway – I hope that ital l worked out OK!

Monday 4th June 201 2

We had a long way to go and set the alarmfor 06h00. When the darn thing did go off webounced very reluctantly out of bed, packedthe few things that we had unpacked andwent down to breakfast at 06h30. The nicebreakfast lady was not ready for us andblamed Jeffrey for not tel l ing her that wewanted an early breakfast. As we had seenJeffrey going off to write her instructions aboutbreakfast, I do suspect that she was just lategetting to read the note.

We briefly met a chap, who I presume is theowner of Lentshwe Lodge, in the parking lot.He was taking his son off to school. We hadno chance to say much more than hello toeach other.

We had a decent breakfast on cereal andyoghurt fol lowed by bacon, sausage, tomatoand eggs to say nothing of baked beans and afried sl ice of tinned corned meat. I don't thinkthat anyone has ever given me a slab of bul lybeef for breakfast and tried a mouthful in theinterest of scientific research. I understoodwhy it is not commonly served for breakfast.

Serowe is one of the biggest towns inBotswana and is the capital of the Bamangatopeople. Botswana president Seretse Khama

was king of the Bamangato people beforebeing deposed by the British. He and his son,the present president, Ian Khama were bothborn in Serowe and Ian Khama has his privateresidence there. Not far from Serowe is thefamous Khama Rhino Sanctuary.

Off we set from the lodge at about 07h30.We sti l l owed them money for accommodationbut there was absolutely nobody around topay. Down the 4x4 driveway and around andaround to get back to the main road. Weobviously went around one more time thannecessary and found ourselves heading intothe centre of Serowe rather than away from it.Luckily we were able to consult the GPS andfol low our track in out again. Soon we were on"Experimental Road Surface Number 1 "(There are nine of them before Orapa) and onour way north to Maun via Orapa.

So we had another long drive with cattle,donkeys, goats and horses all over the roadand the occasional sign of human habitationon the side of the road. Botswana is not only abig country it is also an empty country when itcomes to the number of people.

We had brought some important supplies forPatrick and Grace and, rather than takingthem all the way to Maun and back again, wehad arranged to meet Patrick on the side ofthe road as we went past Orapa. So, as wegot to the turn off to Letlakane we phonedPatrick and he met us at the turn off to theOrapa west gate. We transferred a lot of stuffinto his car (two big plastic boxes, twenty fivel itres of water and some smaller stuff). We

had a quick cool drink together andexchanged some information and then saidgoodbye. Off on the final stretch to Maun.

We stopped for petrol in Mopeti because therun from Serowe to Maun would be stretchingJuanita's tank capacity. I am beginning to thinkthat a long range tank for Juanita is becominga necessity. While we were stopped we sawsome Great Sparrows at the garage – lookingat first exactly l ike House Sparrows. I t wouldbe surprising to see House Sparrows here.

We did not go straight to Audi camp butwent into town to fi l l up Juanita again and tobuy a Masscom Sim card for the spare cellphone that we had brought with us. TheMasscom phone wil l al low us to use theInternet without having to pay the vast coststhat using a South African roaming phoneentai ls. We made a quick stop at Woolworth's(which has now moved to the "New Mall" andbought a bit of fruit.

On to Audi Camp about ten km north of thecentre of Maun and to the tent that theTarbotons had booked for us. The tent is one

of the already pitched tents that comes withcamp beds and electric l ight. We had todisconnect the electric l ight to have a powersource for the fridge as there was no extrapower point. The camp beds were also a bit ofa mixed blessing. I t was nice to sleep at bedheight, but the beds themselves were prettyhard and unyielding so it might have beenmore comfortable to sleep on our nicemattress on the floor.

The Tarbotons arrived soon after us andsaid that they had passed us on the bridgeover the Tamelekane river. They said that wewere far too busy looking for birds in the riverto notice a bunch of ornithologists coming theother way.

We had time for a quick l ie down but thenPeter Hancock and Johan van Jaarsveldarrived with a son each. Peter is the head ofBirdl ife Botswana and we had met him lastyear at Drotsky's Cabins in the pan-handle.Johan used to work with Warwick in the pastand now seems to be an expert on all aspectsof Botswana wildl ife. The kids (pre-teens)seemed intent on kil l ing each other which didnot worry their fathers in the sl ightest. Theyalso found a woodpecker's nest.

We drank some cool drinks and the kidsconsumed a vast amount of peanuts andchips. We heard some fascinating discussionson the state of birds in the delta area: someof the stories being very depressing. I t seemsthat elephant poachers find vultures to be athreat as they give away the positions of theirhunting and have taken to poisoning

carcasses. There was a recent incident ofover a hundred White-backed Vultures beingkil led as a result. Tourism is also having anegative effect and some heronries havebeen hounded from one site to another.

Our visitors gave Warwick some detailedinstructions about how to find the Madabedepression and we decided to go and have alook there on Wednesday to see what couldbe seen. The Madabe depression is some lowlying land that seems to be on the same faultl ine as the Tamelekane River and Lake Ngamiand which fi l ls up as the delta becomeflooded. Johan suggested that it would be agood place for Warwick to look for dragonfl ies.

Michele had bought a stack of chicken andwe had a very nice supper of braaied chickenwith potato, onions and salad.

Tuesday 5th June 201 2

We slept heavily after the long driveyesterday and would probably have sleptmuch later than 07h00 which is when thenoises of the camp woke us up.

We had a good breakfast of bacon and eggsand no baked beans or bul ly beef. TheTarbotons just had cereal for their breakfastwhich means that they believe in healthyoptions.

We have been reminded by signs all aroundthe camp that we must be careful of ourvaluables and so we decided to leave nothingin the camp but to pack it al l back into ourcars again. A bit of a nuisance but I suppose

that it would be more of a nuisance to comeback to camp and find that al l our bedding hadbeen swiped.

Warwick had arranged that we went to hisfriends Ken and Mel Oakes who had verykindly offered him the use of their boat for theday. First Warwick had to drive off into Maunto get some fuel for the boat and we went offafter a bit and waited for them at the turn off tonowhere on the other side of the bridge. TheTarbotons arrived after some time with theexcuse that Riley's garage had been chaosand it had taken them some time to getserved.

Off into the bush we wandered. Warwickseemed to know where he was going becauseeventual ly we ended up at the Oakes, but howhe managed I don't know as there was achoice between competing tracks in the bushevery few yards. The Oakes house was in awonderful setting with geese (the white,domestic kind) and dogs wandering about anda bateleur and a tawny eagle (both injured) ina huge cage. We met Mel who has a ceramics

workshop there and two small chi ldren, whomight have been grandchildren, helping her.We met daughter Cherene who very kindlyprovided us with a supply of sandwiches forlunch. There were mango trees and lemontrees (with huge lemons) and some hugeacacias. A lovely place.

We met Ken and Samuel, who was to beour driver, and found the boat, fi l led her upwith the fancy marine fuel that Warwick hadfetched, cl imbed in and set off to look fordragonfl ies and birds.

Ken's house is actual ly quite close to AudiCamp, but the Thamalakane River is in theway and the drive around over the bridge andthrough the bush makes it quite a long wayby car. The house is on the Boro river whichis one of those strange Okavango delta riversthat fi l ls up when the delta fi l ls up and driesup if there has not been enough rain inAngola and the Okavango river has notbrought enough water down. Right now, theBoro was acting as a tributary of theThamalakane and the water was flowingsouth at a sluggish pace. (However muchwater flows south, it never actual ly goesanywhere but just wanders off into the desertand disappears. When there is enough water,water flows into Lake Ngami which is asometimes lake and into the Boteti Riverwhich is a sometimes river that ends up inLake Xau. Strangely though, Lake Xau is analways lake and must have undergroundwater feeding it).

Warwick's main excuse for making this trip

was to look for dragonfl ies in the delta area.He has written a field guide on the dragonfl iesof South Africa and now wants to extend thebook to include the whole of Southern Africa(which traditional ly includes everything southof the Kunene and Zambesi rivers: ieNamibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and thesouthern half of Mozambique, in addition toSouth Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho). So, forWarwick and Michele, the purpose of the boatride was to look for dragonfl ies on every patchof water l i l ies and reeds that we passed. Ji l land I had the objective of enjoying the boattrip and looking for the wildl ife on the river. J i l land I had the easier objective. There certainlyare dragonfl ies that fly at this time of the year,but the weather was quite chil ly and the moresensible dragonfl ies were sti l l swimmingaround in the water. For inundations ofdragonfl ies we were either too early or too latein the year and the middle of the days werenot warm enough.

We did see some dragonfl ies though.Samuel turned out to be very keen on learning

about dragonfl ies and was very good atspotting the few that were around to be seen. Ithink that Warwick identified about fivedifferent species during the whole trip.

We started off by going down the Boro andonto the Thamalakane, past the Audi Campand down to the bridge. We then retraced ourpath, past the Oakes's house (and past theirhuge swarm of domestic geese who hadcome for a swim on the river), and thencontinued up the river to the beginning of theswamps proper. Samuel knew his river verywell and is a very competent bird guide. Thebirds were perhaps a bit of a disappointmentespecial ly to Warwick and Michele who hadjust come from the Choebe river and could nothelp compare the huge number of birds thereto the comparative paucity of them here. Thatis not to say that we did not see some goodbirds: many jacanas, egrets (mostly GreatWhites), Pied Kingfishers, Grey Herons,Green-backed Herons. There was theobligatory fish-eagle who posed for a pictureand probably our best sighting was a Saddle-bi l led Stork who unfortunately flew away

before I could get his picture.

There was a sort of a checkpoint at thebuffalo fence but there was nobody manning iton the way up. When we came back throughit, there was a chap there who wanted tocharge us P50 per person for going throughthe fence. (I thought that P50 was a bit steepseeing that we had spent less than an hourabove the fence, but apparently that is thegoing rate. The local community obviouslymakes much of its revenue from chargingpeople to go through). There was a bit of anargument about paying the money: the chapcould not give us a receipt and we refused to

pay without one. In the end we agreed to paythe tol l at the Nature Conservation Office inMaun.

I found it interesting that the Boro River is amain transport highway from Maun up tosome of the many camps and lodges in thedelta. We were passed by a few boats whichwere heavily laden with boxes. I noticed thatthey did not stop to pay tol ls at the barrier!Presumably they have other arrangements to

compensate the locals. I don't know how thecamps get supplies when the Boro is notflowing but assume that when it is dry it ispossible to drive to the camps.

The contrast between the river above andbelow the buffalo fence is quite marked.Below, the river is just a river wanderingthrough the bushveld. I t is an area that isl ightly populated but where there is constantsigns of human habitation including somehouses, goats and cattle. Things changesuddenly on the northern side of the fencewhen suddenly the river opens up into a hugeflat pan of water l i l ies, sedges and reeds.There are the occasional small islands withtrees (especial ly palm trees), but basical ly it isjust one large world of water. There are manychannels through the l i l ies for the transportboats and makoros and the water is veryshallow. Real swamp country.

We had lunch on our way up, stopping at anattractive grove on the river bank for lunch. Inaddition to the sandwiches that Cherene hadso kindly provided, we had lots of left over

chicken from last night and more butteredbread that Ji l l and Michele had made for us.We certainly had more than enough to eat.

Al l in al l it was a very good outing. The bigdisappointment was Warwick's. He had seena little black dragonfly up there in the swampbut al l his skil l with a dragonfly net and allSamuel's skil l in driving the boat in smallcircles had been in vain. Later, in camp,Warwick identified the dragonfly as anOkavango special and one that he just had tohave. So a further expedition had to beplotted.

We were back in camp about 1 6h00. I had ashower and then went off to the bar for a beerand to write up my diary. The Tarbotonsstayed on with the Oakes for a bit and thenwent on into Maun, so they only appeared atthe camp at about 1 7h30.

There was sti l l some chicken left over andwe made a concoption using some pre-paredrice that Michele produced.

All that open air and sun and the water had

been very tiring so Jil l and I went early to bed.This was much to Michele's disgust becauseshe is one of those people who think that20h30 is early.

Wednesday 6th June 201 2

We were late in getting up and probablywould have been later had we not heardrustl ings from next door. We draggedourselves out of bed and had a nice breakfastwhile the Tarbotons were much more efficientwith their cereals. Eventual ly they got tired ofwaiting for us and set off before us.

This time we decided that it was perhapsnot necessary to take everything with us andwe left quite a few things shut up in the tentwith a cable tie to prevent unauthorisedaccess.

We followed the Tarbotons on the road thatgoes north by east from Maun and eventual lyends up in Kasane. We did not intend to gothat far (although we did get half-way toSavuti) and were aiming for the MadabeDepression just on the border of the ChoebeNational Park.

The road was very good tar at first for 40 kmor so to the town of Shorobe, but it thendeteriorated into a not very good gravel road.At times the road is badly corrugated and oneneeds to drive at 70 kph to bounce over thetop of the corrugations; then without warningthe surface wil l change and there were bigpotholes to be avoided and those needed tobe avoided at speeds of less than 60 kph.

(Potholes are certainly unusual on gravelroads, but this was a calcite surface which isvery hard and breaks up like tar).

We drove on to the l ittle town of Mogoseleand the buffalo fence. The nice man warnedus that we would not be able to bring anymeat back with us and suggested that we eatit al l before returning. This was good adviceand we would have fol lowed it if we had anymeat.

On we went and suddenly had the sight ofthe trip. There were hundreds and hundredsof vultures circl ing in a great spiral over on theleft hand side of the road. We stopped andadmired them for some time: Warwick musthave taken at least a picture for each vultureand I also took a few. Some vultures were sti l lroosting on trees to our left; others had justtaken off and were flapping around to gain thethermal; some were in this great spiral; yetothers had moved from this spiral into anothera bit further back; and we could see morevultures vanishing into the shy in yet a thirdthermal. Occasional a couple would leave the

one thermal and move to the next. (Therewere some ploughed fields in the area andthey must have generated the thermals). Weestimated that there were at least 400 vulturesin al l : they were nearly al l White-backedVultures but Warwick did point out at least onelappet-faced Vulture.

This was indeed a fantastic sight. I am surethat in the past sightings l ike this were quitecommon, but today we were very lucky tohave seen it. We stayed watching them forsome time, but eventual ly forced ourselves topush on.

On we went to the small vi l lage of Madabe.We had a tragic sighting of a Black-backedjackal that had been hit by a car and was lyingon the side of the road not quite dead yet.There is not a lot of traffic on the road, but

there is enough to show that there are quite afew people in the area and, of course, it is asupply route to more lodges and campsfurther north in the Moreni and Savuti GameReserves.

The Madabe depression is fed by water thatflows from the delta in the Khwai River. TheBridge Over The River Khwai is a smart steel

one laned little bridge next to a huge acaciatree under which is a nice l ittle picnic spot. Westopped there for lunch and Warwicksearched the banks of the river fordragonfl ies. He did find 6 species (I foundone) which were careful ly recorded but noneof them were exceptional.

I t was a nice lunch of cheese and biscuitsand some pastrami that Michele had found inMaun. (I t is amusing that one can find manyluxury items much more easily in Maun thanin Modimolle!) Some very nice birds came andvisited us too including a Crimson-breastedShrike – one of the most stunning birds of thebush.

We followed Johan's directions: from thepicnic spot drive a hundred meters or so tothe point where a road goes off to the left andthe road forward is blocked by stones. Drivearound the blockage and take the first track tothe right and drive on unti l you hit the water.Apparently the road is blocked because it is away of avoiding the main gate to Savuti – Idon't know if it would be a way of avoidingpaying the entry fee and am too honest to tryand find out. So, in true African fashion, wedrove around the road block (as many peoplehad obviously done before us) and headed offto the right on a very dusty track unti l wesuddenly came upon a lake right in the middleof nowhere.

Normally these lakes (there are apparentlya whole string of them) would simply be drypans, but the heavy water flows over the pastthree years have brought lots of water into the

area. The Khwai itself was flowing slowly butfairly strongly as we went over it and thedepression wil l be fi l l ing up more in thecoming weeks and months.

The first lake had lots of birds including anOsprey which flew around and showedhimself off. There were also a Fish-eagle anda Martial Eagle sitting on trees on the far sideand cormorants and herons sitting on deadtrees in the middle. The area was not so goodfrom a dragonfly hunting point of view andWarwick was only able to find some of thesame species that he had found at the picnic

area.

We drove on a bit more and eventual ly thetrack disappeared into a big muddy puddle.Being experienced off-road 4x4 drivers weknow the procedure here: wade through thewater at least twice in each direction testingthe depth of the water and the quality of theground under the water. Then decide that it istoo risky to carry on. We decided to skip thewading through the water step.

Back to the picnic spot for somerefreshments and then we decided to go on abit on the proper road to Savuti (the branch tothe left). Warwick hoped that the road wouldfol low close by the river and that there wouldbe more opportunity to find some dragonfl ies.I t turned out that the road did not fol low theriver very closely and, although we turned offtwice on tracks off to the left, we did not findany water. We did find some decent gamethough: two very grey and dusty giraffe, twobig male elephants, and one steenbuck. Therewas an eagle's nest close to the road, but noeagles. (Warwick and Michele were soinvolved with the eagle's nest that they nearlymissed the elephants).

Eventual ly we gave up and turned aroundfor home again. We found our picnic spot hadbeen appropriated by the Botswana defenceForce and waved as we went past. This timewe drove a bit more slowly on the way backand had a bit more comfortable trip.

J i l l and I drove straight past Audi Camp andon to the New Mall in Maun to Woolworth's tobuy a few luxury goodies for Patrick and

Grace. (Luxury goodies are even rarer inOrapa than in Modimolle!) We also boughtsome of the local St Louis beer at the bottlestore and fi l led Juanita in preparation fortomorrow's drive to Orapa.

Back to the camp and we had a vegetariansupper of curried chick peas with potatoesand some butternut that we roasted over thefire. I t was all very nice too althougheverything was not cooked at the same timeand we had the butternut as a second course.

Early to bed again being quite tired from alot of driving on bad roads.

Thursday 7th June 201 2

A driving day.

We packed up and had a Tarboton stylebreakfast of rice crispies and post toasties.We then said a temporary goodbye toWarwick and Michele and left Audi Camp atabout 09h30. Meanwhile they had decided tostay another day and tackle the Boro riveragain to see if he could find his elusiveOkavango Special. Ken Oakes had agreed to

lend him the boat for another excursion andSamuel was raring to go. In the end, theydidn't find that particular nunu but did findsome other good dragonfl ies and so theycame out of the experience with a box ful l ofdragonfl ies to scan and big smiles on theirfaces.

Meanwhile we drove and drove. I t was ablustery sort of day and a lot of dust made thedriving a bit uncomfortable. Other than thatthere is l ittle to report: there is sti l l a lot ofBotswana and it was all sti l l there as we dovesouth east to Orapa. There was a particularlybad patch of road (again – I did not mention itbefore) on the south side of Motopo for about20 kms that required some slow and carefuldriving. Otherwise all the main roads that wedrove on in Botswana were a pleasure to driveon. (More that can be said for a lot of SouthAfrican roads). The country was very dry andespecial ly so around Racops where the cattleon the left of the road are convinced that thegreen grass might be on the right hand side ofthe road. while the cattle on the right are surethat there are acres of green pasture on theleft. So one has to stop every couple ofhundred meters to al low the cattle to pursuetheir dreams.

We stoppered and photographed the Botetiriver which is lower than it was last year butsti l l far from being a desolate and dry riverbed.

We arrived at Orapa at about 1 2h30 anddrove straight to Patrick's house and saidhello to him and Grace who was home for

lunch. Obviously we also said hello to Ernieand Lexie. We had a bite to eat and then wentand had a well-earned rest.

About 1 6h30 we went down to the bowlsclub and played a bit with some of the locals:Leigh, Barbara, Kitso, Mmatola. Eventual ly Idecided that it was not doing my back anygood – all the driving and sleeping on hardcamp beds is not too good for backs – and Ihanded over my team spot to Grace.

We had dinner at the local restaurant. A bitof a disaster – 1 0 minutes to get a table; 1 0minutes to order drinks; another 1 0 minutes tolearn that there was no Castle; 8 minutes tofind out what beers they did have; when wefinal ly placed our food order, 20 minutes towait for our starters and then to learn thatthere were no starters; another 1 5 minutes forour main course. Surprisingly, when the maincourse did arrive it was very well cooked andtasty. The restaurant used to be run by themine but has been outsourced – there aretimes when I could agree with COSATU aboutthe evils of outsourcing.

I t was quite late when we final ly got to bed.

Friday 8th June 201 2

We chil led in the morning. For thoseunacquainted with 1 980 slang (which isprobably out of date already) we played it cooland did as l ittle as possible. Grace went off towork and Patrick took his dogs for a walk andnone of those events had any effect at al l onout l ives. We woke up when it was time towake up; we got up when it was time get up;we had a good breakfast because that is asensible thing to have.

Meanwhile we were in contact with theTarbotons who had left Maun about onschedule but had made a side diversion tolook for more dragonfl ies. The plan was tomeet them at Mopepi and so when we got acall from Michele to say that they had seensome cattle crossing the road at Racops wesaid, "Aha!" and climbed into Juanita – threeof because Patrick had decided to abandonhis freelancing for a bit – and set off back theway we came yesterday.

The Tarbotons reached the rendezvouspoint a bit earl ier than us and we passed themforlornly driving past Mopipi looking for theTax Collector's Tree that they had alreadypast.

Have I mentioned that we and the Tarbotonswere in constant contact through their twoway radios? They are excellent in al lowing usto chat with them and we had to remember tosay things l ike "1 0-4" and "Wil lco" and "Roger"and "Over and Out" even when we had noidea what they meant. These little radios were

great when we were all together and therewere elephants approaching on the right andWarwick and Michele were looking for FishEagles on the left, but they were not muchgood when we were out of the l ine of sight.Fortunately Cell phones work quite well inBotswana.

We turned them around and found the turnoff to the Tax Collector's Tree (it is onlymarked for those coming from the south) andturned right into the desert. (A lot of Botswanais dry and very dusty, but this is more thanthat and very desert l ike. There are a lot ofscrub acacia bushes and some other very drylooking shrubs. There are horses and donkeysand cattle, but nothing to indicate that there isany food for them). After a bit instinct told usto turn off on a track to the right and off wewent through dry pans and over dusty ridgesand making arbitrary and irrelevant choicesbetween competing overlapping tracks unti lsuddenly we went over the final ridge andLake Xau was before us.

This is a real Oasis experience. Behind isbarren, dry, dusty and rather unpleasantwilderness and suddenly in front is a lovelylake ful l of deep blue water. (Actual ly quiteshallow but deep-blue in colour). This wasnow the third time that we had come over theridge and seen this sight and I never fai l to beimpressed. The Tarbotons gave us a, "Wow!"over the radio.

We spent some time wandering around thenorth end of the lake. The water level is a bitlower that the last time that we were here, but

probably sti l l higher than the first time – allthese being over the past three years. Thereare sti l l lots of cattle and donkeys wanderingaround but this time we did not see anyhorses. The weather was fairly miserable witha cold wind blowing from the north, east,south and west simultaneously. Have Imentioned that there was some dust?

We slowly worked our way south. In the pastwe had not gone very far south because thereis a cattle kraal blocking the way. But Ken hadtold us that there were pelicans nesting hereand nothing was going to stop us watchingpelicans. But first we had lunch under theTarboton's pul l-out shade covering. I wouldhave loved to have taken a picture, but wehad managed to leave all our camerasbehind.

We saw some pelicans. Lots of pelicans.About 50 came flying form the south andfound a thermal rising to our south east. I twould have made a great picture if we hadhad a camera. Pelicans soar l ike vultures butsomehow manage to look even more gracefulin the air.

We drove around the kraal. These kraalsare quite impressive in that the upright fencepoles are sticks gathered from the bush andare pretty irregular. The uprights arepermanent but the barbed wire fencing inbetween seems to be temporary and usedwhen required but taken away when requiredelsewhere. At this time they were required –not that we saw any cattle actual ly in thekraals.

Kraal – a cattle pen. Because of theimportance of cattle in African society, a"kraal" can refer also to the a homestead. InSetswana the same word, kgotla, is used for acattle pen and for the sacred meeting placewhere the people gather with the chief.

So we drove south around the kraal anddiscovered that there was another big lake tothe south. We drove over some muddysurface (not al l that muddy but muddy enoughto indicate that it was soon to be under water)and met a chap in a solitary Toyota bakkiewho was sitting gazing into the distance.Presumably he was waiting for some friendswho were out fishing in the lake. We madefriends with him and he gave us necessari lyvague directions about a short-cut back toMopipi.

We spent some time at this southern lakelooking at the many birds that we could see inthe distance. There were a lot of pelicans andWarwick was quite happy to agree that theywere probably breeding on the other side ofthe lake. There were plenty of other birds too:Grey-headed Gulls, Different sorts of egrets,herons (including Black herons that we hadnot seen before on this trip), Yellow-bil ledStorks, White-faced Ducks.

Fortunately there were few dragonfl ies forWarwick and all the ones we saw werecommon ones.

We followed the directions of our friend inthe Toyota (which were basical ly drive east)and met up with the road to Mopipi. We wereback in Orapa about 1 6h30. (Patrick had been

meant to meet Grace at 1 6h00 but cel l phonesare marvellous things).

Patrick made us some nice Thai Chicken forsupper. There was lots of talking and not toolate to bed.

Saturday 9th June 201 2

The elder Cairns and the Tarbotons were upand about by 07h00. We had a quick survivalintake of coffee and rusks and set off for theOrapa Nature Reserve. Patrick could notcome with us this time as he was playing inthe Orapa drawn pairs tournament and Gracewas getting some well deserved extra sleepafter having to work all week poor girl .

So we led the way to the Orapa aerodrome.I t seems that the other entrance (at the natureConservation Building) is closed for generaltraffic and that security at the airport iscontrol l ing access to the park. Everything wasdeserted when we arrived – not much airtraffic to Orapa on a Saturday I suppose – andwe wandered into the building looking forsomeone and eventual ly found a verypleasant and chatty security chap. This waswhen we discovered that we had left ourpassports and visitor's permits behind atPatrick’s house. Luckily the friendly chap washappy to take our driving l icenses as proof ofwhatever he wanted proof of and we wereallowed into the reserve.

We drove into the reserve and, never havingcome in that way before, we immediately gotlost and ended up at the "Phala Centre" by

mistake. The Phala centre is a sort of an openair conference centre and I assume that it isused by the mine. Next to the centre was awater hole and we ended up spending acouple of hours watching birds and animalsthere.

The first attraction was just the sheernumbers of toppies, sparrow, weavers, dovesand other LBJs that came to drink at thewater. There were also some other very nicebirds: a lovely Crimson-breasted Shrike, avery tame Little Bee-eater, a Hammerkopfishing.

There was a lot of game there too: impala,kudu, waterbuck, warthog and wildebees allcame down to drink.

But the star attraction of the day were theswarms and swarms of sand grouse thatcame in flocks of 1 0 to 200, landed in theshallow water at the edge of the water hole,stayed for seconds only, and then flew off

again. Altogether we estimated – and it had tobe a very rough estimation – that there wereat least 1 000 of them and I think that that is aconservative estimate. They were mostlyBurchell 's Sand-grouse although I think thatthere were some Namaqua Sand-grousethere too.

I t was a good sighting. The sand-grouse is al ittle bird that l ives out in the desert andmakes a daily trip to water. I t carries waterback to its children in its chest feathers and sowets its chest as it drinks. They can fly as faras 30 km to water every day. The differentspecies come to after at different times of day:the Namaqua comes early in the morning;Burchell 's comes between 08h00 and 1 0h00while the Double-banded comes in theevening. Many years ago, when we went on ahike in the Kruger national park, we sat a damone evening and watched the Double-bandedcoming in to drink. There were many of themthen, but I am sure that we saw moreBurchell 's today.

We had our second breakfast sitting at thewaterhole with animals al l around us and theCrimson-breasted Shrike and the Little Bee-eater hopping underneath our feet. A youngchap wearing a Springbuck jersey arrived andwe had a chat. He is working, as a consultant,on the mine's security and told us that,basical ly, it was not very secure and that theirlosses from theft were very high.

There was a puddle created by a leakingmen's toi let at the centre and we saw moregood little birds there: wydahs, canaries andmore weavers. We left Warwick takingpictures of them and wandered on a bit byourselves. We went down to the next waterhole, just a few hundred meters down theroad, and found a Lappet-faced Vulture and aMaribou Stork standing around in the sun. aswe watched them, a White-backed Vultureflew in to join them. The last time we werehere, we had seen about 50 White-backedVultures here and we assumed that this wasthe first of many.

The Tarbotons joined us and we went for aslow drive around the pan which sort of formsthe centre of the reserve. There were a lot ofanimals on display: springbuck, impala,warthog, giraffe, roan. We were particularly

looking for Kori Bustards which are a bit of aspecial ity of the reserve but did not see any;neither did we see any of the dozen or sorhino that have recently been introduced.Warwick did find a Short-clawed Lark andstopped to take its picture. Warwick andMichele also saw a raptor across the pan;they thought that it was a Martial Eagle thathad caught something. By the time we got tothe other side of the pan, it had flown away.

All this time my fuel gauge had beenreminding me that the last time that I had fi l ledup had been in Maun. When we finished our

circumnavigation of the pan and got back tothe water hole again, the fuel warning l ightwas flashing to remind me that I only had a 70litre tank. We ignored these warnings for a bitand watched the White-backed Vulturessunning themselves at the water hole. By nowthere were about 20 and were fun to watch.There is such a huge difference between theirmajestic grace in the air and their uglyness onthe ground.

We drove slowly from there into town andwent straight to Orapa's one service station

where we fi l led up. The tank took 72 litres so itmust have done the last stretch on minus twolitres.

On to the bowls club and we watched thetournament for a bit. Patrick was drawn withLeigh which made a pretty strong team. Therewere four teams playing in a round robin. WePatrick and Leigh win the second round whichmeant that there were two unbeaten teamsdrawn against each other in the final round.

But first we ate a nice lunch of cold meatand rol ls that Grace had bought for us. Theplayers also had a lunch of cold meats androl ls, but theirs came from a different budget.We went home to get some warm clothing andI managed to snatch a nice l ittle sleep to Ji l l 'sdisgust because she wanted to get back. WellI had not meant to go to sleep – just to have aquick l ie down.

We were back intime to take a pictureof Patrick and Leighas the Drawn PairsChampions. We thenwatched a bit ofsoccer: Botswanaand South Africadrew 1 -1 in a friendly.After the soccer was

the rugby with South Africa beating England22-1 9 in the first test. The result makes itsound as if it was a tight game, but in actualfact it was pretty one-sided with the Englishscoring a last minute goal.

Patrick had provided a dinner to help with

his fund raising for his trip to thechampionships and we had a very nicespread provided by the people who run thehostel in Orapa and who are also bowlers.

We were home at about 20h30 but did notdither around too much before going to bed.

Sunday 1 0th June 201 2

There is very l ittle to say about Sunday. TheTarbotons left at about 08h30 leaving us tospend the day with Patrick and Grace. I t wasa miserable cold and windy day and it did notlend itself to doing much other than sittinginside and being sociable.

Monday 11 th June 201 2

The long drive back to Kokanje.

We said goodbye to Grace as she went offto work. Then a nice breakfast and we packedup Juanita, said goodbye to Patrick and off weset.

I wish there was something to say aboutdriving through Botswana other than to say

that there is not much to say.

We fi l led up in Palapye and then fol lowedthe Tarbotons secret route home throughMalapye and the border post at Stockpoort.Our experience of one and a half hours to getthrough the border at Groblersbrug andMartin's Drift was unlikely to be repeated,butwe were certainly on for a new experience.The road from Malapye to Lepalale includes80 km of gravel but the Tarbotons said that itwas a good road and probably a bit shorterthan the more standard route.

So we continued from Palapye and drovefurther south on the very good A1 unti l weturned off to the left just before Malapye. Agood tar road for a bit and then the firststretch of gravel – an excellent surface andeasy driving. Getting through emigration –immigration – customs was a real pleasureand the entire business took 6 minutes whichincluded moving Juanita because I hadparked too close to the Botswana flag (thatwas strange) and a toilet break. The nice ladyat the SA customs even got tired of waiting forme (I was waiting for Ji l l) to drive to thecustoms check point and so she came andcollected the form herself. She did not somuch as ask if I had anything to declare.

The 40 km of gravel on the South Africanside is not such a good road but gave us noproblems. The road ends up at the Matimbapower station and then takes one round theedge of Lepalale. I was surprised to see whata big town Lepalale has grown to: with two bigpower stations and lots of coal mining there is

quite a lot of development going on in thearea.

We stopped on the side of the R33 for alunch of cheese and biscuits and then again ata butcher on the side of the R33 where webought some biltong.

This time wed decided that we had hadenough of driving over bad gravel roads andavoided the long-cut via Alma and instead webraved the stop-go traffic controls and thedetours on the direct route between Vaalwaterand Modimolle. I t was not too bad and we didnot have to wait too long at any of the stops.

Home about 1 5h30 with few hassles from allthe construction.