Sun. 9th June ’24
We had a lazy start to the day enjoying a sumptuous breakfast as we know we are self catering and camping for the next three days and nights as we head into Botswana. As Dave drove into the resort, we agreed that I should drive out to give me practice driving in sand. In addition, Keenan told us how to take a different route around the deep sand, before retracting our route to the main road. It was an hour’s drive and I felt quite relaxed about the sand by the end.
After that it was tarmac all the way to the border with Botswana. That was not all easy going as we passed a sign saying beware elephants and we know they can be aggressive if separated from their young. In fact, it was the cows we had to watch out for as they crossed the road without warning and Mungo is not the quickest at stopping. The border crossing was no problem and we quickly passed through. Our next stop was Kasane to stock up on provisions for our next three days meals. Luckily, although it was Sunday, supermarket, currency exchange and garage were all open, so the three of us headed out of town well stocked up for the trip (except the bottle stores were shut!!).
To get to Kasane, we had used the transit road through Chobe National Park, a tarmac road with no stopping to look at wildlife. This time we entered on the dirt safari track beside Chobe River and to our campsite. We passed many safari trucks loaded with punters, plenty of elephants, buffalo, antelope and pretty birds and we could have taken many more photos. However, I wanted to get the classic view of the river with elephants and hippos drinking and the open plains behind, which we remembered from the last time we came. It was not to be as bushes blocked our view and it was directly into the sun. All quite tame after Nambwa.
Once parked up at our campsite, we had a fantastic view of the river so after we had set the tent up we prepared our drinks and nibbles to watch the beautiful sunset. We put a jar of olives and an unopened packet of crisps on the table and in a flash a baboon appeared from nowhere and grabbed them both! One he had devoured the crisps he had the cheek to come back looking for more but we had wised up by then and kept everything under close guard. (I found the unbroken empty olive jar next morning and so was relieved that no animals were injured with broken glass).
As sunset is at around 6pm we lit the fire early to deter animals. Hot dogs don’t take much cooking so we had soon eaten and cleared before retiring into the cab of Mungo. We had been told the campsite was unfenced so elephants and lions frequently walked through at night so don’t go wandering far after dark. At around 10pm it was headlights on, scour for animals then bathroom necessities by headlight beam and retire upstairs for bed. No Internet, no blog drafting for us this evening, just relax and read.
We did reflect on the timing of our trip and if we were to do it again (which is unlikely as we have too many other places still to visit!), we would watch that our shopping days did not fall on a Sunday. This also caused us problems with supermarkets as well as having to rush to Swakopmund on a Saturday to get our replacement tyre before the lunchtime closing. In addition, we have got our timing of the moon phase wrong. We have had full moon when we wanted to do astrophotography, and now we have a new moon when we could really do with the moonlight to see if there are any animals wandering around the camp. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but on this amazing trip this is a minor gripe.