Wait just a minute… Please refer to the tales of the Kalahari days 1-2, day 3, day 4 and days 5-6 if you haven’t already! Then you are welcome to read on…
Day 7: When intruders ruin your lunch plans.
We were up early and ready to go about 20 minutes early! We didn’t want to upset the Kalahari gods so we only left a few minutes early and went up to check the beginning of Deception Valley (where the cheetahs hunting and lion tracks were the previous evening) but nothing was happening, so we changed direction and went towards Deception Pan. It was a busy morning at Deception, with two other cars in the vicinity. Even one other car is a crowd at Kalahari, so we were not that impressed! Even so we managed to be the only people at Deception Pan when we stumbled upon two lovely male cheetahs, soaking up the sun!
It was a much better sighting than the two cheetah sightings from the prior day and we followed them as they walked around the pan, looking for some prey. A couple of times they appeared a bit upset by our car, so we hung back a bit to give them plenty of space. After about 20 minutes another car appeared, but at this point the cheetah brothers were walking into the distance. This was the first time we had experienced another car at our Kalahari sighting, and we weren’t having any of it so we decided to leave anyway. Good thing because there were THREE MORE cars coming around the pan! Talk about peak hour! These poor shmucks were too late though – I definitely think the early bird gets the worm here in the Kalahari.
On we went to Letiahau waterhole, but we didn’t even see the standard lion tracks en route! Nothing but the usual jackals, gemsbok, springbok and ostriches. There we turned around and headed back as we had to get to Leopard Pan to cook our brunch. Once again it was quiet and by the time we hit Leopard Pan campsite we were famished (it was 11:30am) and sick of driving (particularly Van who was doing all the driving). At this point though, disaster struck. There were people at our campsite. People who were lazing about with a tent fully erected and their whole camping possessions laid out. People that did not appear to be in a hurry to leave OUR CAMPSITE.
Given that you are given literally ZERO rules here, we didn’t really know who had preference to the campsite – but realistically it was a moot point because they were here and they weren’t in a rush to leave. We apologised (though we really think they were in the wrong) and said we would be back. Off to Sunday Pan waterhole (nothing doing – standard.) where I had a nap and Van played more cricket on his phone. An hour later we left and came back to the campsite hoping against hope they had left. NO SUCH LUCK. We had already decided to stay even if they were still here, because we needed a fire to cook our lunch and we didn’t really fancy trying to invade a different campsite and starting a fire there because for all we knew the campers for that site would show up and be annoyed with us!
Well THEY WERE STILL HERE, but thankfully they at least had mostly packed up and looked as though they had a modicum of urgency about their actions. We stopped as per the plan and got out. A bit awkward but we struck up a conversation and all was OK. They complained about seeing nothing. We regaled them with tales of leopard, lions, cheetahs and more. They looked jealous. We looked smug. It was great! In your face, campsite hoggers. I felt bad for them as the gate hadn’t given them a map and they hadn’t been able to find this campsite, as it is called Sunday Pay 01, but it’s actually at Leopard Pan. Very strange as I booked it as Leopard Pan but apparently they booked it as Sunday Pan! AFRICA!
There are not many signs around for the campsites so if you don’t happen to have a proper map (although even the map isn’t great) or a GPS/maps on your phone with the campsites (I have this also, but this campsite is called Leopard campsite on there) you might struggle. Word to the wise, if coming here try and sort out what your campsites are called and where they are before you arrive!
WELL, we decided to have an early afternoon shower but lucky Van actually looked IN the bucket at the bucket shower at Leopard Pan before pouring our precious last water in there. As it happens, there was a family of mice or rats – hard to know which because they were LONG DEAD. And then we noticed there were also other members of the poor deceased rat/mice family on the ground in the shower. Lovely. We are not sure if there was some sort of suicide pact between them, or if someone got annoyed and went on an all out rat/mice jihad and brought about the ratopocalypse… or perhaps they jumped into the bucket looking for water and drowned / couldn’t get back out. We may never know. Well, we definitely will never know, but perhaps that is for the best.
Anyway we had our own ‘solar’ shower (which wasn’t very solar) so we instead opted to use that so as not to be covered in dead rat/mice remains. It was a little disturbing that it looked as though someone MAY have had a shower with the decaying bodies in there, but let’s all hope that was not the case! Once showered we were ready for our sunset drive, but NO SURPRISE Sunday Pan and Leopard Pan once again proved completely devoid of any predator life. I truly don’t understand how animals get water in this reserve because there are only a handful of waterholes, and NOT ONCE did we see anything even close to one?!?!?!?!?!? ANOTHER KALAHARI MYSTERY.
We watched the sunset at Leopard Pan while drinking some JC Lereux, and then headed back to our campsite to set up our roof top tent for the last night in Kalahari. We were kinda hoping for the last time ever since we have decided to try and upgrade to a chalet on our way home, but I don’t hold out too much hope for that! I am clearly too old to be camped in a tiny roof top tent for more than seven nights because my back is sore and I wake up CONSTANTLY with Van moving even an inch. It doesn’t help that for some reason ZEBRA CAMPERS (our newfound favourite ‘fully-equipped’ 4×4 supplier – sarcasm intended-) put us in the small tent, which I’m pretty sure is really meant for kids or one person. SO MUCH JOY.
Oh when we rocked up tonight we were greeted by a lovely spotted-eagle owl that had been camping out, but swiftly flew away upon our entrance. I think that is about the third owl I have seen so far at our campsites!
I was desperate to hear lions for our last night if only to believe there were more than a handful in the entire park, but no such luck. We popped half a phenergan each (the only way to sleep in a kid’s roof top tent) and went to bed once again before 8pm!!
Our last night in the Kalahari – such a bittersweet feeling!!
Day 8: A leopard farewell and tiny rhino reunion
We woke up early as always to take advantage of our last morning in the Central Kalahari (hopefully not ever!). We were hoping to find something at Leopard or Sunday Pans because so far they had not been kind to us, despite the fifty billion sightings people allegedly had here earlier in the month according to the sightings board at the gate. Perhaps we had angered the Kalahari gods again because since we were at such an isolated campsite we actually left about 15-20 minutes early to get a head start! Sadly there was nothing of interest to be seen other than a couple of jackals at Leopard Pan, and Sunday Pan (and waterhole) told the same story. Where on earth were these supposed lions that lived at Sunday Pan??? On our journey we came across two German ladies who wanted us to help them find a cat. They mentioned how someone had seen lions early in the morning at Deception Valley, but upon further interrogation this was from a couple of days earlier.
Well. If this was the best intel they had then I felt sorry for them! I swiftly told them all the sightings we had had over the past week and their little German eyes grew large. Unfortunately we had nothing of use for them for that day but we did give them some tips in general. Hopefully they found something good! It has been quite a recurring theme of our trip – bumping into people who have not seen any predators. It does make us feel quite lucky and special!
Still nothing to be seen and we were already on our way to the gate! I was holding out hope we might find the elusive lions of the Kalahari on our way as it seemed that people had seen lions on that road a couple of times that month. No signs of anything until we got to Kukama Pan, almost half way on the road to the gate. We both spotted something that looked strange hanging out near some trees. Van reversed the car and it had disappeared. Very suspicious! Then I caught a quick glimpse of something just disappearing behind some bushes and I knew it was something good.
We found a side road heading to a campsite and drove towards the mystery prize… as we pulled up I got another glimpse of a BEAUTIFUL, SLEEK CREATURE… It was a leopard! But it somehow disappeared AGAIN. We waited a while and this time Van spotted it right in a bush, but it started running away from us. We thought it might be the end of it, but all of a sudden it was out in the open, stalking some steenbok! Unfortunately they ran away (it may have been from us – let’s hope we didn’t ruin the lovely leopard’s meal) but we did have a few more moments watching the little female leopard sitting in the Kalahari grass before we had to get going.
The rest of our trip to the gate was uneventful other than MORE LION TRACKS. If only we had seen even a fraction as many lions as we saw of their tracks we would have been cheering. But alas, it was late and our little lion friends were sleeping under bushes somewhere.
The gate was actually quite busy considering we were in the middle of NOWHERE. The gate people were super friendly and one of the ladies raved about how lucky we were to see everything we did. Van even showed off some of our leopard pics from that morning. I had to laugh as some Spanish guys were entering the park and were busy asking the people if an employee would be there at the camp when they arrived to show them where to camp! They didn’t seem to comprehend the fact there were no employees in the park and they had to just figure it all out themselves. I wonder if they had even brought any food, or perhaps they were expecting to get Maccas and Dominos! It does go to show you that they should really give people a bit more information before they send them on their way!
I asked the guy about elephants and how often they were seen, but he said basically they just come and go as they please. I then asked if he ever gets them coming through the gate, but he said they don’t bother, they just break down the fences with ‘no negotiation’. I still can’t understand why they bother since there is very little water, but he said there was a river nearby that they go and drink from before breaking their way back in for their Kalahari party. I looked at the fence as we left and it was seriously the worst fence I have ever seen. I do wonder whether they even need to ‘break’ it down, as it looks like you could simply just push it and it would fall over. There’s no electrification or any sort of deterrent for animals or people to enter/exit. How different to South Africa!
On our way back to Khama we stopped at a few vet fences and chatted to the police. Everyone was so friendly. People walking by the road wave and smile, and everyone also drives the speed limit (unlike in South Africa where half the people are doing half the speed limit and the other half are doing double). It was just so nice to be driving without having to worry about being hijacked, or having to overtake trucks and people doing 20kmh in a 120kmh zone constantly!
We were excited to stop back in Lletlakane for a Hungry Lion lunch before heading on to Khama for about 4pm. Just before we got there it was so cool because there were mini dust tornadoes EVERYWHERE. I’m not talking about those wimply little willy willy things, I’m talking about proper tornado looking things! It was so cool! We even stopped to get some pics and take a short video, and then we passed another guy taking videos out of his window as he drove. You just never know what you are going to see next travelling here!
At Khama we went for a short sunset drive and found our little baby rhino again – but the weird thing was he was with a different rhino mummy? This mummy was a rhino we had seen the week prior but sans baby. She was very distinctive as her horn is extremely straight and long. Van was almost certain it was the same little baby boy rhino, so it’s a bit strange it would be with two different rhino mums? And it looked a little too big to be less than a week old, which is what it would have to be since when we saw this mum rhino last week she didn’t have a baby. Perhaps in this sanctuary environment the female rhinos share parenting responsibilities? Very strange! Anyway it was so fun to watch this little rhino baby because he was trying to hang out with a family of warthogs, which were only a little smaller than him. But then they would run away from him and he would chase them as if it was his intention all along… but then he’d get scared and run to his mummy! Totally gorgeous.
We had tried to upgrade to a chalet at Khama because we were so sick of our tiny roof top tent after a full week, but they were fully booked, so it was off to campsite number 5 again for our last camping night of our entire trip (excluding safari tents in Kruger)! We didn’t have anything for dinner thanks to our big Hungry Lion lunch, but we did spend some time sitting around a fire (that Van made due to having some firewood left). It was totally freezing so in order to convince me to stay for a bit longer Van made me a hot water bath for my feet!
Then it was bed time for our last night in our roof top tent and our last night in Botswana for quite a long time! We don’t know when we will be back, but hopefully it won’t be too long.
The end!! If you are heading to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve anytime soon (or if you’ve been recently), feel free to post a question or comment about your experience below!
Also if you’re in the mood for more trip overviews, check out our 10-day Kgalagadi adventure from March 2017.