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Tuesday, 07 February 2012
Tuesday, 07 February 2012
Before heading to Kubu Island, we did a tour of the bird sanctuary. It is a large pan with a variety of birds occupying the water, small shrubs, trees and grass. There were some buck. We saw a jackal chase a duiker (small buck) but gave up as the buck easily outran him.
We had to retrace our route for about 40km to Maun before turning south onto the 80km sandy track to Kubu Island. Part of the storm the previous day had caused large pools of water on the road for the first 15km.
We passed a veterinary gate which indicated the rates to visit Kubu Island and the person manning the gate instructed us to pay at Kubu Island. We eventually arrived at the pan crossing needed to get to Kubu Island. The pan had large pools of water and the tracks led through some of the pools and the rest of the track looked wet & muddy. Lynne was ready to give this a miss, however Philip had better ideas.
We managed to get across without any incident. Except for a sign that said ‘staff’, we saw no reception or offices to make payments so we drove around the island. There are some huge Baobab trees and many young ones. The camping facilities were very basic with drop/pit toilets of which many had no doors, however, the view over the pans was wonderful.
Originally, we had plans to camp on the island, however after the huge thunderstorm the previous day and seeing the sky dotted with many smaller pending thunderstorms, we decided it was too risky to stay on the island. One large thunderstorm and we could be stuck on the island until June. We therefore headed for Francistown (289km to go).
The first 50km was pretty rough as we had to cross 3 pans. The road was therefore not only covered in water, but muddy as well. After some delicate road ballet (slipping and sliding), we made it through. Philip had checked at the veterinary gate whether the road to Francistown was okay and he responded “A Nissan 4x4 came through earlier” (Philip’s thought “then surely a Land Rover Defender can get though“).
We arrived at Woodlands Stop Over at 18h20 and setup camp. Lynne decided to consume ‘anti-water and mud’ therapy liquid (and wished there was a straw long enough to go directly into a bottle of Old Brown Sherry!!) to calm her nerves after 3 days of sand, water, mud, corrugations and bumps. Woodlands is a beautiful camp site with good facilities including a swimming pool so we decided to stay for 3 nights before heading to Gaborone to visit friends of ours.
While we were sitting outside, several large moths started to fly around and were especially interested in the sweet sherry (Lynne doesn’t blame them, sugar is very nerve calming and they probably also had a traumatic day) and kept flying into our glasses. Philip was ready to get the Doom out and eradicate them but instead, Lynne gave them their own bottle-cap full to drink and then later, when we had fig preserve with our cheese, we dotted some of the preserve juice on the table where the moths had an absolute feast.
Wednesday, 08 February 2012
Wednesday, 08 February 2012
We woke up and sat under a tree drinking our coffee and watched a Woodlands Kingfisher bird which was sitting on a pole about 10m away. Every now and again, it would dive onto the grass, pick up an insect, return to the pole and eat the insect. After 2 or 3 dives, it would fly to a nearby tree to feed a young bird after which it returned to the pole. Philip thinks the bird in the tree was a lazy bird as it looked as big as its mother and could fly.
We popped into Francistown (about 20km from Woodlands) to stock up on fuel, groceries, drinks and to exchange some Pula (currency) that Philip had brought along from his last visit to Botswana in 2008. The Government changed the notes in 2009 and therefore Philip could not use the 2008 currency. As we had to go to the Bank of Botswana, we could only change the currency in Francistown or Gaborone.
We spent the day at camp cleaning the vehicle & the fridge, swimming and laundry. OH NO, not again! (#$&@#@(!JJ) Lynne pointed out that the diesel cap was not put on after we filled up in Francistown. We will sort it out on Thursday.
Mike, the owner of Woodlands popped by our camp and we had a long chat. He invited us to walk through his private property to the hide on the river. The river only started flowing this morning after all the rain further north. As the temperature was 42oC in the shade, we waited until 18h00 before we took a walk to the hide. As recommended by Mike, Philip walked across the flowing river (knee high) and saw three giant eagle owls sitting in a tree (awesome intimidating birds). Go to Woodlands Stop-over on Facebook to see some images of the birds.
Thursday, 09 February 2012
Thursday, 09 February 2012
We watched the kingfisher again this morning. Each morning and evening is alive with avian musicians and during the heat of the day, I am sure they rest to prepare for the next symphony.
We returned to the petrol station in Francistown and the petrol attendant recognized us and handed Philip the fuel cap (relief). As we are experiencing serious ant problems at the camp site, we bought some poison spray. We stopped at the Thorn Tree cafe and enjoyed a blueberry muffin and coffee before returning to Woodlands.
Lynne sprayed all possible access points to anything we put on the ground with poison, even the guide ropes for the tent awning and electrical cable. Hopefully it works.
Today, we again relaxed around the pool and discussed our progress to date. We have over-achieved and have covered more distance in less days than anticipated. We have revised our route to extend to Kruger National Park, southern Mozambique and the Kwazulu-Natal north coast back to Ramsgate to see Tarryn, our daughter.
Thanks Nico who came back with a good response to “Why did the chameleon cross the road?” [Monday, 06 February 2012]
He was on his way to George to see Lynne.
[Clarified: George is the name of our vehicle but also the name of a town in South Africa]
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