Moremi and Third bridge encounters.

Moremi Wildlife Reserve.  Very underrated – kicks Etosha’s butt and is only better than Mahangu because it is bigger. We had quite a bumpy drive to Third bridge campsite, the name comes from its location – the 3rd bridge crossing from Maun to Chobe. Well actually, we missed one of the bridge crossings completely because the roads change according to the weather. And, of course because we are talking delta here, these roads flood big time, which means last years tracks4africa road maps on the GPS were obsolete.  What happens is, when one road is completely submerged, a new and improved one slowly evolves around the sunken tracks, from all the detouring vehicles.  It works pretty well, but is a bit of a laugh when you come across a specific road made around a fallen tree - the tracks are so well set, you would think that tree had been there for years, not from some raging Elephant the week before.

We saw hippos (one walked to a waterhole 20 metres away from the car, Stuart got a great photo but walked back to the car pretty fast), a wattled crane, an egret, a family of warthogs (dam you Lion King!), lots of badly disguised giraffes, an elephant with boobs (excuse my immaturity but I bet you havn't seen one!) and more.

Finally, we made it to our site, absolutely oblivious to what was going to happen that evening – Whenever we retell the story to others, we call it “When ‘babs’ attacked”.

 

Heading to Maun

Nervous about going into a big city after such a long time on our own and enjoying the serenity of wildlife sounds by day and night, we reluctantly rolled into the frantic town of Maun. (pronounced Maung) 

Maun is no bigger than Greerton was in the 90’s – Chadwick road only.  And if it were any bigger I don’t think we would have been able to cope. It was small, very dusty and quite busy, which at that time was enough to make our heads spin.  Nowadays, (writing from Tanzania) we look back at Maun with confidence, almost as the stopover town that it is.

 Sedia Hotel & campsite.  Another great host and accommodation encounter to write home about.  Andy, the engineer man from Manchester who came to Botswana to work on the roads many a year ago, fell in love with the country, a local woman and this very hotel. You would not have thought he was the owner at all, but I thought he explained his misleading presence extremely well – “I don’t want anything to do with running the place, I’m just the man that walks around trimming the hedges. Would you lot like to come for marshmallows around the campfire tonight?”.  He was so cool.

3 nights later we finally left for Moremi Wildlife reserve in the hopes of seeing some great wildlife –which we definitely did indeed.

I had to add this in, just one of the many hilariously named shops here.

The mission to Nguma Lodge, no wait, Guma Camp.

GPS reliance. 2 camps,1km apart. We like it when we have options you know? Since we haven’t chosen yet, we’ll just enter the first destination we see on the GPS and head down to the other camp if the first one is terrible.

Phone call to reception : “Do you have a 4x4?”

Fiver : “Ha, yup we sure do” ... “Ooo must be quite the track huh”, she wondered.

45 mins driving up, down and around giant sandy bumps, 3 shallow water crossings (they’re still water crossings!) and constantly dodging mountains of elephant crap we finally turned up at the wrong campsite… No problem, we’ll just drive down the road to the other camp like we planned.

Nope, damn you Murphy!

Due to the two camp owners having a massive personal dispute/war, one had put up a fence and gate to make their property totally inaccessible from the other camp.  This actually has not been uncommon on our trip. We have experienced many accommodation sites where the owners are having neighborly issues, just like you lot back home.  Think ‘Neighbors at war’, safari style.

Guma camp turned out to be fantastic; the serendipity of nearly all our accommodation decisions really is a fortunate wonder. Such a treat. During our stay, I did dad proud by feeding the many different species of birds every morning, Stuart caught some great photo ops of bird fights.  We also ventured on a 2hour, two-stroke boat ride; crocs birds and a beautiful sunset. The whole package really. We also saw a tiny cute, but very confused and (dare I say it but he really was) very batty… bat.

Over the 4 days, a few overlander groups came and went while we kept requesting to stay ‘just one more night’. 

 

Hippo gas relief at night. My lovely Namibia-Botswana lullaby

For our last two days, we stayed at another awesome camp site (on par with Naukluft and Abiqua).  Mahangu/o camp was just outside the Namibia-Botswana border.  This border required you to venture through a small game drive in order to get there, how awesome is that? ‘What are you doing today?’ ‘Oh you know, just going to do the Mahango game drive on our way through to Botswana, might see an elephant croc or hippo. No biggy. What are you doing?’

 Mahangu/o camp was beautiful, right on the river, not facing Angola though, this time we had the privilege of seeing part of the Okavango and it’s inhabitants.  During our stay there we also saw the birth of the Merryl Peddie Hilton.  I have to say, as much as I was loving my sweet little pup tent from Fiver’s brother, Mark, the hobbit sized door had had it in for me since day one; I had experienced my fair share of temper tantrums whilst struggling to crawl out of it every single morning that it was time to change.  In order to get out of the tent required an enormous amount of skill you see.  I had to find the motivation every day to shimmy through the minute doorway and developed a technique for the days when I just couldn’t face it with strength. 

It was something like a hovering squat-walk.   Slash tripping over some string and tumbling out on top of my once clean but now dirty, dusted or damp pillow, sleeping bag and mattress.  Yeah yeah, I know- I could have just made 3 separate trips, taking each item out one at a time, but that would have been too productive, and I was trying to be efficient!  Anywho, this did get tiring after nearly 4weeks, so I have been temporarily  upgraded to what I like to call, the Merryl Peddie Hilton.  Actually, I should probably name it after the tent, ‘Coleman’s Hilton’, imported from NZ.  This was Five and Stuart’s ‘land tent’ for when we park up for a few days and they use instead of the roof tent, but since they like the roof tent so much more, I have been blessed with the big roomy dome – I can stand up in it and everything, what more could you want?

So easy to please… 

 My first night at the camp was a little bit restless.  For one I was far too excited about my fabric walled hotel that I couldn’t nod off as easily, I kept opening my eyes and seeing giant amounts of space around me, then I would smile and then attempt to fall asleep again. This was joined by another factor contributing to my interrupted sleep - the sounds of hippos at night.  Have you heard the noises they make? Good god, its loud!  I cannot type a bunch of random letters together that would even begin to give you an idea of what they sounded like, however it was kind of like (but nowhere near), a bunch of people who had serious flatulence issues, all letting rip at separate but consistent intervals on a megaphone, no wait… a delta sized sound system.  Whether or not that is what the hippos were doing, perhaps they were just cruising round on land making big whoppee cushion noises while they hung out, I’m not sure, but it was a very different noise to cars passing at night or a party going on down the road. 

I couldn’t help but lay there, in the early hours of the morning all wrapped up in my sleeping bag, and laugh.

Rundu Robbers

We arrived in the frantic town of Rundu after a late morning drive from Sachsenheim camp, just outside Etosha.  We had stopped at the Tsumeb museum on the way for a light history lesson (and some ab-fab mineral rock viewing) before heading into Rundu, which really was no more than a ‘border town’. Check me out with my traveller lingo ay.

Our camp was nice, yet slightly questionably empty.  What I mean is, it was on the river -  always lovely,  however the river was the border to Angola - hmmm.  Need I say more as we had a guard who sat by a fire near our site for the entire evening, on watch for illegal border crossers attempting to enter Namibia via our camp.

We watched another pleasant ‘African sunset’, saw a bushbaby in the trees, and the fantastic outline of an owl, had some dinner and were in bed by the average 7 year-old’s bedtime. Early.

Morning came and we were all up at funnily enough the same time any average 7year old would get up on a Saturday morning to watch cartoons. AKA sparrow fart.  We had to pack up and get ready for a big day at the internet café.  I was rummaging around in my tent as per usual; rolling up my mattress, shuvving the sleeping bag back into its bag with brute force, and being astonished at how much stuff I accumulated in my tent overnight. Fiver had briefly emerged from the roof tent to use the bathroom and Stuart was wandering around watching the sunrise while the water for the tea was boiling.  This was the tiny window of time when the roof tent was unattended, and robbed…quite possibly by a couple of tree swinging children.  That was the unanimous decision anyway.

 

This was our wake up call.  Now we are much more cautious of leaving the car and belongings unattended for more than one minute at a time.  Hmm.  Luckily, the only items that Stuart and Fiver are now less of, are; a couple of pieces of dirty washing, 2 empty bags and Stuart’s recently extracted tooth from Windhoek.  Too many lollies at the Swakopmund movie theatre, I think.

We thanked our lucky stars this was all, and I pretty much kissed my passport after finding it was still in its original place.  My question is though, who robs a bloody roof tent when the back doors are almost screaming out ‘please, someone, anyone, take these three conveniently charging laptops from this wide open and unlocked car’? 

Whoever they were, we were glad they preferred empty bags, dead teeth and dirty washing to apple technology and cloning identities

Camping confusion

Our campsite in Swakopmund was rather fancy, yet absolutely unnecessary. It started off with reception. The lady at reception wasn’t just the standard one lady at one little desk. She was three ladies, two desks and one of those ear tearing ‘yappie’ dogs that fit into your handbag. All three very white ladies were immaculately dressed, presented themselves at only the highest standard and spoke with perfectly posh South African accents. I could have sworn I was walking into a ritzy hotel or enquiring about my some day house mortgage at the bank. They were still very lovely and helpful and issued us with our very own numbered bathroom key. Fiver and I thought this was rather unusual.

We arrived at our grassy site and wondered why it had a front door. The front door had the number 8 on it, which funnily enough matched our bathroom key – no way! Then we took a proper look around the area.

Each campsite was so perfectly laid out that it looked liked we were camping on someone’s front lawn down a perfect suburban street. It looked like a whole group of protestors (who had all managed to lose their signs, have top of the line camping equipment and were all happy) had raided a pretty little street and pitched their tents on every front lawn. It was classic.

As you can probably see, I am really enjoying all the different camping experiences we are already having. They vary so much that a lot of the time I find myself thinking about the results of a lucky dip draw at calf club day – there is a list of the top prizes placed above the bin (camp site listings in the guide book), you give so and so’s mum your entire $2, (making a mental note that at last years calf club it was only $1), then you put your hand in the bin, have a feel around and finally pull out your prize just hoping you got the right one (making the decision and calling a camp site). The problem with lucky dips is that the prizes would vary drastically. Sometimes you’d get that awesome prize everyone was crossing his or her fingers for (highly recommended camp sites). Other times you got a really average prize whilst thinking you had your hands on the good one. You then gave so and so’s mum a long, drawn out and unenthusiastic ‘thaanks’ which was more an act of politeness and covering your butt rather than gratitude (sites we thought were going to be good that turned out to be…not so good). Other times there was just that straight up weird prize. The one that you couldn’t figure out - was it a really cool toy or a completely impractical household item? What did it do? After calf club day was over it would just kind of hang around the house until it finally ended up being biffed into the junk draw. That, or, a friend finds it amongst a heap of junk one day and is absolutely ecstatic about it but can’t understand why you don’t mind if they borrow it and never give it back.

I think the last prize was Alte Brücke camp site for us, I could see how some people would absolutely love it but we just saw no need for the extensive number of bathrooms (which means ridiculous amounts of plumbing in the desert!) and having our own set of ‘house keys’. A simple patch of grass, dirty or sand and a nearby ablution block is enough, and for many other campers too, I am sure.

Shitty Sesreim and the spectactular Sossousvlei!

The thing we have started to notice about the beautiful natural wonders of Africa is that they always have the worst and most expensive accommodation nearest to them….and they are almost always a national park.  Sesreim was our wake up call.  To be honest, the camp site was fine, more than fine, but the fact that we were paying almost triple for this site did not give us a good impression.  Also, due to booking mishaps, we were bumped down to the overflow section which was a nuisance more than anything.  I heard my first jackal rummaging in a rubbish bin that night.

 None of this mattered the next day when we woke before dawn (pretty standard these days) and drove 70km to the Sossousvlei dunes of the Namib desert.  I had obviously never seen something like this before, and was a little lost for words that morning.  Fiver took pictures while I filmed Stuart climbing a big dune.  The light was incredible and we had chosen a good time to go as it wasn’t too hot.  I ran down the dune, nearly tripping over every time I lifted my legs and I giggled hysterically like a kid the whole way down.  I kind of looked like one of those cartoons when they run with their legs sticking/winding out the sides and there's a big circular dust cloud going on..classic.

On our way back to the car, we saw an oryx.  He was just hanging out behind a bush, having a standing snooze in the morning sun.  Apparently oryx are one of the animals that the unicorn tale comes from (don't forget my favourite narwhals now!), and this guy was a classic example - he had lost a horn; maybe in some brute force oryx on oryx man battle or something, and was just standing there, looking rather mundane and unimpressed that he had lost one of his weapons.  He can't of been that gutted, because he posed so well for my camera. 

 'Bye Merryl, hope you had fun in the dunes...Thanks Mr Oryx!'

 After that fantastic morning, we headed off to Naukluft camp and I got to drive us through some rough ass gravel!  This does not necessarily mean it was I who got the tire puncture….

Oh-so accommodating Lüderitz

After Fish River Canon we set off for a long day’s drive to Lüderitz. Fiver made the routine phone call to book some accommodation for the night.  We opted for proper beds and walls this time as Fiver was slightly (major understatement) bashed up from our wild horse riding expedition.

She spoke German to the man on the other end of the phone, and laughed as she hung up.  I understood some of what was being said but not all, not until she translated to me - I will be staying in the son’s room of the owners of the B & B…..

There was one room for 2 people and all the other rooms (the other two) in this cute German house-turned B & B were taken. “But that is no problem” the man told Fiver on the phone, “our son is studying abroad and we can make up his room for the young girl”. 

 

In reflection, I was a little weirded out by this homely offer but I knew it wouldn’t be that bad once I got there.  It was as if I was going to be staying at a friend’s house, but my friend wasn’t going to be there… and I didn’t know my friend at all. 

What I realised quickly about the places we have been and are going to go during this trip, is that the majority of the hosts really are so kind and genuine. They really do enjoy having you there and not somewhere else, and I didn’t at all feel uncomfortable during my stay.

 

So, we arrived at Lüderitz. It was cute but man was it dead! I later commented that it had the potential to be the next Kolmanskop if it didn’t watch out.

Fiver introduced herself to the host’s wife, and they did their little German spiel thingy. Stuart and I stood awkwardly in the background both sharing the same concentrated expression; faces scrunched up and necks craned out as far as possible so at least one ear could catch the conversation, then trying our hardest to grasp at any common words.

Stuart could understand a lot more than I.  

I finally understood a whole sentence when Fiver was explaining that Stuart was English, I was a New Zealander and we did not Sprechen Sie Deutsch so well. The lady looked at us for a split second (obviously saw the ever-so-trying look on my face) and then blurted out “Well that’s great! We can all speak English then, I’m rubbish at German anyway”. Fantastic.

 

Once Fiver and Stuart were settled in, the lovely lady showed me to my son’s bedroom. Hmmm, how to word that one?

I was more than welcome to make myself at home and use the bathroom and shower as I pleased.  I was not to worry if I heard any ‘movements next door’ as that was their daughter, and I was also warmly offered a cup of hot chocolate. 

How nice was she? I even had her own personal set of house keys so I could ‘come and go as I please’. 

Ich liebe Sandrose B & B, Vielen Dank! 

I like camping

It is a fairly simple statement, but there is so much delight when I say it! Camping offers the ideal lifestyle routine for me.  Apart from putting up and pulling apart my awesome tent (Danke Schön Mark) every day, I thoroughly enjoy snuggling up in my chrysalis sleeping bag and falling asleep to the various sounds of my surroundings.  Whether it be a flowing river, desert silence (except that hungry jackal or whatever that thing was that got into the rubbish bin one night), Atlantic ocean waves or comforting night animal sounds, I love it all! 

The thing about camping is, when it gets dark, it gets a little chilly and once we have had dinner, watched an episode of ‘Long Way Down’ or read a bit from the Bradt (Fiver), Lonely Planet (me) or Getaway Guide (Stuart) on the current country it is pretty much bed time.  This is like 8pm…max! 

When one goes to bed so early, one can only sleep for so long, so I am wide awake and crawling out of my awesome tent before dawn nearly every morning with absolute ease! AND IT’S FABULOUS!

Dad, you would be so proud of my newfound eagerness for early mornings. However, Fiver does not always share my joy and actually she has a few words for you every morning that I prance around the campsite singing ‘wakey wakey’ with more enthusiasm than you could throw a stick at, while she wishes she could keep sleeping.