We got away early from our surprisingly pleasant camp and soon we were in Letlhakeng. We filled up the Troopys and the staff at the filling station kindly helped us to fill a few more containers with water. We were grateful that we had done all our shopping for supplies in Lobatse, because we did not get to see any shops in this town at the end of the tar. I think that there is probably more to the town than what we saw, but we were in a hurry to get to Khutse anyway. Petra was worried about their solar panel charge rate and Paul did some fiddling with the wiring and we drove on to find a lunch spot. We realized that there is a tar road linking Letlhakeng with the Trans Kalahari Highway and this explained why there had been so many trucks on the road. Possibly the trucks are forced to take this wide detour to avoid the treacherous potholed road to Molepolole??

We were now on a comfortable sand track and the Troopys felt at home! The landscape was attractive and typically Kalahari and it was very evident that the good rains had also fallen here, because there were lovely stretches of yellow flowers adorning the track. We passed through several villages, but the track was now quiet. We still had a long way to go (100 kilometers to Khutse), but it felt good to be finally getting closer. We got to the gate in the early afternoon and got a very friendly reception from the young man from Bigfoot. He suggested that we camp just outside the gate and then enter the next day when we were booked to sleep at Khutse Pan. He assured us that it was absolutely fine to camp there and we could make a good fire. He sensibly entered us in the book for the next day, since he said that he might arrive too late. The two ladies at the Botswana National Parks side were a bit uncertain about our booking. I decided to leave it for the next day. We drove around a bit to find a good spot, but eventually settled for an open spot quite close to the gate after a bit of driving about. Paul’s back was a bit sore so Petra drove Ssyril got stuck on a nasty cross track. Stephen went to rescue Ssyril and had to use low range to get out of the sand. Petra and I went for a walk and I got my socks full of grass seeds. It was a very attractive area and there was ample firewood. We enjoyed a splendid sunset and soon the waxing moon lit up the sky for us. We had our first braai and it now really felt that our adventure had started.

Khutse was officially declared a protected area in 1971. Khutse means “place where you can kneel down and drink” and was the second reserve established on tribal land in Botswana (Moremi was the first). It shares a boundary with the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and is relatively small – 2,500 square km.

Geschreven door Leartravels