It was rather fresh this morning, but once again the welcome rays of the sun soon warmed us up. We were now going to turn due west heading for Xade, the entrance gate to the Central Kalahari from the Ghanzi side. The track was narrow and the “middelmannetjie” was at times very high and the tall grass scraping the undersides of the Troopys indicated that this road is not much driven. We stopped at the first turn to rig up seed nets to protect the radiators. There was a very prominent track that continued in a northerly direction and this was obviously well driven. It eventually also leads to the Matswere Gate and past some settlements and one could drive it as a loop to the Xaxa campsites. A possibility for another exploration? Apart from the San settlements, where we had seen an old bakkie, we still had not seen another vehicle. There is no waterhole in this area and apart from many birds, it was very quiet game wise, except for a very exciting sighting of a honey badger running the race of his life in front of us. I tried my utmost to capture this seldom seen animal on film, but only managed a few blurred pictures. What did amaze us was the presence of so many Kori Bustards in the park. We passed the turnoffs to the Xaxa and Xade campsites and wondered about our campsite number?? There is a waterhole at Xaxa and it probably would have been a good place to overnight. We got to the Xade gate in the late afternoon and the lady at reception wanted to see our booking papers. My heart sank. But she indicated that our campsite was near the gate and we could proceed. We were welcome to come and fill up our container at their water tanks the next morning. This was good news. Paul and Petra decided to have a look at the dry waterhole at Xade (the pump had been plundered by elephants), but we proceeded to our campsite. They tried to get to the campsite following an alternate route shown on their GPS, but this had been closed by a deep ditch dug across the track. The campsite was actually very attractive, level and under a tree, but one could hear the sound of the Xade generator in the distance. It did not really worry us, because we would stiil have had 15 slow kilometres to drive the next morning had we been booked at the distant Xade campsites that we had passed. We saw some gemsbok and kudu and it still was very wild around us. We got our usual campfire going and soon were enjoying our dinner under the moonlit sky. The part of the route that we had been most concerned about, although narrow and scratchy and really remote, had not really been a challenge for the Troopys or for us.

We had managed to get to Xade remarkably easily. When we were planning the route and I had to choose campsites for Botswana Footprints to try and book for us, it all sounded so challenging and adventurous. This was mostly because the reports on sites like DriveBots etc. sounded so “tough”. We are used to a bit more “toughness” than this and it was no challenge at all for the Troopys and their occupants! In fact I have come to realize that we are actually rather “seasoned” overlanders compared to most people and the “been there, done that” is not such a boastful exaggeration!

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve was established in 1961 and is regarded as the second largest game reserve in the world! At 52,280 square kilometers (5,28 million hectares), it is a vast wild place. It was only opened to visitors in 1991. The area is the ancestral home to many San (Bushman), but in the 1990’s the Botswana government relocated most of these nomadic hunter-gatherer groups from their traditional lands. This resulted in a lengthy legal battle and the courts ruled in favour of the San and many groups moved back. We passed two of these remote settlements on our way to Bape.

Geschreven door Leartravels