Long Time and No Write, Now into 2013

Hi to all who read this
It has been a very long time since the blog was updated but it is round once again to the holiday season

This year we are back in Africa with a road trip mainly around Botswana. We start at the end of July with a flight out to Johannesburg in South Africa to pick up a 4x4 vehicle complete with a tent on the roof. We then drive north towards Botswana spending one night in a lodge in South Africa before we cross the border and then spend another night in a chalet in the hills of South East Botswana. The next place is a Rhino Sanctuary where we will get to use the tent before heading out into the wilds of Botswana and spending 4 nights in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. This is an area larger than Wales but with absolutely no facilities. We have to take in everything we want such as food, water, firewood plus the camping is truly wild with no roads and just a few tracks. There are designated camp sites but these are very basic with no water and each plot for one tent may be some 5-10 Kms from the next one. Animals including the big predators such as Lion, Leopard and Hyaena all frequent this area so it should be fun. We then continue on north heading via other places and going up the western side of the Okavango delta towards Namibia and the Caprivi strip before returning back into Botswana. The Caprivi strip is the only area of Namibia we did not get to during our road trip around Namibia in 2010.
We start of back in Botswana in the north East corner at Kisane, a small town on the borders of Zambia and Zimbabwe where we shall spend a few days, one of them being a trip to the World Renowned Victoria Falls before continuing on the road trip to Chobe National Park and then Moremi Game Reserve before heading back along the Eastern side of the Okavango Delta to spend a few days in Maun. From here we will fly into the centre of the Delta to see more wildlife. From Maun it is then back driving into the Salt Pans of the Nxai Pan and the Makgadikgadi Pans National Parks before heading back to South Africa via a short stay on the Limpopo River that is the border and finally a couple of nights back in the first lodge we stayed at in South Africa and then the return home at the end of August.
Sights we hope to see are obviously the fantastic wildlife including lots of Elephant in and around Chobe, Lions and all the cats in lots of areas, Brown Hyaena in the CKGR as well as lots of birdlife.

Our Full route, Itinerary and interactive map can be viewed here if you so wish
http://wetu.com/Map/indexv2.html?itinerary=e34d238f-9ecc-489b-a582-9f2607b0c63f&cl=1

This year communications will be at a premium for many places so updates and pictures may well not happen as often as we may like but we will try to upload as often as we can, especially pictures

Your comments, as usual will be very much appreciated