CKGR or Rain and freezing temperatures

Beware..... A Long Post

Pair White Rhino

After Palapye the next week or so would be spent away from the hustle and bustle of 21^st Century life. OK the two nights spent in Kharma Rhino Sanctuary were not that  “away from it all” but we would have no electricity and would be cooking on open fires. We had stopped at KRS for a night back in 2013 and liked it so we found time for 2 nights this time round. The camp sites have water and hot showers but not a lot lese. What you do get is wild camping with the animals all around you. The Sanctuary is also home to about 61 Rhino, both the White and Black but both are very elusive and often difficult to see. It is a huge place with miles of bush track to drive often in thick sand. The whole place is guarded by the Botswana Army against poachers that seem to be prevalent everywhere. On our first drives we managed a couple of rhino plus lots of antelope, Zebra and giraffe. The bad news for us was I managed to run over a buried metal spike that destroyed on of the tyres. We had 2 spare but feel we needed 2 spare so it was a trip 50 miles of so back to Palapye to try to get e new one. It also happened to be a Bank Holiday so most places seem to be closed but we did find one, albeit a slightly different size and had it fitted. Back to KRS for some evening drives and a superb experience of finding about 15 Rhino heading to a waterhole from many directions in the setting sun. Most of them seemed to be females with calves including some very small calves. It is not often that you can see that many Rhinos around.

Impressive (and Valuable) Horn on this female

Mum and Calf walking into the sunset

What a cute baby

Jan and Rhino

The next day was a long drive of 350 kms to Central Kalahari Game Reserve. 350 Kms may not seem too bad but on African roads it is quite a long time plus the final 100kms were over sand, often deep, to get to our first nights camping at Sunday Pan. We had been to CKGR back in 2013 for 4 nights and this time is was going to be 5 in total. CKGR is totally wild camping where you have to take everything with you. There is no water, fuel, electricity or food available so all have to be carried in and all rubbish taken out with you.. There are also no fences so animals are totally free to wander where ever they like. Humans stay on the few tracks that are around in park the size of Wales. Camping is allowed in several places and these pitches and unlike anything else around. The camp site may only be 1 pitch possibly with luxuries such as a long drop toilet, hole in the ground with a wood fence around it plus a bucket shower, same structure with a bucket you hoist up on a frame. You have to take your own water of course. Often the next pitch may be 10-15 Kms away or further. Animals are all around you including serious predators such as big cats like lions, leopard and cheetah plus hyena and wild dogs. Among the rest are lots of antelope, a few elephants and many of the smaller animals plus of course lots of birdlife. The area is very dry and is just sand with scrubby vegetation. We are here in the dry season when rain is almost unheard of but like most Brits, we do like to take the weather with us and yes it rained during our first night here but that cleared up by early morning and it soaked quickly into the sand.

Our campsite overlooking Sunday Pan

Hornbills

Ground Squirrels are everywhere

Ardwolf up close

Sunday Pan has a waterhole but unlike last time we were here, the waterhole had very few animals around. The adjacent Pan (The pans are ancient lake beds now dried up and are flat expanses of shorter grass) In the wet season they can get boggy but this time of year they are hard) had quite a few animals with Impala and Gemsbok (Oryx) in abundance plus quite a few Giraffe wandering through. In the early morning and evenings you could also find Jackals, Bat Eared foxes and Other rarities. We were lucky to see and photo a couple of Ardwolf one evening. 

The rare and elusive Aardwolf

This was a first for both of us to find these rarely seen creatures. We also managed to find an African Wildcat one evening in the grass as well, although the sighting was not the best. Our camp overlooking Sunday Pan also have many birds visit us looking for scraps and crumbs as well as water that we put out in a shallow dish. We also managed to get a friendly Slender Mongoose come into the camp and spend several hours there inspecting the car and us. It didn’t seem at all frightened. 

Mongoose

At night, with the aid of a powerful torch we managed a White-faced Scops Owl plus a Barn Owl flying around.

What are you looking at?

After two nights in Sunday Pan it was time to move on and our next camp was at Deception Pan, an area made famous by Mark and Delia Owens in the book “Cry Of the Kalahari” where they write about the time spent in this valley researching animals. We took a long route as the camp was not far away and went via Passarge Valley where we camped 2 years ago. Here we managed to find a pair of male Lions sleeping under a bush in the sun. They didn’t seem worried by us being just 10 metres from them and carried on snoozing and cleaning themselves, probably after a hard nights hunting. We left them to continue down the valley to the camp we stayed at before then returned back the way we had come. The lions were still sitting under the same bush which allowed more time to watch them. We were with them for about an hour in total and they only moved to get either more shade or more sun.

Sleeping lion

OK time for a wash

Don't come any closer

Impressive Male Lion

Pair of Lions

We have now travelled again from Deception Camp site all the way down Deception Valley to our 3^rd camp of the 4 we will be staying in. This one is bleak and desolate up on a ridge above another Pan. Valleys and Ridges imply hills but that is not really the case. Yes the valleys are lower but we are talking 10-20 feet height difference. Surrounding each of the valleys are small ridges that are barely noticeable in height difference. What is more obvious is that the vegetation in the valleys is often poor shorter grass with the occasional small copse of trees, on the ridges it varies from sparse woodland to scrubby longer grass with bushes which is exactly what we have here at Phokoje Campsite. It is also very windy today so we are settled using the car as a windbreak and sitting in the sun. Very few animals are around in the heat of the day so we will continue looking for animals later.

Phokoje Camp in daylight

Phokoje Camp at night

Cooking is done over an open wood fire. The wood we have had to transport in along with everything else. It is not allowed to collect wood in CKGR. So far we have had lots of Braai (BBQ to the Brits) but also have managed a  veggie curry and Pasta Arrabiata. Yesterday I tried bread again with some success. Ok the fire was a bit hot so it burnt a bit on the bottom but the rest was good. All in our Potjies Pot.

Nightime in camp

We are now in Maun and finished our journey across the Kalahari. I finished the first part by saying we were at Phokoje and it had a biting wind. Well little were we to know but that night turned out to be one of the coldest for many years with temperatures down well below freezing. When we got up the bowl of water we had left out with a sponge in was frozen solid. It stayed cold for the next night as well in Motopi Pan. We had been here before and had seen lions so we were hoping again. No lions though but certainly cats. The first one was a simple “moggie” in a tree trying hard to hide and catch birds. 

Not your ordinary Moggie

This wildcat may look cute but go near it and try

It may look like “tibbles” but you would be warned not to touch it as it is an African Wild Cat, another rarely seen animal. When driving back from that encounter we saw the back of another larger cat but the sun was directly in front so we didn’t get a good sighting. What we did find at that time were its tracks and we believed we had a leopard close by. After sitting in the shade of a bush for 30 mins or so by the waterhole sure enough, out popped a leopard on the edge of the long grass. It checked us out then came to the waterhole so another great sighting.

Leopard in sunset

Leopard

As we put, we are now staying in a hotel in Maun for a couple of days, partly to make use of the bathroom and washing facilities and partly the internet as well as to replenish all the supplies we have used over the last week and no where to get any more.

Hope you enjoy this long blog but the CKGR is very special, very desolate and wild yes but it has a beauty and being with the animal with no fences and very few other people is fantastic even if it was very cold at night.

Please feel free to comment as we look forward to reading them

Mike and Jan