We spent the day in Johannesburg not really relaxing. Graham and Alpine installed bonnet clips on the Land Rover. We then all went to Bruma Market World, the largest flea market in South Africa. There are stalls and stalls of art, crafts, junk and food. A facinating place to spend the afternoon. Sue and Alpine exercised their shopping power, within the limits of their luggage space!

We went back to the B&B and Sue and Alpine packed for their flight back to the US while Connie and Graham packed for their foray into Botswana. We dropped Sue and Alpine at the airport, and then took the highway north as fast as we could. (Which is pretty slow in a fully loaded Defender 110!) We crossd the border at Lobatse with only half an hour to spare before they closed. We were very glad to have the Hella 4000 lights on the front of the truck as soon as darkness fell. Donkeys like to rest in the road because it is warm, and they can pose a real hazard. We almost hit one, even with the lights! We made it to Kanye at about 10:30pm, and spent over an hour looking for the Motse Lodge. eventually we stopped at a bar where a very nice gentleman agreed to show us where the lodge is. We crashed after midnight, anticipating an early start.

A long, long day of driving! And a record; we clocked 895km today. We got an early start from Motse Lodge, eating rusks on the road as we headed out of town. This is the TransKalahari Highway, going west out of Kanye and then turning north up to Ghanzi and on into Maun. We had done most of this drive once before on our honeymoon, but not in one day! We were in a rush because our friends from Colorado, Brian and Debbie are flying in tomorrow and are arriving in Maun. So it was a long boreing day, driving from 7am to 5pm. The road is paved and in very good condition, with little traffic, but a lot of cattle, goats and people on the road. Maun is a frontier town, but one that has experienced a lot of growth. It has some great facilities and great places to stay. We had stayed at Audi Camp before and knew it had a nice restaurant and great bar, so on arriving in Maun we headed straight there and availed ourselves of gin and dry lemons at the bar.

We spent the morning preparing for our coming 10 days in Moremi National Park. Graham did an oil change on the Land Rover and should have done a transmission oil change, but that didn't happen. We went shopping for supplies, and then went to the airport to greet Brian and Debbie as they flew in. It was great to see them, and we were all chatting excitedly about our experiences. The Britz official showed up at the airport, and gave the keys over to Brian and Debbie for their Toyota 'Adventurer'. It is a Toyota pickup with camping and overland gear already on board. This was to be Brian and Debbie's steed for our time in Moremi. We then all made our way to the shops to gather supplies. At the supermarket we ran into Witt and Jen who had just driven in from Kubu Island. We had a rather subdued reunion because we were so busy getting kitted out.

Witt and Jen were ready ahead of the rest of us and they started out towards South Gate campsite to check in. We headed out of town with Brian and Debbie a little while later. I (Graham) thought it would be cool to try a shortcut I had seen on the map, but had never tried. So off we went into the delta along progessively worstening roads as evening set in. By nightfall we were pretty lost, though we had seen zebra, giraffe and hyena by the road. Eventually we came to a camp, but discovered it was not South Gate, but a lion research camp. The lady had been at the airport when we were there, and we recognized each other. She told us we were a long way from South Gate! This was bad as night had fallen, and Witt and Jen were holding our spot at the camp. The lady's son offered to lead us to the cut line that marks the park boundary. We gratefully accepted, and dashed off into the night. When we reached the cut line we were on our own, but it was very easy to follow and went right to the gate. Brian was having the time of his life as he got bogged down in soft sand a few times. When we reached the gate we found Witt and Jen, and set up camp. We were all tired and turned in quickly. Unfortunately a group of South African campers were not so soon to retire and they sat up drinking and singing for several hours. Around midnight there was a tremendous clatter and a yell. We looked out of the tent to see a hyena making off with the trash and pots and pans from the South African camp!

We spent the day on a game drive in the park, visiting 3rd bridge and various water holes. We saw giraffe, elephant, red lechwe, and a broad assortment of birds. On the way back to camp in the evening we were treated to a beautiful sunset. Brian and Debbie prepared a care package from home, which included Oreo cookies, and selection of Sunday comics, some burrito seasoning, and a bottle of tobasco sauce. Connie and Graham made dinner which they topped off with an excellent bush cheesecake.

This morning we left for another section of the park. We saw some elephant and giraffe, but the game was well-hidden. When we returned to camp at about 5:30, we learned that we will be able to move to 3rd Bridge campground tomorrow, which will save us a 45 minute drive to most productive areas of the park. The South African family with six kids that was camped near us for the past two nights has departed, allowing us to savor the howls of the hyena in peace.

We left camp early this morning and weren't even finished with our rusks and coffee when Graham radioed from the rear of our 3-vehicle convoy that we had just passed within a couple of feet of a leopard lying in the grass near the road! We stopped and got a brief look at the cat as he walked off into the bush. We spent about a half-hour looking for him and inspected the prints he left in the road.

The rest of the morning was spent on a slow drive to 3rd bridge campground where we arrived at lunchtime. After some food, a nap, and catching up on the Sunday comics we went out again, stopping at a lagoon to watch some lechwes browse. One of them had an injured hind leg and we wondered if she would become someone's meal tonight. Some storks arrived, and we watched an eagle fly past. We could hear the grunts of a nearby hippo and the characteristic hooting of a dove, as well as the calls and cries of dozens of other birds and insects. Graham made drinks and we watched the sun set over the Okavango Delta from the top of our cars.

Our morning game drive was pretty, but we didn't see much in the way of animals aside from a few bird species we hadn't seen before. In the afternoon we set out for a water hole to watch the sunset. (For those of you not accustomed to African game drives, the animals are usually most active in the early morning and around sundown. To catch these peak times, we usually leave camp before dawn and drive until about 10am. If we haven't driven too far, we return to camp and spend a few hours during the day resting, then go out again in the evening. The predators tend to do their hunting at night, so this is as close as we can get to their active times, since we are not allowed to do night time game drives.)

Graham and Connie spotted a cheetah lying under a tree near the road and we stopped to watch. It wasn't long, however, before a couple of safari company vehicles showed up, and the cheetah decided to find somewhere more private. We watched for awhile and didn't see her again. We set up shop at a different point around the same water hole we were at last night, and were treated to a spectacular display of a herd of about 40 elephants running through the shallow waters at the edge of the hole. They made lots of noise splashing through the water, and by the time they disappeared into the trees at the other side the babies were completely soaked. We're not sure what spooked them, but the sight of such a number of large animals moving quickly was very impressive. We watched the hippos bathe for awhile (that's pretty much all they do during the day) and returned to camp just after dark. We alternated between giving a slideshow of our trip for Brian and Debbie and watching a large hyena and her cub prowl around the outskirts of camp, waiting for us to go to bed so they could raid the trash cans.

Graham and Connie, on their own, as the rest of us decided to go off on our own this morning, spotted a female cheetah running across the road in front of them. We believe that this is the same cheetah we saw yesterday because she appears to be very pregnant. The cat was headed toward a group of lechwes browsing nearby. She broke into a sprint after crossing the road, and the lechwes took off toward the shallow water which they prefer to avoid predators. Graham and Connie saw the lechwes splash into the water amid a cloud of dust, and rushed around to the water's edge to investigate. They arrived in time to see the cheetah with her mouth clamped around the neck of a female lechwe, probably the injured one we saw two days ago. She rested for a few minutes, then dragged her breakfast a few feet away into some taller grass, still no more than twenty feet from the road, and began to eat.

Debbie and Brian happened by shortly thereafter, and about 10 minutes later Witt and Jen heard Connie suggest on the radio that they might want to come check it out. We all watched the cheetah devour the lechwe for another twenty minutes or so, then she walked three or four feet away to relax. Fifteen minutes later vultures began to circle. When they started to land, the cheetah returned to her kill to continue eating. The vultures waited impatiently nearby. The vultures attracted the attention of three safari company vehicles that joined us to watch the spectacle. As the cheetah finished her meal, a large (15 feet or so) crocodile approached from the nearby water. The cheetah gave up her kill, probably having already eaten her fill anyway. The vultures got about 20 seconds between the time the cheetah left and when the croc (who didn't seem to care whether he had lechwe or vulture for breakfast) grabbed what was left of the carcass and headed back toward the water. The frustrated vultures were left with nothing but scraps. The cheetah wandered off into the bush and Brian drove after her, keeping a respectful distance. He was fortunate that she decided to walk alongside a track, allowing him to keep her in sight. She laid down in the shade of a tree to let her meal digest no more than twenty feet from the track. The rest of us joined Brian and we watched her for about twenty minutes before she decided to find some more privacy, walking to another tree to continue her nap. We were elated by our luck and returned to camp for some rest of our own.

See this amazing event unfold in the movie!

We drove North-East from third bridge this morning and had lunch at Xakanaxa campground. After our nap we drove to North Gate campground, encountering several elephants along the way. We made dinner and sat around the campfire talking, occasionally interrupted by hyenas as they prowled the campground searching for leftovers. Trips to the toilet were an adventure and always accompanied by a large flashlight. Even though we didn't have any fireworks to help us celebrate the Fourth of July (independence day in the US) nature filled in by treating us to a nice meteor shower.

We slept in this morning for the first time in days and made a nice big breakfast in the morning. We drove the 2.5 hours to Maun to re-supply food, fuel, beer, and money. After lunch at Nando's we went to the grocery store and the internet cafe. By 5:30 we were back at North Gate campground. We spent the evening watching hyenas run around the camp. Brian got some excellent photos of baboons sleeping in the trees.

We left early this morning for our game drive, stopping for lunch and a nap at Dombo hippo pools. We arrived at camp in time to watch the sunset over a water hole. Brian and Debbie baked squash over the fire. The weather was cool with a cold wind and we all climbed into our tents early.

We spent the morning on Dead Tree Island - a stark and beautiful piece of land surrounded by a sea of reeds and tall grasses waving in the breeze. The island is full of dead trees (from drowning) which provide a stunning backdrop for photos. We found footprints from several lions and drove around the island attempting to locate the cats. We eventually spotted vultures circling overhead and after driving toward them to investigate, found what was almost certainly a lion kill, several hours old. After extracting Brian and Debbie's rented Toyota from a mud hole, we drove back to 3rd Bridge for lunch and our afternoon nap.

At four we drove back to the water hole where we saw the cheetah kill to watch the sunset. Four giraffe were kind enough to wander past, and we watched a couple of kingfishers hunting for their dinner. On the way back to camp, Debbie and Brian were surprised by a hippo crossing the road in front of their car. Jen and Witt made cheese, crackers and smoked mussels, salad, and sausage with baked beans, topped off with baked bananas with chocolate and brandy for dessert.

We left camp this morning at 7am. Today was our last day in the park and we had to be out by 11am to avoid being charged for another day. As luck would have it we encountered a huge male lion resting in the road at 9:30. We watched him for about 40 minutes as he dozed, rolled around in the grass, and generally relaxed, which seems to be what lions are best at. When the sun got too hot for him he got up and wandered into the shade of a nearby tree to flop down again. By this time it was 10:20 and we still had 17km to go to reach the park entrance. We drove rally style and made it just in time. We paid our bill and headed back to Maun. We checked into a hotel that provides camping for only 20 pula ($5) and spent the afternoon preparing for our mokoro trip tomorrow.

Today we start a 3-day mkoro trip on the Okavango delta. A mokoro is a small dug-out canoe propelled by a poler, and traditionally used by the people of the delta for fishing and trading. We were picked up at the hotel in the morning, and after overcoming a bit of separation anxiety on the part of Graham (this is the first time he's been away from his car in almost six months) we headed north toward the delta. After a very cold 1.5 hour drive in the back of an open Land Cruiser, we arrived at our put-in.

We were assigned boats, two tourists and one poler in each, and were on our way. The boats sit no more than a few inches above the water, and we sat on grass mats in the bottom with the poler standing in back. We set off navigating through narrow channels of water flanked by tall reeds. The reeds are home to flocks of thousands of small quelea birds which launch into the air en masse at our approach. A flock taking flight sounds like an ocean wave crashing onto the beach. In flight they form clouds that move in a poetic dance through the sky. We drifted along slowly and silently, a welcome change from the noise and roughness of the 4WD tracks we had been navigating in Moremi. We arrived at our campsite after only a couple of hours. We set up our tents and had lunch followed by our customary afternoon nap. At four we went for a bushwalk encountering elephant and a few giraffe. Elephant can be dangerous and seeing one on foot is quite different than viewing them from a car.

We awoke early (6 am) this morning and set off on a walk after tea and rusks. We were able to get a little closer to a pair of elephants as well as seeing more giraffe, zebra, and impala. The smaller animals (especially antelope) perceive us as predators on foot and scatter before we are within a half-kilometer of them. When driving, even in our loud diesel vehicles, we can approach a herd of impala and they will only move off the road when in danger of being hit by the car. Back at camp we had lunch and relaxed, and the guys tried their hand at poling the mokoros. Balance is tricky and making them go straight down the narrow channel is even harder. In the end it took them about an hour to go a few hundred meters. In the afternoon we got back in the mkoros (with the professionals at the helm) and went another couple of kilometers further into the delta. We encountered a green water snake and a couple of new bird species. Debbie now has 108 species recorded in the delta. You can see her full list here.

We packed up camp and got back in the boats for the return trip. On the way Brian met a mokoro poler that had been his guide on a trip here in 1997. By noon we were back at the hotel and enjoyed a delicious lunch at the hotel restaurant. We relaxed for a couple of hours, then headed for the airport and our scenic flight over the delta. Seeing the terrain we had traveled over by land from the air was fantastic. Small islands dotted with baobab trees were surrounded by blue waters and lush green grasses. The colors were spectacular. We could see the narrow channels we had navigated by mokoro, and even saw an elephant splashing through the shallow waters. There were giraffe, buffalo, impala, and lechwe, all tiny from the air. We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant and sat up talking and looking at slide shows from our trip.

We spent the morning with Debbie and Brian souvenir shopping, then dropped them off at the airport early in the afternoon. Graham and Connie are heading for Drotsky's caves tomorrow and spent the remainder of the afternoon shopping and re-supplying.

That evening we met at Audi Camp for dinner. Roy and Sonya along with their three kids (Victoria, Roy, and Charity) joined us. Roy is a doctor from Wyoming who has opened a medical practice here in Botswana. They have lived here for about a year, and have spent time in Africa previously. They noticed the Colorado plates on our cars a few days ago, and wanted to get together to hear our story. They are a very interesting couple and have had some fascinating experiences here. They were kind enough to buy our dinner for us and we spent an enjoyable evening talking with them. After they left we ran into a couple who has just traversed the east coast of Africa, starting in the middle east. We traded stories for a while over beers. We have even met up with a family from Switzerland who we fondly refer to as the "Swiss family Robinson," a family of five traveling in a large truck whom we first met in Mauritania. They are staying at Audi camp and we've had a good time catching up with them.

Today Africa Overland splits up! After 179 days on the road together, Connie and Graham and Witt and Jen will go their separate ways. This website will follow Graham and Connie's continuing journey:

Graham & Connie:
We awoke at Audi camp with grand plans for the day, but things turned out slightly differently. We had breakfast with Witt and Jen. This was our last meal together and marks the breaking up of the Africa Overland team and Witt and Jen head off North to Zambia. Graham and Connie are going South to Cape Town and then shipping back to the US. After breakfast, Graham worked on the car and Connie did washing. An agreement had been made to travel to Drotsky's caves with an English couple who had driven from the UK down the East coast of Africa. Their names are Helen and Chris and their Land Rover 101FC is named Nellie. At the appointed hour of noon, we all met at Riley's Garage in Maun and hit the road for Drotsky's Caves, one of the most remote locations in Botswana. Just before sundown we bushcamped off the track, and built a huge fire to ward off the cold.

Witt & Jen:
We met Graham and Connie for breakfast this morning and wished them a happy and safe trip. They will be in the area for another week or so before heading south to the Central Kalahari game reserve. We may pass them on the road somewhere, but if we don't see them in the next couple of days we probably won't see them again until we return home. We said our goodbyes and after Graham answered a few of Witt's last minute car questions they drove off. Witt and Jen spent the rest of the day getting organized for the next leg of the trip. We stopped at the local Land Rover dealership which was kind enough to grease Rafiki's propeller shafts for free. We dropped the old alternator (the one that we replaced in Cameroon) off to have it re-conditioned. A stop at the Botswana parks office secured us a reservation in Chobe national park in about a week and we did some grocery shopping. The afternoon was very productive, and we hope to leave here on Thursday. Our current plan is to head north and west from Maun to spend a day hiking in the Tsodilo hills. Then we will cross into Namibia and drive across the Caprivi strip, dropping back into Botswana for a few days in Chobe. Our next destination is Victoria Falls in Zambia where we will celebrate our anniversary.
Follow Witt and Jen's on-going adventures at AfricaOverland.info

We traveled on to Drotsky's caves after breaking camp in a relaxed fashion. The caves are completely undeveloped. The only facilities are a visitor book, and a piece of string from one entrance to the other. We arrived at about 10am and had some trouble finding the cave opening even with a waypoint.

On finding the entrance we had a quick explore and decided to return after lunch. After lunch Graham, Helen and Chris took torches and went in. The cave complex is over a kilometer long, and requires some athletic clambering in the dark to get through. It was magnificent though. Huge stalagmites and stalactites and vast echoing caverns. After exploring the caves, we continued on down the road towards the Aha Hills. We camped off the road when the sun began to get low.

We left our bushcamp early and continued on to the Aha Hills. They aren't really much to see, but there are two large sinkholes close to them. We stopped at the first sinkhole which is 50m deep. It is quite impressive, but smells highly of bats. We then traveled on.

Nellie, Chris and Helen's Land Rover 101FC died at one point just before lunch. After some quick diagnostics, it was determined that the fuel pump had stopped working. Chris pulled it out and repaired a broken wire and the 101 was running again. At mid-afternoon we stopped again, and found that Nellie was leaking air from a front tire. So a quick change operation ensued. We got back to the main road at about 4pm and split company with Chris and Helen. They were heading up to Tsodillo hills, while we were bound for Maun. After saying our goodbyes we hit the road and arrived back at Audi Camp at about 6pm.

Re-supply and relaxation day. And Graham's birthday. We got on the internet first thing to send emails and web updates. Unfortunately the file with a lot of our updates got corrupted, and is unreadable. So those looking for details on our time in Kruger, Swaziland and Lesotho will have to wait a bit! We spent the afternoon shopping and getting ready for a 5 day foray into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, stocking up on food and supplies. We had a nice dinner at Audi Camp, sampling their diverse and enticing buffet. The kudu was excellent!

After a quick stop in Maun for money and breakfast at the French Connection, we hit the road. Directions to Central Kalahari are a bit vague and getting there can be a long trek. After not being allowed to cross a vet fence because we had meat on board, we turned South along a cut line and headed into the desert. The officer at the vet fence was very combative, and Graham was in no mood to give up his meat. It is unfortunate that officials can confiscate food from people going into this highly remote area. Probably more unfortunate that the practice does nothing to stop the spread of foot & mouth disease! Anyway, we picked up the park boundary after a long, dusty drive and made our way to the gate. This park is far enough off the beaten track that there is no one at the gate. You just let yourself in and are expected to check in at the game scout camp (which we did). When opening the gate, Connie spotted a small snake that was in the middle of trying to swallow a lizard. We watched for a few minutes until the lizard escaped by dropping its tail. Our first camp was scheduled to be in Deception Valley, and we had a fantastic drive out there. Central Kalahari is wonderful if you want to get away from everything. The park covers 52800 square km making it one of the largest national parks in the world. And it is so far off the beaten track that very few people visit.

We made our way North after a late start to Sunday Pan. We saw springbok, gemsbok and ostrich at the pan, and saw a caracal and four jackals on our way down to Deception again. Seeing the caracal was a real high point. We came around a bend and he was standing in the road not worried about much. Caracals are hard to see at the best of times and here was one stopping to allow a picture! The scenery is stunning, and the wildlife quite abundant. We stopped for lunch at Deception Pan and then made camp early at Letiahau Pan where Graham proceeded to re-adjust the rear tire rack. The rack is slowly destroying the right corner of the car, so better weight distribution was needed.

It didn't take us long in the morning to reach Pieper Pans. We spent several hours circling the pans looking for the lions we had been told were there, but no luck. Although labelled Pieper Pan, there are actually 3 separete pans here, so circling all can take a while. We did see lots of ostrich, springbok, gemsbok and wildebeast. Finding our campsite turned out to be another chore. Distances are so great in the park, that sequentially numbered campsites can be a great distance apart. Add to this the fact that half of the signs are missing and finding the right location can be tricky. It didn't help that the waypoint on the Shell map of the park, while labeled campsite one, is actually a water holding tank a short distance away. Anyway, we finally found the campsite, right on the edge of the pan with a beautiful view. We settled in for some lunch and then circled the pans again looking for the lions. We did see a selous mongoose, who kept us entertained for a long while. Also more jackal and a large herd of kudu. But no lions. Back at camp we started the potjie going and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, watching the animals on the pan. Graham filled up with diesel from the jerry cans and changed the front right tire which had developed a slow leak.

We were supposed to camp at Xade according to our booking, but that is right in a village, and being antisocial, we decided to push on and poach a spot at Xaxa. Xaxa is close to the center of the park, and is as far out in the middle of nowhere as you can likely get. It is a long and rough road getting there, with some large soft dunes to cross. The track undulates continuously, bucking the truck around in a way we were later to discover was quite bad. These are like corrugations on a whole car scale, each being half the length of the car and 2 feet deep. But the rewards of the rough ride were tremendous. The campsite at Xaxa is on a hill overlooking a valley and waterhole. It has to be one of the most beautiful campsites we have had on the whole trip. Graham decided immediately that this is where he wants to move to! We refrained from setting up camp immediately in case someone came to claim the site, but that did not happen. We had the whole valley to ourselves, apart from a herd of kudu, some steenbok and several circling vultures. Sitting on the roofrack we were able to watch the kudu heard progress slowly across the valley floor into the setting sun. We had a nice evening by the braai, and went to bed early, to be ready for a long drive in the morning. This is Botswana as I want to remember it!

Had a bit of a scare this moring in Xaxa. Graham decided to fire the Defender up to let it warm up. He turned the key, and nothing happened! Not a good feeling this far out in the bush! But she fired on the second try, so there seems to be an intermittant connection somewhere.

From Xaxa it is a long drive indeed. From Xaxa to Khutse was 230km on slow and rough roads with more suspension destroying undulations. We saw very little game in the deep desert. Then we picked up ostrich and springbok again just before we came into Khutse Game reserve. There are lots of pans in Khutse, most of them dry. Our campsite was at Khutse Pan I and we shared it with a single mongoose. This is our last real camp in the bush for the trip. A very sad moment. From here we go back to 'civilization'. Connie is looking forward to it and Graham isn't.

Last day in the desert. In the morning we made a brief trip around Khutse Pan I and saw jackal, ostrich, secretary birds and giraffe. We then headed out of the park to Gaberone. Just outside the park I put out final 20 litres of diesel into the tank, and by the time we filled up in Molepolole, we had pushed 1300km since fueling in Maun!

In Gaberone we had lunch at the mall, then spent some time at the internet cafe catching up. Plans are afoot for shipping our car back to the States, and those details have to be ironed out. Our original plan had been to stay at Saint Clairs Lions camp where we have stayed before, but we decided to stay at Mokolodi Nature reserve instead, and it was a wise decision. Only 12 km out of Gaberone, Mokolodi offers great game viewing, as well as a lot of educational programs. We had dinner at their fine restaurant and had hot showers in camp after lighting a fire under the donkey. Unfortunately the campsite are set up more for backpackers than roof-top tenters, so we had to sleep in the parking spot for our camp, but it was quiet and pleasant all the same.