It wasn’t us choking in the Kalahari, but Chico the car, more on that later…

We managed to leave Namibia without having to pay the fine from way back near Windhoek, and after about 6,000kms of driving we arrived back safely into South Africa. Our last night in Namibia we heard the sad news that George Best, a hero from both our childhoods had died. We were gutted not to be anywhere near a TV so we could watch some of the coverage that no doubt filled the news in the UK. The best we could do was over a week later log onto the web and read about his homecoming to Belfast, all very moving.

First up Upington

Our first stop back in SA was a Saturday afternoon in Upington, a reasonably sized town in the northern Cape, but astoundingly that did not have a single bookshop! A sad reflection on the literacy rate of it’s approx 28,000 local population. With pretty much everything closed from noon on a Saturday we camped up at the local municipal camp site Die Eisland. After camping in quiet national parks we soon realised we could be in for a hot and noisy night. Since we were back in a town it was time to eat out and we had a beautiful meal with wine at Le Must restaurant for the equivalent of about 20 quid or NZ$50, bargain! We were in for a pleasant surprise when we got back to the campsite as the majority of people seemed only to be day visitors and were all on their way home, so we had a peaceful night’s sleep after all.

Since there really wasn’t a lot to do in Upington on a Saturday, you can imagine there was even less on a Sunday so we decided to head out of town to Augrabies Falls National Park. We were looking forward to seeing natural running water again, although saying that the Falls were pretty dry at this time of year. We were really starting to feel the heat and couldn’t face doing any of the hikes in the park so decided to book a rafting trip on the Orange River for the next day. Again because there wasn’t a lot of water, the rafting was very tame, in fact it was more like drifting, but at least we were cooler in the water rather than on land. By the time we finished the river trip it was getting very hot and we decided not to stay another night in the park, but headed back to Upington – not sure if that was the right decision as they recorded 48 degrees that day!

Kalahari Desert

We stocked up with supplies again and headed north into the Kalahari Desert region. The down side was we were going back on to the dirt roads. We stopped on the approach to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (SA & Botswana owned) at a nature reserve. The build up of heat was now bringing in a storm and we thought better of trying to put the tent up in the thunder and lightning, so for the first time in 5 or so weeks we slept indoors – Dave badly and Shaz not so badly. The Kalahari Trails Nature Reserve was run by a lady professor of desert ecology originally from the UK who took us on a very informative guided drive.

From here we went north into the park on the search for ‘cats’ – the place is famed for its predators, but with the storm and rain arriving we thought some of our game viewing may be hampered. We headed for Mata-Mata camp and just after arriving and getting the tent set up another huge storm came through, but only lasted half an hour or so. The game was not bountiful, but we did see some animals that we hadn’t previously – giant eagle owl, white faced owls, bat eared fox, and red hartebeest, plus loads of birds that neither of us had any clue about!

The next day we went further north to Nossob camp and it was the next morning that we had our reward – we managed to spot a male and female lion (on the Botswana side of the river bed) and after watching them for a few minutes realised they also had two cute little cubs! We were now content to leave the park as the driving on the combination of gravel and sand was hard work.

Choking in the Kalahari

All was going well until about 130kms from the park exit and Shaz realised that Chico was starting to lose power and chug along. There was not much other traffic around and no phone signal so the only option was to go for it and try and get to the exit. Eventually after over three very nerve-wracking hours we made it, but only just. Chico pretty much conked out in the car park and to top it all had his first flat tyre. We phoned the AA, had a cool drink, and a huge sigh of relief that we were at least in a camp site with facilities.

Tow Truck Time

So for the second time in 8 weeks Chico ended up on the back of another tow truck! (Read about the first time here.) This time for a 300km drive back to guess where… Upington! And to make matters worse it was a Saturday afternoon. But we cannot complain, the AA garage had the best service ever. Apart from the fact that the mechanic fixed Chico within 5 seconds of him getting off the tow truck (all he had to do was pull the choke out and that cleared his blockage!!!), he got us 2 new tyres and fully serviced the car and cleaned the carburetor (to prevent future blockages) all by 4pm. It meant we didn’t have to endure another night in this bookshop-less town, but instead we could start our journey to Kimberley (home of the diamond!).