Saturday 21st May

We are now making our way out of the Kgalagadi Park after spending the last four days at Rooiputs, our final camp in Botswana. The drive from the South African side back to Botswana took most of the day and again due to lack of water holes on the route we saw very little wildlife. This time the landscape was made up entirely of endless waves of red sand dunes covered with small shrubs. Rooiputs itself is once again unfenced and on the rustic side but this time we do have water to wash and shower. It was nice to be just the four of us again.

As we drove into the camp we were greeted by a couple who were staying in a neighbouring camp who we had met in Mata Mata. They were very excited (and shattered!) because a pride of eight lions had surrounded their tent the previous night and warned us that we might be in for a noisy time. We went to bed full of anticipation (and the pot and wooden spoon!) and were once again glad that we had opted for a roof top tent. As it turned out we had one of the quietest nights so far and couldn’t even hear their distant roaring, which we now hear most nights.

Driving out the next morning and within 3 km from our camp we saw why: the pride, consisting of two adult males, seven females and two juveniles, had killed a gemsbok during the night and were fast asleep in the shade of a camel-thorn tree. They had gorged themselves to the point where you could visibly see their distended bellies. We watched them for ages but there was very little activity and they looked like they weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. 

The next morning there was almost nothing left of the carcass and a lone jackel was picking the last of the scrabs of the bones.

Yesterday evening we drove into our camp for our last night in the Kgalagadi with the sun setting behind us and the full moon rising in front, a very special view. Our last campfire and having run out of ‘…first ever…’ topics our thoughts turned to ‘where next?’

And then this morning on our way out one last treat: the lions were hungry again and were crouching on a hill and lining themselves up for an ambush on a herd of gemsbok right in front of us. It was quite an incredible scene being played out, there were long periods of what looked like a stand-off with both parties just watching each other, then without any obvious reason, the gemsbok retreated, together with a large herd of springbuk just behind, stopped and then slowly and cautiously, came forward again. 

This happened several times. It appeared that one of the lionesses was trying to encircle the gemsbok from behind while the rest of the pride was waiting for the chase on the other side. And then one of the young lions caused a disturbance and the gemsbok retreated much further back. Unfortunately we had to leave them to it since we had a very long drive ahead of us so we don’t know how it ended but it was totally spell bounding to watch.

So now we are on our two day journey back to Ingogo, already reminiscing about our experiences. We did have high expectations of the Khgalagadi and it is everything it promised to be and more. The animal sightings here are probably similar to many other game parks but the solitude of the Botswana camps in particular means that quite often you experience life in the bush all on your own. The fact that the animals are less afraid of you and will tolerate you being relatively close to them makes the experience so much more special and can only be a result of there being effective poaching controls and the absence of legal hunting.

The Kgalagadi is also hailed as a model of what could be achieved for conservation in the future since it is the only game park in Africa which has been formally established by neighbouring countries. 

In terms of highlights, the lions walking into our camp and spending over an hour in our vicinity with no-one else around is a highlight which I don’t think can ever be surpassed in terms of wildlife experiences. For Don it was the leopard appearing out of no-where and crossing right the truck right in front of us. 

As for the 'where next question...' there are some old favourites which keep popping up in our conversations: The Danikil Depression is Ethiopia, The Van Zyl pass in Namibia.....

....to be continued (hopefully!)