![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DSC_0151.jpg\")
<\/a>The Kalahari desert had a little bit of everything but we particularly liked the huge barren salt pans that dominated the northern region<\/p><\/div>\n
The Kalahari Desert is a harsh dry environment stretching across many countries in southern Africa but its heart and soul, and its most extreme conditions, are in central Botswana. Here the sand is deep and the low thorny scrub, long golden grasses and dry salt pans dominate. The last river in these parts stopped flowing about 16,000 years ago. Animals out here have to be able to survive these conditions and that\u2019s why the beautiful Gemsboks, Steenboks and Springboks are on a shortlist of animals to see. Bring it on!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\n
<\/a>The communities living on the edge of the Kalahari desert were some of the most basic we saw in Botswana<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
After camping at a beautiful spot on the Boteti River west\nof the regional town of Maun, the sounds of hippos, donkeys and frogs competing\nfor attention, we headed further east and entered Nxai Pan National Park, the\nnorthern most extension of the expansive Kalahari Desert and home to some of\nthe most famous trees in Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>The tracks in this part of the desert were clear and easy but we went for hours without seeing another vehicle<\/p><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Ostriches were a common sight – a little odd, a little comedic, a little cuddly<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
In the 1850\u2019s the Scottish botanist, naturalist and artist\nThomas Baines came across a grove of giant baobab trees growing in the middle\nof the dry pans, or lake beds, in what is now Nxai Pan National Park. He camped there and painted these huge trees,\nimmortalising a scene no European had seen before. Today these trees still stand as big and\nproud as they did in his day and Julie and I followed the rough track out to this\nremote place to walk amongst them, stunned by their enormous size and marveling\nat both their age and their unique place. \n<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>Baines Baobabs are unique for their immense size, their remote location and their curious shapes<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>This ancient baobab fell over but kept growing…and now makes a good place to climb up<\/p><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>One more baobab photo because these guys are seriously cool<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
We drove further north through the park\u2019s desert scrub, the\nland dry as the moon and only slightly more hospitable, sighting two new\nanimals we hadn\u2019t seen before, the lithe little Steenbok and the imposingly\nimpressive Gemsbok. The Gemsbok has\nprobably the finest horns of any animal in Africa, over a metre long, sticking\nstraight up, demanding attention and respect while the animal itself features\nbeautiful markings on his face and body, a magnificent beast. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>There it is! Our first gemsbok prancing across the road, beautiful colours and magnificent horns<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
We also enjoyed the elephants spraying themselves with mud\nto keep cool in the stinking hot sun, the graceful Springbok which made a\nreappearance on our animal hit list and the ostriches which seem to flourish in\nthis harsh land. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>The distinctly marked Springbok, South Africa’s national animal and probably the most recognisable antelope in all of Africa<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
We camped that night in the desert town of Gweta in the\ngrounds of a pleasant little lodge, enjoying their bar and Wi-Fi before\ndinner. After lowering the pressure in\nour tires for the umpteenth time, the next morning we headed south, or tried\nto, but it took four kids to lead us through the narrow dusty tracks of the\nvillage, past the mud plaster and thatched roof rondavels, and into the\nthornveld scrub. We relied heavily on\nour beloved GPS to keep us on one of the many tracks that guided us in the\nright direction. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>These kids saved us from being trapped in Gweta’s narrow tracks forever by showing us the way out – and were rewarded with lollies<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
Our goals for the morning might sound modest \u2013 we wanted to\nfind two famous baobab trees that had enjoyed a long life in the middle of\nnowhere. To get there we followed\never-decreasing tracks, sometimes just cattle tracks, squeezing through the\nendless supplies of thorn bushes that left African souvenirs on the side of\nTramp, until we found Greene\u2019s Baobab. \nDiscovered by the Greene brothers\u2019 expedition in 1880 this lone tree has\nballooned out into the monster beast it is, scarred by the Greene\u2019s and others\nleaving their carved marks on its sides. \n<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>Greene’s Baobab, growing in the middle of nowhere all by itself, an amazing feat<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>We came across this very primitive village with stick fences and huts – what a hard life these people must live<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Not done with baobabs or narrow unrecognisable sandy tracks,\nwe continued on to Chapman\u2019s Baobab, named after his discoverer in the 1860\u2019s,\nsaid to have a girth of 25 metres (over 80 feet) before it split in three\npieces and fell down a few years ago. \nAmazingly, the tree is still alive and continues to sprout new branches,\neven though visitors like Julie and I climb all over it. Said to be between 500 and 4,000 years old,\ndepending on your source, Chapman\u2019s Baobab sets a high bar for size and\nremoteness.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>To finish our day of monster trees, Chapman’s Baobab is – or was – the biggest of them all until it split and fell a few years ago<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Julie is standing in the middle of what was the baobab trunk before it split into different pieces and fell apart<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
South again it was, following our compass and a vague track,\nuntil we found the edge of the Nwetwe Pan, a vast flat open expanse of dried\nsalt that stretched beyond what we could see. \nWe knew from our experience on the Salar de Yuni in Bolivia that salt\npans can be dangerous to drive on when they are soft or wet but the Nwetwe was\ndry and solid, allowing us to follow the vague track off into its vast\nnothingness. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>Oh my, we hit the edge of the Nwetwe salt pan and had to be careful to follow the vague track across this nothingness<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Tramp must have felt as lost and confused as us with absolutely no marker or point of reference in any direction<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
This is where horizons, texture, depth of field and\ndirection become completely lost, where the world looks the same in all\ndirections. We had a huge lake out in\nfront of us, in fact all around us, but we never could reach it, the mirage\nconstantly shifting further from us as we approached. When driving on salt flats water is very bad\nso we couldn\u2019t help a few nervous laughs as the mirage surrounded us. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>Mirages are not easy to photograph by definition but I caught this scene on the far side of the salt pan – no that’s not water<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
After a lunch stop in the middle of nowhere we finished the\nPan crossing and eventually made the double buffalo fence, erected to stop the\nspread of Hoof and Mouth Disease, and with the advice of the lonely inspector\nin this forsaken place, we followed the fence about 80 kilometres until we\nreached the paved road which bisects the northern parts of the Kalahari\nDesert. What a fabulous experience this\ncrossing from Greta to the road had been!<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>The track was easier to follow once we reached some grassy patches but we still had a ways to go before civilisation again<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>The amazing buffalo fence across Botswana rivals the rabbit fence in Australia and we travelled along it for 80 kilometres<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
After filling all our tanks with every drop we could carry\nin a grimy little town on the paved road we headed south again across soft tracks\nfor the heart of the Kalahari. We bush\ncamped that night amongst the low scrubby thorn trees off the sandy track and\nenjoyed the stars in this most exquisite of places. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>A rare camp in the wild bush before crossing into the Kalahari game reserve the following morning – check out the collected wood ready for the fire right after this photo<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
The distances across the desert are vast and of course there\nare no services or infrastructure at all. \nWe had to book our two nights at designated campsites in advance and\ncarefully calculated the range Tramp could cover with the 180 litres (48\ngallons) he could carry plus stock up on enough water and beer to ensure we\ncould pop out the other side. Hoping not\nto run out of any of these, and knowing which one is the most important, we\nfollowed the sandy track towards Deception Valley in the heart of the central\nKalahari. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>On the edge of the central Kalahari water is king and this village’s hand pump is the centre of attention for all the locals<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
As is the practice of the Botswana government in other parks, they now pump water from bore wells using solar panels at designated waterholes during the dry season or in drought to ensure the animals have enough water to survive.\u00a0 We headed across dry salt pans and over scrub-covered sand hills to Sunday Waterhole, spotting many Gemsboks along the way.\u00a0 We never tired of Gemsboks, no creative designer or graphic artist could come up with a more majestic creature.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>The beautifully marked gemsbok, our favourite new African animal, was soon a common sight in the desert<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
But we must have been to Sunday Waterhole on the wrong day of\nthe week because there was no action there so we explored more stretches of\nDeception Valley, its animals and its stark grandeur. We camped that night\namongst a grove of trees near the edge of the pan, the blazing fire, a canopy\nof stars, the sounds of lions roaring in the dark, pinching ourselves at what a\nspecial experience this has been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We went hunting again early the following morning and based on a local tip found a cheetah gorging itself on a recent kill.\u00a0 Cheetahs are the rarest of animals in the African bush and it is said only about 100 live in the entire Kalahari Game Reserve.\u00a0 This beautiful creature with its magnificent dotted colours was bloated from her over-eating and eventually wallowed off into the shade, leaving the rest of her kill to the ravaging jackals.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>A beautiful cheetah, the only one we saw in our Africa adventure, stands over her kill as we gaze on from a safe distance<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
We drove south through the desert, following the track from\ndry pan to dry pan, spotting our first few red hartebeests as well as hundreds\nof wonderful gemsboks, springboks and steenboks. At one stage we found a huge male lion\nresting under the tree right next to the road. \nHis mane was largely black indicating he belonged to the rare group\nreferred to as the black lions of the Kalahari. \nThe perfect hunting machine, this old fellow was happy for us to gaze\nupon him, admiring his huge and handsome features, while he slept in the shade.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>This is what you look like if you are on the top of the food chain with no fear and have just had a huge meal<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
We made Piper Pan, one of the permanent waterholes of the\nKalahari, but no animals were there and we opted to park under some rare shade\na few kilometres away for lunch. The\nwhole afternoon was consumed by a long and tedious drive to the Xade Gate on\nthe southern border of the park. This\nwas killer stuff, especially for Tramp who endured many more thousands of\nscratches on his sides from the overgrown bushes while ploughing through the\nsand and enduring the 36C\/94F desert heat. \nTramp is our hero.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>This long section of the Kalahari was just thick scrubby thorn bushes which scratched the sides of Tramp while he had to plough through the sand<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
The Kalahari Desert is not like the Sahara or Simpson\nDeserts, all sand dunes and beautiful nothingness, but more like a dry barren\nland of sand where some plants, especially thorn bushes, flourish. It is hot, huge, unforgiving and when not\nfeaturing a pan with possible wildlife it can be a long tough journey for both\nvehicle and passengers. <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>A dry pan gives Tramp respite from the relentless thorn bushes and gives us a chance to stretch our legs in relative safety<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
Our last morning crossing the Kalahari was a case in point.\u00a0 At a small waterhole we found two beautiful lions enjoying the early morning breezes on a full stomach.\u00a0 But then it was back on the track, deep sand, thick scrub and hard work for Tramp and his passengers.\u00a0 By late morning we had an improved track and by early afternoon we were in the dusty town of Ghanzi, the self-proclaimed \u201cCapital of the Kalahari\u2019, where we stocked up on fuel and supplies.\u00a0 Tramp had carried 180 litres to get across the desert and had used all but a dozen.\u00a0 My calculations had been tight, the sand had been demanding but we made it\u2026just.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>Our beautiful campsite on our last night in the Kalahari – a desert which reaches across a huge section of the southern parts of the continent<\/p><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>His and Hers lions near a water hole – no one else was within cooee of us<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>The last morning in the desert was some of the toughest for Tramp up and down these long dunes in the thick sand, made a little easier because his fuel supply was very light (and dangerously low!)<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n
We chose a campsite that night which had a restaurant featuring local wild game and we celebrated our five days in the Kalahari by eating what we enjoyed most \u2013 Julie had Impala chops while I chose a Gemsbok steak.\u00a0 As you do.<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/a>We celebrate our successful crossing of the Kalahari Desert by eating a Gemsbok steak and Impala chops<\/p><\/div>\n\n
<\/a>Life is not easy in central Botswana but the locals always have a smile and a wave for Tramp and his passengers<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>One last shot of our beloved gemsbok because they deserve it<\/p><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kalahari Desert is a harsh dry environment stretching across many countries in southern Africa but its heart and soul, and its most extreme conditions, are in central Botswana. Here the sand is deep and the low thorny scrub, long golden grasses and dry salt pans dominate. The last river in these parts stopped flowing about 16,000 years ago. Animals out here have to be able to survive these conditions …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-botswana"],"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/DSC_0159.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14192"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14233,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14192\/revisions\/14233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourpangaea.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}