A Few more Leopards

This was such a special moment as it's the first time in my life I've seen a leopard in the wild and I got to spend about an hour with him.

The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, What a trip!!!!

You never know your luck. Some people go to game parks and never get to see the lion or cheetah. We were just so blessed to see so much even though sometimes you drive for ages not seeing a thing, then all of a sudden you see a couple of lioness's and a black mane lion walking down the side of the road. Or you go for your last drive in the park and a couple of cheetah decide to cross the road in front of you. You need lots of patience when game viewing and the excitement is the trip, the game is a bonus. Getting pictures in focus of the game is just a cherry on the top of the cake.
The roads are good in the Kgalagadi and doable with a 2 x 4. A 4 x 4 is only required if you're staying at any of the "wild" camps like Bitterpan. There are areas with lots of corrugation so if you have a vehicle with larger tyres it does make the trip more enjoyable. You get told as you enter to let your tyres down to 1.5 bars and it makes all the difference.
Each main camp site like Twee Rieveren, Mata Mata and Nossob have little shops where you can get all the essentials so don't stress if you think you're running out of something.
The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is well worth the visit, just don't rush through too fast. Look in and under the trees for awesome sightings.

All you need is a 2 x4 ......

Ngepi, a gem of a place

This camping spot is situated on the Okovango River in the Caprivi and a really special find. The guy that owns it has quite a sense of humor as seen by some of the sign posts you'll see and the facilities available. If in South Africa and there was a remote chance of a hippo or crocodile coming into the camping spot, you would have huge barriers and fences up. Here they warn you that they are around and you hear the hippos loudly at night especially. We went on a River cruise and on the opposite River bank to our camp came across a huge croc and he was missing the tip of his tail. This camp has been going for over 25 years and common sense prevails. It's a true bush camp only it has a great bar, Resturant if you like and fun things to do. 

Enjoy the pictures :-)))

The Long Drive Home

We left Sally and John at the Elephant Hills hotel in Vic Falls on We'd to start our long 2500 km trip back to Cape Town. After going over the various options with maps it was decided to go to the Pandamatenga Boarder post and go home via Botswana. There are loads of Police blocks on the road in Zim to getting out quicker seemed better. After breakfast with the car packed we head out and little did we know at the time but the road on the map is stated a secondary road or good dirt road. Going along we only saw one other car thet was a game driving car. Then it was just us with no cell reception, a dreadful road with sharp rocks and loads of corrugation. There was elephant droppings that hadn't been driven over in a long time too so we knew this was the less traveled road. We were a long way down when it looked like there was no way this boarder could be operational. We came across elephants that weren't used to seeing cars and the ears flapped and trumpeted so we got out of there as quickly as possible. We eventually got to the boarder and surprise, it was operational. Such a relief as the thought of driving back along that crap road was daunting. Here are some pics of our trip home....

Excuse me sir, you have exceeded the speed limit. Well this was quite an experience with corruption first hand. No proof that the speed on the camers was actually ours either, it could have been left there for ages from someone else. We just needed to get out of there and get home. 

It was a magic holiday and one i will always remember. I'll load contact details for the various sights during the week but going to sign off for now.

Cheers all