The long and winding road (NOT!)

Well, having jumped around a bit in the last two posts, I'll get back on track with this one. We left Mokala Game Reserve at 6am the following morning (Tues 30th March), and headed out back through Kimberly onto the road to Groblershoop, then Upington and onto Twee Rivieren.

According to google maps, 733 km 12 hours 53 mins. First planned stop was to be in Upington (481 km 7 hours 26 mins). We were hoping it wasn't going to take us that long.

Hmmm... well it looked like it was going to be a long day. Thankfully we'd decided to break the trip by staying over at Mokala.

Well, we got into Kimberly just around 7:30am, and decided to stop at a shopping centre and get some breakfast, this took us to 8 o'clock, when we left Kimberly on the road to Groblershoop. Two things struck me as we headed out.

Can you see anything in particular in the image above? Taken through the front windscreen of my car. This is about and hour or so outside of Groblershoop, admittedly taken on the return trip, but hey, going either way it's still as straight!

Well, for me, the first was just how straight the road was, and the second just how empty! Not another car in sight. I'll have to install auto-pilot in my car for the next trip :-).

We arrived in Upington at about 11:45 (Approx 399km from Kimberly). OK, so google maps got that one wrong ... and estimated 5hrs and 38min, we did in 3hrs and 45min, without breaking any speed limits!

Stopped off at a filling station, and fortunately decided to check my oil and water reservoir. As I was checking I noticed that it looked as if the main hose feeding water from the radiator into the cooling system had started to leak. Asked the attendant if and where the nearest Nissan dealer was, fortunately just around the corner ... whew! Drove around there and asked if they could help us. We had to be at Twee Rivieren reception before 6:30pm to check in ... still another 260km to go. Plus time to repair!

Anyway they Nissan people were extremely helpful and obliging! We left the vehicle with them and wandered off to try and find somewhere to have lunch. An hour and a bit later I returned to the Nissan dealership, and they had fixed my car! Didn't have the exact spare, but they made a plan and sorted it out. Well done guys and thanks, for a mere R363.00 we were back on the road. A certain disaster averted had I not noticed the developing problem, and they had not been so accommodating.

So by 2pm we were back on the road. Eeiisshhh another long straight road:

I was interested to note that there are a number of road signs warning people to be careful because bat-eared foxes (Otocyon megalotis) tend to cross the road.

Cute little creatures, aren't they? Well on that stretch of +-240km I counted 6 road kills of these lovely little animals, that was just on the way there, and on the return trip again another 7 or 8 fresh kills. Shocking.
Why is this happening? Are the people travelling these roads not meant to be nature lovers ... the road basically only goes to one place, the game reserve. Well, I try to stick to the advertised speed limit, and generally do fairly well at this, the cars we did see on this road were generally going much faster than us. I would imagine that the bulk of these kills happen either at night or early morning/evening. I presume because the traffic volume are so low on these roads and the roads a so straight the people take advantage of these factors and drive way over the speed limit.

Fortunately this was the only sad aspect on this trip. This post has also got too long, so I'll end off here for now.

All the best
Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za/

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hmmm..... I've rushed headlong into the trip without telling you about some of the things that went on/in before!

In planning this trip we established that we would need to take drinking water for at least 9 days, all our food and other drinks for that period too, as well as the obvious .... clothing, cameras, books (we like to take at least a bird book, mammal book, reptile book, spider book, tree/bushes, and then reading material too.) and that's for 4 of us. Ria (my wife), Gayle and Claire Marie our daughters, and of course myself. My computer goes too, for downloading images taken on the trip.

Foolishly, I did not take any shots of all of the items packed into the back of my Nissan Sani, it was quite a load! Here's some of the detail just to give you an idea:
1. 65 litres of drinking water, in 2 25l jerry cans, plus 3 5l bottles.
2. 18 litres of fruit juice.
3. 12 beers and 12 ciders (all we could fit :-( )
4. 4 camping chairs and 1 camping table.
5. 1 tyre compressor (you have to deflate your tyres when in the park)
6. 2 camera bags and monopod, 1 laptop and briefcase
7. 2 large suitcases, 1 for Ria and me, and the other for the girls (20yrs old and 17yrs old)
8. 2 vanity cases, one medical box
9. 2 5kg bags of charcoal
10. 1 40l cooler box with all our meat for 10 days.
11. 3 55l crates containing all our other food, the juice and drinks mentioned above
12. 1 large torch, 2 headlamps, 1 camping shovel, some basic braai equipment.
13. 3 pillows ....

To mention the bulk of it I think!! Here is an older image of an earlier trip for which we took considerably less:

Impressive? ... well I think so.

all the best, Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za/

The Kgalagadi Epic Adventure

As a family we embarked on what we thought would be a nice holiday, at the end of March 2010. Living in the suburbs of greater Johannesburg, South Africa, we planned this trip to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier national Park. A South African Game reserve in the North West of our country. See the google map below:
Point A is where we stay and point B the entry into the South African portion of this park.

According to google maps, the route we took, the total distance just to get to the park entrance from home was 1 141 km – about 15 hours 23 mins .... hhhmmm well !

As you can see from the map we did not take the most direct route, because we had been advised that that road was not in great condition. So we made the decision to break the trip into two "easy" days, and stay over at Mokala National Park. A relatively new (open 2007) National Park, just south of Kimberly.

A first days trip of approximately 579km, and according to google route maps should take us about 7hr52m. We could not really understand that as 579km, all things being equal should normally take us less than 6hrs. We hadn't reckoned on the roadworks! It wound up taking us closer to 7hr35m... what does Google NOT know??!

We had left home at 10:30am on the morning of Monday 29th March, and arrived at Mokala reception at 6:05pm. But what a welcome! On the short trip from the gate into reception (about 6km if I recall correctly), we saw buffalo (Syncerus caffer), black-bellied korhaan (Eupodotis afra) and kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros).

And then ...... the sunset! WOW.

more later.

All the best

Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za