Category: Travel Posts

When Chris and I said our goodbyes to the Maddens, we crossed the border at Katima Mulilo and headed down the worst “good” road we’d ever been on.

The road was good in that it was tarred and raised from the surrounding wetlands, bad in the sense that you couldn’t do more than a few km an hour in some areas, as the potholes would eat you alive otherwise! In fact most of our time on the road was spent driving on the relatively good gravel shoulder, weaving in and out and from left to right around the tyre munchers.

Our reason for traveling this road was however a very good one – in theory at least. Spending so much time with avid birders tends to rub off on you and Chris and I had planned on going to find the Black-Cheeked Lovebirds in a remote area of the Machile River.

Finding the correct turn off in the correct village was an adventure all by itself, but we did eventually find the right two track and happily started wading our way along it, all the while keeping our eyes open for the very pretty lovebird.

Unfortunately we didn’t get too far and we didn’t get to see the Lovebirds either. I did however spot a very rare breed indeed: a Black-Legged Shoveller! J

This rare breed can only be found during the rainy season in the notorious black mud of the Zambian bundus …

Since the end of December, Chris and I had known there was a chance for us to meet up with Antje and Bernard Madden, the parents of Chris’ best friend Patrick. Since we’ve known Antje and Bernard since we were kids and we get along with them extremely well,     we decided to make an effort to see them while they were in the Caprivi.

Antje and Bernard had been invited by Holger Kolberg of the Ministry of Namibian Wildlife (?)  to join them for their annual count of birdlife in the wetlands of the Caprivi game reserves and since Chris and I wanted to spend time with the Maddens, we headed with them to the Buffalo National Park.

Arriving at the designated campsite, Antje and Bernard introduced us to the birding team and explained how and why we were there as well. Thankfully Holger, Claire, Neil, Gudrun and Frans didn’t seem to mind Chris and me tagging along (amateur birders that we are).

We spent three nights at a very scenic campsite overlooking the Okavango River, with the days filled to the brim with counting and learning about birds in the Buffalo and Mahango National Parks. In the evenings we sat around the fire, enjoyed our braais, drank ice cold beers and G&T’s while telling stories.

The next part of the count was in the Bwabwata National Park on the Kwando River. Here we stayed at the beautiful Mavunje Camp, owned and run by Dan Stephens. For two days Dan took us out on the boat to do the bird counts, ensuring that we got to all the best sites and deftly avoiding all hippo obstacles along the way. The afternoons were spent with ringing the birds and looking for those few species that had evaded us on the boat.

Thus Chris and I had spent a week learning about and appreciating the intricacies of birding and of bird counting, as taught by the experts. I don’t claim that we were useful birders by the end of the week, but we definitely had fun learning!

We were both happy and sad when we had to go our separate ways. Happy that we had met these wonderful people and that we had gotten to spend so much time learning from them and sad that our time together was over.

P.S.:

For more information on Holger and his work, visit https://vulturesresightings.crowdmap.com/

To find out about Dan’s wonderful Mavunje Camp visit: www.mashiriversafaris.com

To one and all we wish a wonderful year with much joy and love!

We hope that the celebrations were well enjoyed and that the babbelaas wasn’t tooo bad! 🙂

Our old year’s eve was spent on the banks of the Okovango river, enjoying a booze cruise and meeting the wonderful people who meet up at Camp Hogo.

Photos will follow once we’re capable of operating heavy machinery again….

The Caprivi and Kavango are the most populated areas in Namibia, making it very difficult to find quiet spots to camp.

Chris and I had been looking for a suitable campsite for a few hours, when we decided to try a new tactic and  – ask. We soon found ourselves seated in front of the headman’s house, waiting for an audience. After a brief conversation through a translator, we were shown to a spot situated directly on the river in one of the most beautiful surroundings we’d ever been in.

In front of us was the Okovango river (the one that ends up famously in Botswana) with its white beaches, warm crocodile infested waters and surrounded by palms, flowering bush willows and beautiful meadows covered in yellow flowers.

Here we spent a few very soothing days, catching up on our birding, washing and reading.

We also learnt a valuable lesson – only a squeaky wheel gets oiled!

Although this happened a few weeks ago, we still thought that this story is worth telling… 🙂

When entering Namibia on a South African passport, you have to enter the amount of days you would like to spend in Namibia.  Upon being faced with this  very complicated question Mike, Chris and I decided to answer with 4 weeks. Surely that would be enough time to see and travel through Namibia? And in any case, even if it wasn’t enough, we could just simply extend our visas. Right?

We were having a blast when Mike had to start booking his flight back home. In preparation he was flicking through his passport when he stated that our visas would soon expire. We spent a bit of time discussing whether the airline would let you fly out of the country with an expired visa, when we decided to cut our trip in the north short and to head back to Windhoek.

As we had to head to Windhoek in any case to get the Diff and the oil leaks under control (again!), this wasn’t too much of a change in plans. We thought of using the extra time to get some culture into us by visiting the museums and the history that Windhoek has to offer.

While Chris was happily getting dirty under the car, Mike and I trudged to the town centre and the office of Home Affairs . Mike and I eventually got there footsore, hot and thirsty only to be told that we could gladly extend our visas, but that they would have to approve our extended stay, retaining our passports for three days and that we had to pay a fee of N$ 90,00 (equivalent to R 90,00), as well as an additional fee of N$ 410,00 upon approval of the extended visa. That’s a total of N$ 500,00 per person, for a visa that shouldn’t cost you a cent!

Mike and I were literally speechless! Now we had to make a plan, as none of us had budgeted this amount and we weren’t necessarily inclined to go through the Namibian bureaucracy for something that should be free, simple and straight forward.

So, we phoned Chris in the workshop to find out if we could attempt a border run to Botswana, or if we had to bite the bullet and pay N$ 1.500,00 and wait. We had a bit of luck that day and the car was ready.

Mike and I trudged back to the workshop, loaded Chris into the car, got some Boerie Rolls for lunch and gunned it to the border. We only had a few hours to make it before both our visas expired and the border closed, but we made it!

We had debated turning around immediately again to head back to Windhoek that same evening, but we decided against it on the grounds that we were pissed off at Namibia and wanted to spend a relaxing evening in the Botswana bushveld.

Early the next morning we headed back to the border, filled all the forms out again and made sure that we could stay in Namibia for another two months. We smiled at the officials, got in the car and decided to take the scenic route back to Windhoek.

Along the way, we found out that our various maps were disagreeing with each other and ended up making a detour of a few hours. Just after we had an extremely windy lunch, we hit he road again and almost immediately came across a donkey cart with a flat tire. We helped them to repair the seriously damaged tube and got them back on the road before a big storm hit. Good deed done for the day, we made it back to Windhoek tired, but very relieved.

The entire round trip from Windkoek, to Botswana and back still turned out to to be cheaper than the visa extensions would have been…

A merry Christmas to one and all!

We wish you all a wonderful time, celebrating with family and friends!

Chris and I celebrated Christmas with torrential rain in the Waterberg, a bottle of wine and Macaroni and Cheese for dinner! 🙂

We are thinking of all of you!

Astrid and Chris

The last week was spent traversing the two dry river beds of the Aba-Hoab and Hoanib, as well as exploring the river road along the Kunene River.

We got to see the rare desert elephant in the Aba-Huab and enjoyed the spectacle of our first thunderstorm of the trip.

The Hoanib presented us with lots of fun. It had thankfully dried out after the rains, leaving us to deal with the cloying mud. Not to be outdone by this, we drove along the riverbed, trying to maintain a constant speed so we would not get stuck. We did quite well, having managed to avoid the hair raising aspects of traveling at speed through slippery mud…

It was a wonderful driving through these dry riverbeds, as they gave us views that you usually cannot see. From the strange formations of the trees on the cliff edge, to the tiny caves carved by the migrating Bee Eaters.

Arriving at the Kunene River, our first sight was the Epupa Falls. Although on a much smaller scale than the Victoria Falls, they are just as spectacular. What makes them really wonderful though, is the freedom you have of exploring them. You can walk right up to the edge and look over, go downriver and see the water thundering over the cliffs, whereas at the Vic Falls you are constricted by the fences.

We decided to travel directly along the river between Epupa Falls and the Kunene River Lodge, as opposed to taking the southern road(recommended as better and safer) around. After eventually finding the road, we discovered that it is very passable, with only three to four sections of serious 4x4ing. After all the misgivings we had heard so far, we were expecting a road that presented us with painstakingly slow progress, or no progress at all. It turned out that the road is in no way easy and can only be traveled by a 4×4 with enough ground clearance, but it IS passable and very, very beautiful.

Having tackled the infamous river road (:-)) we are now spoiling ourselves at the wonderful Kunene River Lodge. This is the one place everyone made a point of telling us about and now we know why. It is spectacularly beautiful and peaceful. Combining the best of location, service and facilities, it is a pleasure to have access to unlimited hot water, tall shady trees and free WiFi!

From here we will be traveling south again towards Etosha, and we’ll see where we go from there… 😉

Found two really cool boulders. The first is at Ongongo Spring. Awesome Deep Water.

Burnt Mountain

Nice Hard Boulder from an undercling to ledge.

Awesome Location.

The notorious Brandberg was always going to be a highlight on this section of the trip. The Königstein is the highest peak in Namibia. Next to having the worlds highest scorpion density, the mountain also has no water on it this time of the year. So we had to carry about 4L per person.  It can also reach up 50 degrees in the midday heat. In fact it is rumoured not to be possible to climb this time of the year.

Still we were keen to attempt it. Wanted to avoid the heat we opted to try it at night. We left camp 5:30pm to walk into a George on the southern section of the mountain and were immediately delayed heavily by having to scramble through some serious boulder fields. As we pushed for the first ridge Mike was hit by a serious migraine and we had no choice but to find shelter and spend the night in scorpion rich country. Having started out with 12L of water for 3, we only had about half left. So we had definitely hit our turnaround point. After an uneasy night of rest, we got up 4:30 to fight our way back through the boulder field to retreat back to the safety of the car before the blistering heat started at around 10am. Even though we had to retreat it was still a great hike with some amazing scenery.

And we will definitely be back to reattempt this beautiful mountain.