Stranded in pandemic Africa
When Liz Neilson and Ian Scoon retired in 2014, travelling was a given. With hotels and flights not exactly their idea of fun, a ‘Round the World Overland Safari with a Caravan’ idea was hatched and a brand-new Discovery 4 purchased to facilitate it. This is their story…
AFTER almost a month of solitude, we left the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) with almost no fuel, no water and only tinned food. On reaching the tar road the police waved us down: “Botswana is going into lockdown tomorrow at midnight,” they advised. Having picked up a 3G signal, the BBC World Service painted a bleak picture of the pandemic – things had changed dramatically during our period offline. The only sensible option was to backtrack to the small town of Ghanzi, and refuel both us and the Land Rover. After that options were limited with National Parks and all hotels, lodges and campgrounds already closed. Fortunately we had the caravan. Early the following morning Liz and I started to make some calls. Finally Drotsky’s Cabins, somewhere we’d previously visited in 2005 and renowned for their hospitality, could accommodate us. We just had to travel 470 kilometres to get there!
The road to Sehithwa is excellent although a strong headwind restricted us to 80 kph. At the turn of the infamous A35 however, the potholes begun to appear making our British roads look like am incredible, sinuous ribbon of Tarmac. To add to the challenge, the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) in their Defenders, were moving north on the same route to secure the borders. The word hectic doesn’t do things justice as we all cruised at 100 kph, braking hard to 5 kph every time we had to negotiate a seemingly never-ending series of potholes.
Refuelling in Gumare, Ian asked the attendant about the road north. “You’ve been through the potholes, now you’ve got pitholes”. He wasn’t joking. Hit these at speed and you’d rip the suspension off. Breaking Overlanders Rule No. 1, ‘don’t travel after dark’, we finally breathed a sigh of relief to arrive well after dusk, safe and sound, thanks to the comfort and amazing towing capability of the Discovery.
Just to rewind back a bit and give you some context. We started our trip in Canada in the spring of 2016 – our plan was to drive the Dempster Highway up to the Arctic and then down to the southern tip of Argentina, Tierra del Fuego. We anticipated our plans may be disrupted by hurricanes, mudslides, or even earthquakes, but never did we expect to be locked into a country with all borders closed for 12 months, as a result of a worldwide pandemic.
Entering Botswana at Mccarthys Rest in January, 2020, on a 90 day visa, the plan was to head up to East Africa as the rains ended, passing north through Zimbabwe and Zambia, to Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya – a long held dream. The best laid plans of mice and men!
MABUASEHUBE NATIONAL PARK:
The first stop was Mabuasehube National Park in the company of friends driving a Toyota Land Cruiser 79 camper. The road to the park gate includes a 30 km stretch of deep sand, so all tyres aired down, and with sand and low ratio selected for the Discovery, off we went. I wasn’t going to get stuck in the company of a Toyota, not even with a 2.2 tonne caravan as an excuse! The sand was seriously deep, so 30 to 40 kph was the optimum speed to prevent the caravan from bouncing around like a rag doll.
Once inside the park, the sand tracks posed no difficulty for towing. The campsites are all single use, often with uninterrupted vistas over the pans so we were treated to great views springbok and gemsbok herds, and of course, big cat predators including cheetah, lions and leopards.
KHUTSE NATIONAL PARK:
After picking up a substitute carnet and two new roof lights for the caravan in Gaborone, we headed for Khutse National Park at the bottom of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), famous for its large study group of lions.
The tracks within Khutse were fine allowing us reach our selected campgrounds deep in the park. Khutse is always quiet and in the three weeks we were there we only saw rangers and two other tourists – Italy was already in lockdown and foreign tourists were returning home. Clearly Covid-19 was going to be a major factor to consider in our journey north. The caravan is our home however, and so we felt comfortable sitting out lockdown in Botswana.
CENTRAL KALAHARI GAME RESERVE:
Entering the CKGR at Tsau Gate, always a quiet part of the reserve, Tracks4africa marks the tracks as overgrown – they weren’t wrong, much pruning was required to get the caravan through. After five days we entered Passarge Valley and saw the first sign of civilisation – tracks of a recent vehicle, probably only a day old.
The next day we saw a ranger and couple of tourists and they were the last humanoids we spotted until leaving the park over two weeks later. At 52,800 kilometres squared the CKGR is over twice the size of Wales and in all probability we were the only people in it. Thankfully Liz had set up our Garmin Inreach and we had confidence in the Discovery, nevertheless from here on getting stuck or breaking down was not an option. Therefore we decided to base ourselves at Sunday Pan and do day trips with just the Discovery.
Having re-read Cry of the Kalahari by the Owens, a trip to Deception Valley was a must. What a contrast with the 1970s when the Owens were also the only people in the park, totally reliant on their Land Rover and very basic camping gear, and here we were driving around in air conditioned luxury, living in comfort in our caravan.
The return journey to Tsau Gate to reach the tar road was straightforward, all that pruning had paid off, and you know the rest, Botswana had followed the world in locking down.
DROTSKY’S CABINS:
Lockdown at the beginning of April in Botswana followed a similar pattern to the UK, the difference being President Masisi declared a State of Emergency closing all borders. During the 50 days of Phase 1, we were confined to the extensive grounds of Drotsky’s Cabins. Days took on a routine. Early mornings we walked a 4 km circuit around the empty campground on the banks of the Okavango River, taking a flask of coffee, sitting under the shady canopy of a Jackleberry tree. Here, monitor lizards sat on tree branches sunning themselves and diving into the river if we approached too close. Our sundowner was on a pontoon moored in the Okavango River watching crocodiles and listening to the call of fish eagles.
The wearing of masks was compulsory in public areas from the outset and we contributed to a scheme by making them for the locals.
"OUR SUNDOWNER WAS ON A PONTOON WATCHING CROCODILES AND LISTENING TO THE CALL OF FISH EAGLES"
OKAVANGO DELTA:
Phase 2 of the lockdown allowed travel in your home region, Ngamiland for us, so we treated ourselves to a stay at Jumbo Junction Safari Lodge on the other side of the Panhandle.
At the end of May we set off for Maun first visited in the late 1980s, when it was a selection of small buildings and just one garage. It is now a major town and tourist hub with the busiest airport in Africa and a Woolworths (think M&S) – quite a luxury.
After many years of drought this year’s rains had restored the Okavango Delta to its usual magnificence. To check it out we booked a helicopter flight and met Laura who the previous year had driven down from Scotland in a Morris Minor. Now that’s dedication to overlanding.
We left Maun for Mbudi delighted to be back on safari and, after some horrible sections of corrugated dirt road that overheated the caravan shocks, arrived at the campground, alongside the small winding Mbudi River, our home for the next month. During afternoon drives on the nearby Khwai River, we encountered huge herds of elephants for the first time. The only other people around were game drive staff and the BDF, patrolling for poachers.
Much to Liz’s and the Ranger’s astonishment we managed to tow the caravan deep into Moremi Game Reserve. Again we were the only tourists in the park, driving tracks which hadn’t seen any action for months. We navigated solely by maps.me, an incredible app, that proved very accurate. It felt like Africa 50 years ago and we felt very privileged.
NXAI AND MAKGADIKGADI PANS:
The Great Salt Pans lie in the northern Kalahari, a harsh environment and myriad of tracks, often consisting of deep sand. The advice is to travel in groups, which obviously we couldn’t do but we decided to leave the caravan behind and pack the tent.
First stop was Baines’ Baobabs, which was used as navigation waypoint by early explorers – the scene that greeted us has hardly changed since it was painted by Victorian explorer Thomas Baines in 1862. Sunrises and sunsets provide a spectacle of oranges and pinks as a backdrop to these huge trees and, totally alone again, it was hard not to feel something of the insignificance of man and the wonder of nature.
A few days later, caravan in tow this time, we headed into the Makgadikgadi Pans for a straightforward drive down to Tree Island Campground and used this as a base for further exploration. Having recently revisited this area after the November rains, we were delighted to discover the Zebra migration.
CHOBE RIVER AND MUCHENJE:
Early September we headed up to Kasane, a small frontier town with a real wild west feel. The town borders the Chobe National Park and Forest Reserve and the joke amongst locals was that the animals were missing tourists so much, that lions, wild dogs, and elephants had started coming into town to find out what was going on! Our timing was perfect, herds of 500 plus elephants and buffalo were entering Chobe on a daily basis, the river being the only source of water for miles around, until one day in October, after a heavy shower, almost every animal in the park disappeared overnight.
Once again, we were often the only vehicle in the park with one notable exception, the owner of Chobe Safari Lodge in his electric Defender – the perfect game viewing vehicle.
In October, called the suicide month because of the extreme heat (low 40s) we literally hid in the shade of the huge Jackleberry trees at Muchenje Campground on the Chobe floodplain. After the first rains in November the temperatures dropped and life became more bearable thankfully, and in December we made the 2000 km round trip to the Land Rover dealer in Gaborone, as the Discovery needed a basic service.
We were now all set for 2021. What would it bring us?