Mini Botswana Road Trip – Part 2

Day 2 – Nata Bird Sanctuary to Boteti River Camp

Today, about 300km lay between us and our destination, Boteti River Camp. I started the morning in the campsite office with some coffee, sorting out work tasks needing attention, and also applied online for our inter-zonal Covid travel permits as we were crossing into a different Covid zone. Armed with permit screenshots, we hit the road and headed towards the Boteti River!

Kalahari Sand….
Having scrutinised the route and map, not to mention the odd glimpses of the campsites via the website photo gallery, I was convinced that the last few kilometres would consist of our nemesis – deep, thick Kalahari Sand! The bike, especially when heavily loaded, is definitely not made for this stuff. In our past adventures we have had varying antics in the fathomless sand that seems to insist on making up the access roads to places we visit! Needless to say, I was alone in my dramatic predictions about this road, and I was told to relax, wait and see…

As we turned due west onto the A3, we had to first get through the degraded section on this route. At some point, it is more potholes than tar and others (much better) the official road surface has actually been removed, which leaves a potholed gravel road of sorts. Biker boy as usual enjoyed dodging potholes and craters, as he always explains the bike is so much more nifty in between any obstacles and we whizzed through, leaving the unfortunate 4 wheeled cars ponderously negotiating their bulky bodies through the craters, one line of wheels at at time! No beastly sand here, and with the odd pep talk from the flight deck, I’m getting pretty good at handling this type of gravel road experience.

On either side of the road lay masses of standing water, as far as the eye could see – this area is prone to flooding from local rains. On previous journeys through here we have seen flamingos and pelicans on these roadside waters. Not this time, although a good selection of other water birds were enjoying the temporary lake! On this section one is very aware of the presence of the great Makdgadikgadi Pans on the left, and every now and then the road crosses safely over a “finger” of salt pan, a very treacherous surface at this time of year..

After roller coasting our way through the off-road section of the A3, we stopped at Planet Baobab to have some lunch and to book our campsite for the way back on Sunday. After a really hot and quite tiring stretch, it was wonderful to flop into one of the quirky cowhide chairs with an ice cold drink, while waiting for some of the best burgers in Botswana!

Back on the bike, the next section transits through the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park with a speed limit of only 80km/h, so there was ample time to look around and chat, and for me – to think about that Big Sand!

In order to supposedly lighten up the bike for my suspected Big Sand adventure, we had debated the virtue of making a significant dent in our mobile wine supply the night before! Of course in this day and age there has to be a bit of balance and planning due to the ever changing and capricious nature of Covid related liquor purchasing restrictions! Currently one can’t buy wine over weekends, so being a Friday, we had decided to stop in at Nata village en route and restock, adding a bit more weight on to the poor bike, despite my sand worries…

Eventually we made it to the junction where we turned left onto the B300 for the final 50 or so km – a road we’ve never actually ventured on before -always exciting! We headed through the village of Motopi, and here we crossed over the Boteti River. This is a big deal, as most years this river does not flow at all! Very lucky to experience it flowing.

After the village we felt a sense of the remoteness we were heading into, and we were also aware of riding alongside the river, noticing the treeline demarcating its course on our left. The type of Botswana roadside scene also started to change, and we noticed quite a few guys on horseback, cowboy style! One pair made me laugh so much, as they raced along next to the bike, two up on their steed just like us, wearing identical Adidas T shirts, and waving wildly – smiling their huge white standout grins! We continued to wave at each other crazily, until we eventually outran the adidas cowboys!

Two kids on a donkey – not quite the cowboys!

Being my ridiculous self, I started trying to observe and critically rate the white sand on the left hand side, for thickness and depth. Getting my mind ready for the Big Sands to come!

At this stage, Boteti River Camp was very well sign posted so we had no fears of getting lost!

As we entered Khumaga village, knowing our destination was somewhere in there, the signs to the lodge suddenly diminished into mini strips, of which four or five would have fitted into one of the large road signs shown above! Somehow riding around looking for signs and turnoffs on the bike is different to doing so a car, so huge signposts are definitely a help! The tarmac abruptly vanished, and we were in a typical Botswana village maze of little sandy roads… how MUCH sand was still unknown. In general, I am in charge of looking for physical road signs as we navigate through towns or villages, and it can cause highly fraught situations when I issue a navigational instruction and it’s too darn late!! Then very inconvenient bike U turns have to take place in the sand or traffic or whatever type of road is involved..

Despite my best efforts, the miniature signposts showed up in my field of vision just that bit too late.. and unfortunately resulted in two such U turns in the village of Khumaga – one in some respectably deep, white Kalahari sand! Almost immediately after that, however, we suddenly and unexpectedly found ourselves slap bang on top of the entrance gate of our destination, Boteti River Camp! No dramatic sand road to struggle through!! I really had the wind taken out of my sails on that one.. and was glad we had not compromised on the weight of the mobile cellar due to my over active imagination! I deserved the “I told you so” that humorously came my way!

As we set up camp, I was ecstatic to hear the call of one of my favourite birds of all time – the crimson breasted shrike. Not only one, but three of these beauties frequented our campsite our whole stay! One of them decided to sit still for about a minute, thus I managed to capture a paparazzi shot at the top of a very high tree, protected by the thorny branches these birds seem to prefer. Not great conditions for photography but I just have to share the photo, if only to just celebrate this absolute perfection of crimson-ness! Viewed from the back, amazingly, this is a pitch black bird. So beautiful.

We bought some firewood and various provisions from the camp shop, to try and support their business a bit, as we were the only guests there…. Around sunset, we went up to the deck, and viewed the Boteti river with the National Park on the opposite side. A bit further downstream we watched the Boteti ferry moving a Toyota land cruiser over the river from the village into the Park. This is a lengthy process, being a pont, pulled across manually. On the other side of the river bank, we thought we could just make out a herd of kudus in the shadows, but were not that sure. As we sat pondering the mysterious twilight kudus, the land cruiser shot out of the ferry docking zone, roared up the cliff-like approach, and rocketed along the riverbank at high speed, causing kudus to show themselves, jumping out of their skins due to the sudden arrival of the rattling, roaring beast. After it vanished leaving the kudus in the dust, we watched them cautiously coming down the cliff to drink peacefully from the river, right in front of us. This is a terrible photo below, but what it shows is the Boteti river with its green cover of aquatic weed and waterlilies! I should have taken a photo downstream for a more conventional watery river view, but was more interested in watching our beautiful kudus.

We enjoyed our evening by the campfire in this interesting riverbank location. On the one side the camp is part of the village while also being right next to the river, with the National Park over on the other side. The usual weekend village noise died down early, due to Covid curfew time, so we could enjoy the night sounds of the bush… lions roaring from across the river, as well as hyaena and jackal… I have to mention the amazing owl population – during our 2 nights, we identified 6 different owl calls, including the Giant Eagle Owl and a full house of the local Owlets!