MDF Magazine Newsletter Issue 60 December 2019

TRAVEL
KGALAGADI on WHEELS
My wife and I have been enjoying our national parks for more
than 20 years, becoming frequent visitors to Addo, Mountain
Zebra and the West Coast parks whilst also managing to take
in the Karoo, Bontebok, and Kruger parks as well as St Lucia
and Hluhluwe in KZN. There was however one park which
had eluded us ... the Kgalagadi.
Our circle of friends was almost evenly split between
those who thought we were quite insane to consider
visiting the Kgalagadi and those who encouraged us at every
opportunity to "just do it"! We were warned of very high daytime
temperatures, poor road conditions and dust, dust, plenty of
dust. Added to the issue of my disability limitations, we also
generated a fair amount of chatter around our motor vehicle,
a bog standard VW Tiguan in front wheel drive configuration,
which was deemed unsuitable. We heeded all of the warnings
and, arming ourselves with soft sand driving lessons, the
purchase of various puncture repair and towing gear together
with the advice to lower tyre pressure to 1.6 bar, supplies of
bottled water, atomisers and neck scarves for soaking therein,
we headed north.
You can therefore imagine our surprise on the first
morning in the park as we "splashed" through the game
entrance gate, with the windscreen wipers swishing back and
forth. We looked at each other thinking "the dry Kalahari?"
The conditions certainly did not dampen the spirit of the game
and we quickly found ourselves surrounded by soaking-wet
pronking springbok at Samevloeiing as they celebrated this
welcome change from the baking heat of previous weeks.
The rain quickly subsided and we were treated to days of
glorious sunshine, damp and dust-free roads and thankfully
lower temperatures. All of this combined to allow us to drive
with the windows down, filling the car with the smells and
sounds of the bush. This also meant that our game-watching
times could be extended to eight or nine hours each day,
starting at 6 a.m. and getting back to the cottage only after
2 p.m., and sometimes even including another late afternoon
excursion. Of course it also impacted the type of viewing
since the rain put a lot of water onto the roads and into the
bush. The waterholes were therefore very quiet and most of
our encounters occurred in the natural landscapes.
The naysayers didn't believe we would be able to make it
to Nossob but we nonetheless decided to give it a try, even
developing a liking for the silky-smooth sandy roads, free of
road and tyre noise. In Nossob we met up with a number of
Addo and Cape Town friends who were visiting the park at
the same time. All of them were driving 4x4s, and one couple
offered to guide us north to Polentswa to see just how far we
could go. We found out that the good road conditions allowed
us to reach as far as the picnic site of Lijersdraai, a beautiful
area of the park. Later in the trip, on the Auob river side, we
made it as far as the Dertiende Boorgat.
On our second afternoon in Nossob the proverbial heavens
opened and we experienced a massive rainstorm lasting for
nearly two hours, which flooded the campsite and created a
small moat around our chalet. This provided us with perhaps
the rarest sighting of all when we sat in the Nossob bird hide
(easily accessible) and watched the Nossob river flow by! It
was an extraordinary scene, followed a couple of days later
by the appearance of flowers in the veld on bushes which
days earlier had looked stone dead. We were really privileged
to witness this.
Since this was our first trip we probably covered more
kilometres than normal, averaging 160 km per day. Certainly
on future trips (and there will be future trips) we will probably
be spending more time at chosen destinations. For this trip,
however, the comfortable daytime temperatures (they never
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