MDF Magazine Issue 72 December 2023

By Hilton Purvis
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