Page 15 - Cape-Camera-July-August-2021

Cape Camera July/August 2021

A Member’s Travelogue

Botswana - fabulously wild & adventurous

by Peter Turnbull

The call of the wilderness is all powerful and for me very difficult to resist – some-
thing many will not easily understand, including my youngest son, André, who
was curious about this primal urge of his father and asked to join me on an adven-

ture to some of the places of which I had spoken ad nauseam.

So it was in January 2020 that we agreed on dates in September remained confident that the trip would go ahead as planned.
2020 for our great adventure together. An itinerary was created Were we ever mistaken!
that included some of my favourite game parks and Tiger-fish- We contacted all the places at which we had made reservations
ing destinations in Botswana. The route we were going to follow and asked for postponements. All the establishments were very
would take us through Namibia to Botswana and back again via accommodating and, within reason, afforded us the opportuni-
Namibia. It might sound strange but for our trip this was the ty to reschedule. Amanzi River Trails Camp gave us a three year
shortest distance and there were plenty of suitable places in window. We hoped that we would not need all of three years!
which to overnight. Bookings and payments were made and When at last international travel was possible in Southern Af-
the countdown and anticipation began. rica, with certain requirements, we prepared again, this time
for April 2021, when travel through our planned countries was
permitted but only on presentation of a negative Covid PCR
test result and then only valid for two to seven days, depending
upon the various countries’ policies. This was the good news!
The bad news was that testing facilities are few and are not
always conveniently situated for the originally planned route.
Taking this into consideration, we decided to divide the trip
into two, but sadly André could only come along on the first
part through Botswana. Namibia would have to happen later
in June 2021.
Our plan was to travel on the N1, overnighting outside Bloem-
fontein and then after entering Botswana at Martin’s Drift, again
at the Kwa Nokeng campsite, just across the border. Then on to
I bought a more comfortable Land Rover Discovery to replace Kasane on the Chobe River where we would stay three nights
my trusty Defender 130 double cab and also a Conqueror Com- at Thebe River Camp (taking game drives into Chobe Game Re-
panion offroad caravan to make camping more comfortable serve each day); moving on to Lloyds Camp in Savute for four
and convenient. nights, followed by another four nights at Northgate campsite
Then March 2020, Covid 19 happened! Believing that this ‘in- in Moremi Game Reserve. Thereafter we would drive down
convenience’ would not last longer than a month or so, we the east side of the park to Maun where we would overnight
at Audi Camp, drive to Kang on the Trans-Kalahari Freeway the
Cape Town Photographic Society 14