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Botswana, February 2012 - Tsodilo Hills & Okavango Panhandle

We'd visited the Tsodilo Hills in 2008 to see some of the Rock Art paintings and decided to return there.

From Maun it took us nearly 5 hours to cover 350km on a mostly good tar road (the main problem being the donkeys, goats, sheep, cattle and horses on the road) to the turn off for the Tsodilo Hills.  It then took us another hour to travel 35km to the village and another 15 minutes for the last 4 ½km to the campsite through mud and large puddles.  As this is a World Heritage Site we expected the access to be better.

You can camp for free near the museum but were disappointed to discover that we were not allowed to drive around the site on our own (as we did last time), only with a guide so instead of staying for 2 or 3 nights we just spent 1 night there.

There was a family from Johannesburg, who are taking a year out to travel from Cape Town to Cairo, who were also camping so we all booked a morning walk for the following day.

 

This permanent spring is one of the reasons that the Hills were used by the bushmen.

Thebe showing us how the local people used local stone for face decoration.

The majority of the rock art was very clear animal paintings.

However these 2 whales and a penguin show that people must have travelled to the Namibian coast.

This is the most famous panel on the Rhino Trail. It was first written about by Laurens Van der Post in his book 'The Lost World of the Kalahari'.

During the night elephants had been in the area, having previously broken down some of the fences around the site. They'd pulled several branches down onto the path.

It started to rain just as we set off from the campsite and we only just made it through the very muddy ground near the entrance gate.

As we were driving back to the tar road we kept hearing a noise from the back of the vehicle or trailer but, for a while, couldn't locate what was wrong. The third time that we stopped we noticed oil on the rear nearside wheel so Kevin knew that something was up and suspected the wheel bearings as the brakes seemed fine.

It was, fortunately, only about 30 kilometres to Shakawe Lodge. It took us nearly 2 hours to get there and for the last few kilometres kevin was driving in 2nd gear!

Mike,the Lodge Manager, was very helpful. He phoned a local mechanic and arranged for him to come out the following day.

Early next morning Kevin made a start on removing the back wheel to try and check up what was wrong.  He wasn’t sure if he would have to remove the brake section before taking out the axle so left that until the mechanic, Chris, arrived and then they worked together on it.  They discovered that the bearings were badly damaged and had caused the seal to break. Fortunately Chris was able to get the parts in Shakawe by 4pm the bakkie was ready.

The Lodge and campsite at Shakawe Fishing Lodge has a lovely location besides the Okavango River.

The Lodge is known as a good place to see Pel's Fishing Owl and Kitso, the receptionist, offered to take me into the forest to try and locate one. We spent the best part of 2 hours looking and were on our way back to the Lodge when Kitso spotted one high up in a tree.

I just had time for one quick photo (I hadn't taken the telephoto lens with me) before it flew off.....

... but we managed to find it again and noticed that it had half of a large fish.

1. Khama Rhino Sanctuary.

2. Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

3. Tsodilo Hills & Okavango Panhandle.

4. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Diary. (Word '97 document)

 

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Local fishermen in the early morning on the Okavango River.