We woke at 5, forget the sunken bath, nothing beats a hot outdoor bush shower. We wolfed down breakfast at the restaurant. They have a system here where breakfast is included in the price of the room. Filled up with diesel, checked out and drove out of Namatoni at 6:30.
It was a 10km drive to Von Lindquist Gate. Gray and I have been looking for Damara Dik Dik for 3 days and we saw 3 on our way out – typical. At the gate we and the car were foot and mouth decontaminated: we had to walk over the disgusting wet carpet, while the car tyres were sprayed. I know this is a serious business but the irony is I was wearing talkies that I had not worn since entering the area and my slops that I had been wearing will arrive home full of Etosha sand.
We drove toward Tsumeb and then onto Otjiwarongo and then took the C30 to Gobabis. I was very surprised at Otjiwarongo, it is a neat, tidy town and a whole lot bigger than expected and more modern than I expected. It means ‘pleasant place’ or ‘place where fat cattle graze’, I didn't see any fat cattle but it certainly was pleasant.
The scenery along this mornings drive was pretty, with lots of trees. We passed a number of game farms and loads of warthogs foraging on the side of the road. The tarred road to the C30 was a good road. The C30 to Gobabis was 320km of also good dirt road, it bypassed Windhoek and shaved around 120km off our journey. It was an area of farms, game and cattle, lots of grass and trees – we have left the desert areas behind. I thought we might be dodging donkeys on this stretch of road but it was wildlife, at one stage a gemsbok ran across the road right in front of us.
We crossed over ‘Die Dam’, a dam about the size of Emmerentia and entered the town of Gobabis, it has all the amenities of a busy town: like Vleis Paleis, Pep Stores and a Street Style Fashion Store, to name a few. We elected not to stop at the ATM, Fuel Station and Take-away, the queues were hectic. We pushed onto Buitepos, stopping to change a tyre 10km before the border. I thought it was too good, getting through Namibia without a puncture.
We filled up with diesel at Buitepos and drove 2km to the Mamuno Border Post between Namibia and Botswana. We arrived at around 2:45 and left around 4:15, it took around ½ an hour but we need to set our clocks forward an hour. If we had done the border crossing tomorrow, we would have been in the same zone, as Namibia reverts back on the first weekend in September.
If we thought we had problems dodging animals on the Namibian roads, we had bigger ones dodging livestock in Botswana. There are no farm fences and the cattle, donkeys and goats cross the main road at will, it is very dangerous.
Four very weary travelers arrived at Kang Ultra Lodge around 7:30, we had been traveling for 12 ½ hours. We had only stopped for fuel, a tyre change and a border crossing and hadn't eaten a meal since we had inhaled breakfast at Namatoni.
Kang Ultra Lodge is a great stop over on your way to or from Namibia or into Northern Botswana. It is a clean and comfortable overnighter, with a restaurant next door. After dinner we fell into bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment