Saturday, July 25, 2009

GP to Botswana to Zim.

We stayed a few days - more shopping - and spending time with Colleens sister Lorna and her Husband Peter and their family - and what a lovely family they are too, and thanks for puting us up for a few nights (quite a few) and running around for us as well.

We are leaving tomorrow - Sunday - for the botswana border where we will be crossing at Martins Drift ( a quiet border post ) where we will also be camping. On monday we will go to Francistown and camp just out side of the town itself and on tuesday or wednesday we will go into Zim and stay just before Bullawayo and then go on to the Zimbabwe Ruins at Masvingo where we will stay before heading off to a place past Harare called Chinhoyi where we will stay with some people on a lake, then head off to the Mana Pools to really start our holiday. Mana Pools is on the Zim/Zambia border on the Zambesi river. This would be about the end of July unless we go to Lake Kariba for a few days but our main aim is to get up north fairly quickly to catch the Migration in the Serengeti (Tanzania)and Masai Mara in Kenya. but we have to pick up our daughter Cindy in Dar es Selaam on the 22nd of august who will be joining us for the migration. The lower part or South west Zambia we will do another time, but we will go traverse through Zambia to get to Tanzania.

Arriving in Gauteng


Now on our way to GP we recieved a phone call that our landcruiser that we were waiting for (Imported from Sidney Aus, with 2 others )to arrive by container in GP had indeed done so and that we should try to get there ASAP. So with 180k's to go we did a reroute on our GPS at headed to south Joburg. We arrived just in time to see our 40 series LX 1984 landcruiser come out of the container. I have waited a long time for this and was very excited. This is a rebuild to be project for next year and when (Not if) I have the cash and time to do it.

Augrabies to Gauteng

















We left the next day from Augrabies after taking a walk to the fall. It is very well layed out and we could have stayed a few days but we had an appointment in GP on wendesday. So we headed past Kuruman - northern cape - and stayed at a little private game park called Kameelboom lodge, about 10k's before Vryburg. It is a fantastic place albeit a bit close to the national road, but they had springbok all around us and a couple of Eland's that ate out of Colleens hand and also a Emu which got very over friendly with me and I had to run away from it as it seemed to have rather amarous intentions. Now I know why the australians call their suspension systems - "Old man Emu". Colleen thought this was great fun and clicked away on the camera. I am not posting these pics as I didnt think it funny at all. Okay.... I'll show you one just before I ran away






The Augrabie Falls


Karoo and Augrabie Falls




The first night we spent bush camping with no facilities at the Tankwa-Karoo National Park which is between Sutherland and wuppertal. It was windy and got cold later, lucky we had an Electric blanket running off the battery system. we tried out our R200 electric shower with some hot water from the shower. It was not bad at all except that we froze when trying to dry myself. Meanwhile colleen was taking pics of me, she thought it was funny but soon the smile was gone when it was her turn to take a shower. The next day we drove over 600 k's with head winds all the way to Augrabie falls which is not far from Upington. It was pleasant when we arrived to lovely clean facilities.


Thursday, July 9, 2009

Time to Go


On our way to Johannesburg, a slow 3 day trip...