Thursday, 5 June 2025
This morning we enjoyed another incredible sunrise as we readied ourselves to head to the restaurant for an early breakfast. With more than five hours to drive to our next destination, Wian wanted to be on the road again by 8.00am. I took my Vegemite to breakfast but, when cheese scones were available on the breakfast buffet, I opted for those instead of toast.
We were on the road about 8.05am with lunch sacks on our seats. There’s not much between Ndhovu Safari Lodge and Maun (pronounced like mound, without the ‘d’ on the end) so Wian had organised lunch-to-go for us.
Travelling south on the C48, we were soon back at the gate for the Mahango Core Area, that we visited yesterday, where Wian collected a permit that would allow us to drive through the park to the Botswana border. As we drove through the park we were treated to an informal game drive with giraffes on the road. Wian stopped to show us some leaves that had been left on the road by elephants and told us how to tell when the elephants may have passed. The leaves were wilted but not dry so, during the night was his guess. We came to a waterhole where we, once again, could see cape buffalo, but only in the distance. The buffalo continue to be a bit elusive. Our last game sighting before the border was of a herd of elephants crossing the road. Pretty good game sightings from the main road!
We filed into the Namibian Immigration Office to be stamped out of Namibia. The only slight hiccup was one passport having the departure date recorded as the 5th of May rather than the 5th of June. Fortunately, the official could see this was a mistake made on entry because the May date had the passport holder leaving the country before they had even arrived on the 23rd of May! The best thing about the border post – they had clean toilets. Yes, we had only just left the lodge BUT most of us took the opportunity to pee out our breakfast beverages, ha, ha.
We drove across the no man’s land between Namibia and Botswana and parked in front of the Botswanan Immigration Office. We filed in again, filled out arrivals documents and had ourselves stamped into Botswana. Wian had told the lodge not to pack fruit in our lunch bags but we all had a tiny, green pear in our bag. With no fruit allowed to cross the border we had to discard all those pears before passing through Customs. Such a shame. It was only 9.30am and we were in another country.
The first animals this side of the border? Donkeys! Wian said that we will see many, many donkeys in Botswana. Now in a different country, we continued driving south on what was now designated the A35 with a posted speed limit of just 60kph. Wian has warned us previously that the roads in Botswana are terrible with many of their ‘made’ roads worse than gravel roads in Namibia.
We arrived at our first Veterinary Checkpoint. The Veterinary Fence and these checkpoints exist to keep foot and mouth disease, that can be present in wild antelope and buffalo, away from domestic stock. Wian said that the fence stretches across Botswana and Namibia to keep their valuable livestock disease free. He said that in Namibia there are young politicians who want the fence removed because they see it as something that was installed during the period when Namibia was governed by the South Africans and therefore a symbol of apartheid. Never mind that it is a barrier created to keep animals separated to control disease, not people on the basis of race. Wian said that it would decimate Namibia’s meat export industry because there would be no protection in place to protect livestock from foot and mouth disease. Only time will tell what happens with that.
So, the first few kilometres in Botswana weren’t too rough but, all too soon, the road deteriorated into quite probably the most unmade ‘made’ road EVER! Honestly, it’s basically a series of potholes strung together with a suggestion of bitumen. We saw road workers supposedly working on road improvements. You have to hope, right? Their STOP/GO sign holders here are armed with red and green flags that they flap around to manage the traffic. And there are, seemingly, no roadworks speed limits. It is a dangerous job to be a road worker in Botswana.
We ate our lunches on the bus, made a toilet stop and saw more roadside elephants. We really have seen an extraordinary number of elephants both in the parks and by the roadside. We passed through Nokaneng and the road seemed OK, for while. Beside the road it was all domestic animals this afternoon, sheep, horses, goats and cattle. No more elephants.
At Sehithwa we turned left onto the A3 as we continued on our way to Maun. Finally, after rather too much bouncing around in the back of the truck we were very pleased to reach the small city of Maun and drive through the gates of Maun Lodge. Maun lies at the southern edge of the magnificent Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta on earth and a UNESCO World Heritage-listed area. Situated along the banks of the Thamalekane River, Maun offers easy access to the delta. Beginning its days as a small frontier town, it now acts as the gateway to one of the best wildlife experiences in the world.
After a relaxing afternoon and evening in a fairly standard small city hotel, tomorrow we will be venturing into the Moremi Game Reserve for our bush camping experience.
Steps: 9,281 (11.62kms)
There is no way that my step count is accurate today … or many other days for that matter. The Apple Watch seems incapable of distinguishing between steps and bouncing up and down in the back of the truck, ha, ha. I mean, honestly, we drove for over five hours today and did not walk laps around the hotel after we arrived but somehow recorded 47 minutes of exercise?? I really don’t think so.
