Upington

Cornwall Safari Lodge Botswana

Armandt Visagie recommended we stay in Tshahitsi Lodge in Upington. What a beautiful place! Springbok and Emu walk in the gardens of the lodge and the accommodation and breakfast we had was 5 star. We were so glad that we stayed in a lodge - temperatures dropped to 2 degrees C that night! Jeune and Francois joined us late that night. They decided to go with us to Witsand Kalahari and camped there with us for the weekend. It was really great to see them before we left on our extended trip. Unfortunately they had to leave mid Sunday morning to get back to Pretoria. We left Witsand late on Monday morning and travelled to Cullinen Guest Farm. it was even colder at Cullinan!  We had a lovely dinner with the Cullinan family. Marda served Naba as a starter. Naba is a San word and is similar in taste to truffles. It is a round bulb that grows under the ground and the local people knows just where to find it. After the first rain a crack appears in the ground that points out the spot where the Naba is growing! They dig it up and sell it to local farmers.  Temperatures plummeted to -2 deg C and we had trouble showering the next morning due to freezing water in the pipes. Tuesday we crossed the SA border to Botswana via Mc Carthy's Rest without any problems, and continued to Cornwall Safari Lodge. We considered driving to Jwaneng but there was only camping available. We met Heather and Jannie Strumpher, owners of the lodge and in the end we were glad that we stayed with them. Before we met Heather and Jannie, Jock came and greeted us. Jock is an Australian cattle dog. Cornwall's chef cooked us a tasty meal. That night we were comfortable and warm. Wednesday morning we left the lodge at 05h00! We could not shower at all! All the water pipes were frozen. Temperatures dropped from -5 to -8 deg C while we were traveling to Jwaneng! I had never been so cold. We got to Jwaneng at 08h00, and tried to do our business as quickly as possible, but we hit the 'Pace of Africa', and by the time we left it was 11h15. We still had to travel to Khutse Game Reserve. The GPS'Tracks for Africa' took us on the 'shortest' route north-east to Salajwe. This proved to be rather time consuming as we could only average around 40 km an hour due to a bumpy, sandy track that forced us to stop a few times to check if car and caravan was still intact. The 205km to Khutse took us 6 hours! Ros and Theo welcomed us into our camp for the next 5 nights - only to give us the news that we would be sharing our camp site with a 4 - 5m African Python!    

Jock fell in love with Steve

   

The 'good' road to Khutse