Trip Report - Bots in July

[iandvl]

2024/07/11 - Elephant Sands to Kukonje Island

Distance: 171km
Driving Time: 2h37

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The morning we broke camp. Luckily, despite of having made a massive mess around the ablutions, there was still water, so we could have a proper shower after packing up.

We then headed back to Nata, where we refulled and resupplied. There are not many options in Nata, but we managed to get decent brisket.

From there, we continued South on the A3, turning West onto a dirt track just before Dikwi. Deflated the tires and then followed this track until we got to Kukonje island.

Stopped on the "ancient pebble beach" and then drove the 7-odd kilometres across the pan to the island itself. Drove around to the viewpoint and to inspect a few camp-sites before opting for camp-site 1 - underneath a baobab tree.

The views across the pan are spectacular and apart from the wind, one does not hear a thing. It was fantastic.

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Edit: Added a few more photos, as some people probably want to know the road conditions. I managed to get some other photos for this bit, so this is what the stretch looked like.

A few photos of deflating, a few dry river beds / drifts, the old vet fence at the entrance into the pan etc. Road was actually pretty good. :)

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[iandvl]

2024/07/12 - Kukonje Island to Khama Rhino Sanctuary

Distance: 275km
Driving Time: 4h47

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I would have loved to have spent more time at Kukonje Island, but this was not possible. So after watching the sun-rise with the obligatory cup of coffee and my early morning cigarette, we broke camp. Took a few photos at another baobab a short distance from our camp site. Liana and I have a walk on the pan whilst my folks finished getting ready, and then we headed off the pan again, turning south onto a dirt track.

This track is not good and there are a few places where it has been washed away at some point. These have been fixed with "bridges" (I use that term loosely) - basically rolls of corrugated iron with dirt spread over.

Eventually, we intersected the tar A30 road which runs from Francistown in the East to Orapa in the West. We turned East. About 20km down, we turned South again onto a dirt track in the village of Makobelo, continuing down South to Mmashoro. Here, we reached the tar A14 road which runs from Serowe to Orapa. We stopped just outside Mmashoro to reinflate before continuing on our way. Supplies were low, so we restocked in Serowe - getting supplies for braaobroodjies as well as some beef steaks. Although I wanted to see the Khama memorial in Serowe, the traffic was insane and we wasted a lot of time in town, so we opted to rather head back to Khama Rhino Sanctuary, take a game drive and set up camp.

Did not see much game at Khama - no rhino whatsoever - and ended up getting to our camp-site and setting up camp.

Dinner was braaibroodjies. The steak we had bought was so tough you could probably have killed an elephant with it if you could throw it hard enough.

This would be our last night in Bots, and whilst waiting for the coals, we were looking at options for returning to ZA. Originally, we were considering returning via Martinsdrift, but we decided instead to opt for StockPoort.

All done, we settled down to sleep.

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