It has always been on my Dad’s bucket list to see Etosha national park and to tour Namibia. In fact a trip had been booked and paid for about 4 years ago which we had to cancel at the last moment for some work on the mine…the twins were coming with us too. Then of course the 2015 “health gap year” happened.  Finally last year, the bucket list plan was set in motion, initlal plan was to fly in and rent a car. 

3 week rental of a suv/4×4 was quoted at R28000k, so with a perfectly good V6 Pajero parked at the Retreat… I decided I would drive up and Mom and Dad would fly to Windhoek. Dawn readily agreed to be my navigator on the first leg though Botswana to Windhoek. So on Sunday 23rd April, we went to Pretoria, dropped off the Lexus, and picked up all the folks luggage and the Pajero. We drove to Gabarone the first night and arrived at the Phakalane Golf Estate at about 5.30pm. Easy border crossing and cloudy weather, made for a quick and pleasant trip.

On Monday we set off bright and breazy for the long trip to Ghanzi….after initial concerns about road closures and washed away bridges, it turned out that we could still drive the most direct route, about 650km…. here is a copy of my facebook post on that part of the trip….

My road trip epiphany today….The degree of bumpiness in the road is directly proportional to the degree of fullness of the bladder.

Awesome trip today with natural beauty in the most simple of things. Spectacular lighting from the heavy cloud cover, so many grass varieties with different colours and textures. A variety of birds second to none, kiewiets, ostriches, lilac breasted rollers, kites, hawks,guinea fowl, crows, starlings, vultures, hornbills, francolins, egrets. Then we were treated to at least a minute’s flyover from the hugest hawk I have ever seen, he took off from a tree in front of us as we had pulled over to watch him, he circled and soared all above us, I have never seen anything like this display.
Cows, monkeys, goats, horses and donkeys aplenty. Even saw 4 impala cross the road. A lizard and bugs and beetles and sadly many jackal roadkills. The landscape is remarkably green and lush, a lot of water lying around. 
So far we have done just over 1100kms and it has been fantastic. Not much traffic to speak of, easy border crossing, a good night in Gabs with rain. The Kgalagadi hiway is fully tarred and in reasonable condition, a couple of dodgy potholed sections, but not too bad on the whole.

Next stop Ghansi.