4 May 2016 – Leave Halali area, drive to Rundu.

Halali area, drive to Rundu, via Tsintabis.

Namibia has ‘day light saving’ so they are one hour behind RSA from 1 April.  The following times are all Namibia times.  The Halali gate opens at sunrise, now 6.10 am.  Reception and ‘breakfast’ opens at 5.30 am.  So we went for breakfast, and got our R500 deposit back and left the Halali gate at 6.10 am, just before sunrise.

The day's travels.

We drove the 87 km from Halali to Von Lindequist gate in about 1hr 30 min.  We saw single elephant, roaming alone, twice.  

We saw gemsbok, and the usual crowd...

but were fortunate to see six hyena, one a baby. They were gorgeous and very special to see.

Faces that re-confirm that mother-love is unconditional.

We took the tar road to Oshivelo and turned east before Oshivelo and proceeded to Tsintsabis.  It is savannah farmland, in some places somewhat converted, but a beautiful area. We drove ± 90 km in good gravel and only saw two bakkies passing from the front.  One donkey cart, and some workers with cattle, or busy on fences.

We got to Tsintsabis…it’s not a town, it is a “road crossing with a school and a water tower”.  From here a ‘new’ tar road goes to Mpungu.  First straight N on the 18 degree line.  Then NE to Mpungu. From Mpungu we should have turned East, but I had to look at an area 23 km West first, then turned North on 18 degrees again and drove on a sand road.  There are two roads, one each side of a fence line dividing Ovamboland on the West from Kavango on the East. We drove for 15 km through a very sparsely populated area; saw people twice.  I did not find what I was looking for and turned back to the B10 (old C45) and proceeded to Rundu.  

Looking 18° north. Kavango to the left, Ovamboland to the right. We called this area "Chandelier Hek".

The road looks good; it wasn't.

Just a sign post.  Mopane trees used as posts.

Rundu was a disappointment.  There are LOTS of people and the area along the road densely populated.  The town self was big, with many shops, but dirty and a real frontier town.  One main road is a one-way, i turn wrongly twice and the locals were quite patient with me. There are some farming and irrigation projects around Rundu. 
It was Cassinga Day and the only place where we saw some gatherings were in Rundu. We arrived at our accommodation for the night, n’Kwazi lodge, about 15 km from Rundu, on the Okavango River. The huts were fine but semi-rustic.  The windows have gauze, no glass, not really a problem.  The layout of the huts are between big indigenous trees and close to the river.  A portable braai was provided and we had a nice fire. The setting was lovely and the lawns and gardens well maintained. 

Okavango River; view from our hut.

Our hut, #6 with a view over the Okavango.

Electricity was only available from 6pm to 10 pm. This interfered with our ‘charging regime’ somewhat.  We do have excellent charging facilities in the bakkie but with photos taken, cell phone searching for wi-fi and internet, GPS on, the batteries drain quickly.Two volunteers washed my bakkie which got very dirty passing Swakopmund where 

we had a drizzle out of the mist and the black version of the so-called salt road sprayed a fine dark sticky mud onto the vehicle.

Madam waiting for service.

Breakfast was served at 7am (8am SA time), straight after we left for Katima Mulilo, our turning point on this tour.

PS: we only get to post this on 7 May as we had no internet.