5, 6 & 7 May 2016 - Leave n’Kwazi at Rundu, drive to Katima Mulilo (KM), and back to Rundu.

5 May 2016  - Leave n’Kwazi at Rundu, drive to Katima Mulilo 

6 May 2016 - Drive from Namwi Island, around Katima Mulilo

7 May 2016 - Back from Namwi Island, Katima Mulilo, to Rundu

Views at Namwi, east of Katima Mulilo on the Zambezi River

Before going into this, a few details:

•         On our way to Epupa falls we were on our most Western part of our journey.
•         On the road to Epupa falls we were almost 500 kms West of Cape Town, this is as if you sail 500 kms west into the sea right west from Cape Town.
•          We are now roughly due north of Knysna and at Katima Mulilo, Port Elizabeth will be roughly south of us.
• We are still heading away from ‘the house’ and have done more than 5000 kms already.

From Rundu we drove east to KM, 518 km.  This is all good tar road.  Most of the road is 120 km/h with only towns and villages marked down to 60 km/h. 

 Local villages are common along the road but then for 10’s of kms there are no villages, lots of the Caprivi Strip (Zambezi district) is national park.  Where the settlements are, it is called ‘multiple use’, and the less populated areas ’core’. 

It is mostly ‘savannah like’ with areas with larger trees.

We reached KM at 2pm.  It is a smaller town than Rundu (areas wise) but cleaner and more sophisticated.  Most of SA shops here as well.  Prices are the same or slightly cheaper than in SA.  All the real towns, even small ones had fuel.  No worries there.  If there are no towns on your map, don’t expect any!  Or fuel.  I wanted to buy a camera charger in Rundu or Katima, but that type of technical/electronic sophistication is hard to come by here. Pubs and ‘shebeens’ are common, however.

We arrived at Namwi Island Camping and Self Catering. We were somewhat apprehensive as we generally booked the cheaper accommodation.  You know,…three quotes, budget, etc, etc.  We were pleasantly surprised to find a well maintained, huge tree dominated ‘lodge’.  The gardens are impeccably maintained.

The camping sites are on the Zambezi River and the chalets set further back. The Zambezi is roaring past and a few hundred meters wide. Fish eagles and hippo calls entertain us.

“All” the lodges lease the land from the locals and I wonder how they keep their lease expenses stable. The craft trade seems to be almost non-existing.  Only from Rundu we saw some wood carvings, mostly elephants, and some walking sticks.  I wanted to buy Marula trees but could not find a nursery in KM.  We’ll look out as we go south, and west again.  I don’t feel the hostility from the locals that I felt in Ovamboland.

The usual signs and road numbers

The Zambezi River views were exquisite.

The roads, again, was excellent, all tarred.  We drove about 600 km today. The MapStudio tourist map we bought from MapStudio in January have many mistakes. Today's route (C49) it showed as gravel, but it was tarred quite long ago. It was scenic, but not much different from the B8.  The B8 had many lorries on Thursday, few today.  The C49 was very quiet. The villages along this route look very clean and very need with reed fencing about 2.5 m tall and trimmed into perfect lines. 
We saw only two speed traps so far in Namibia; i hope more did not see me. But usually we travel on the speed limit.

Our basic bedroom

We reached Kaisosi, outside Rundu, about 2pm.  Wi-fi is available and i am up to date with the blog!

Our double story, overlooking the Okavango.

I prefer more African accommodation, fitting into the environment, but it has all we need.

Sunset over the Okavango.

Sunset over the Okavango.

We saw three big rivers so far on this trip:

• the Kunene flowing into the Atlantic Ocean (Ruacana area).
• the Zambezi flowing into the Indian Ocean (Katima area).
• the Okavango not flowing into any ocean...but disappearing into the Okavango Delta in Botswana (Rundu area).

Okavango

Okavango

Goats and cattle grazing on a football field next to the Okavango.

This fig tree took over a Combretum.

Tomorrow, 8 May, we drive to Okahandja, via Grootfontein, but we'll visit Tsumeb as well.

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.

3 May 2016 – Drive loops in Halali area, Etosha

3 May 2016 – Drive loops in Halali area, Etosha

The area around Halali has little diversity.  It is ‘savannah’, where you can’t see much from your vehicle, or you can reach the pan where you can see for miles.  We saw gemsbok walking on the pan; ‘miles’ out! We drove some of the loops and a saw many animals.

We went back to the camp and to the waterhole. This time elephants came to drink. Quite a few young ones and even babies. When we arrived, there was a group of 12,  five of them  left and then we saw 11 coming from the bushes and join the other. The elephants were the only animals that worked out where the water inlet pipe is and ‘only’ drank there.  One even walked backed after the herd started leaving the hole, to drink from that site again, as the water is of much better quality here.

Trees are nicer than elephants.

Halali Camp, Etosha.

Next stop is Rundu.

3 May - Halali Camping Site

View over camping site  after sunset.