Wicked Campers Africa Blog

We are two weeks on our way. After picking up our Lion King van and spending a few days in Capetown, we headed off north. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park was our first destination we reached through Springbok and Upington. Seeing lions four days in a row in Kgalagadi was really special. Crossing the Kalahari and Namib deserts we crossed the Rietfontein border and travelled east to west to Luderitz bordering the Atlantic ocean where we are resting a bit now. Tomorrow we are going up to Sesriem/Sossusvlei for the next stage of our Adventure.

Twelve weeks on our way we have travelled 12000 km with our trusted Lion King van. Although we had the usual tyre puncture on the Mozambican roads north of Tofo, Lion King has been a strong companion (knockknock). SInce it has been 10 weeks since we wrote something here, we’ll just drive you quickly through our travels. For the Dutch among you, you can read about our travels in a bit more detail on http://joenevs.spaces.live.com.

After a windy and end-of-the-world feel in Luderitz, we went up north in Namibia where we encountered the rainy season, something unexpected in the desert-landscape. Flashfloods around Sossusvlei forced us to camp alongside the road (but hey, L.K. had everything we needed) and made the experience of getting to the red dunes even more special. Driving over empty roads towards Windhoek after that was great. In WIndhoek L.K. was serviced for the first time with great hospitality from Chameleon’s backpackers there. We heard good stories about Swakopmund so that was our next destination, overnighting at Spitzkoppe, an amazingly beautiful place with community based bush camping with basic facilities around the koppies. In Swakopmund we weren’t so lucky with the weather, so we made our way to Etosha over the following days, forced to take divertions because of washed away roads on the Skeleton coast, but still being able to see the Cape Cross Seal Reserve, and to cross Damaraland where we visited rock engravings at Twyfelfontein.

Etosha then was our second ‘game’ destination, although on the way in the Naukluft area we had still seen our share of wild horses, springbok and ostrich. Although some routes through the park were closed because of the rain and the petrol station inside the park didn’t have petrol at that moment, Etosha was great. Especially the area around the eastern gate had an amazing amount of animals including lion, elephants (our first!), zebra (again: our first!), pumba’s and the ‘usual’ collection of bucks and boks. And jackals looking for food on the camp sites…

After Etosha the plan had been to go further north, but the rains in Angola had been so hevay that serious flooding in the north of Namibia occured with devastating consequences for the local people. So we rather headed into the Caprivi strip, going first to the area around Popa falls, where we staid at the loveliest camp, Nunda, who made room for us although their camp site had been flooded for the larger part as had many others around. Here we saw our first hippo’s ever, but not nearly our last!

From the Caprivi strip we entered Botswana easily at Ngoma bridge, taking the transit route through Chobe to Kasane, spending a couple of days there, visiting Chobe of course (great! but sadly no self-driving without 4×4), adding buffalo to our list of sptted wild animals. Here the elephant we saw up close during a boat trip on the Chobe river along the river banks where the animals come to bath, drink and play. Kasane was also our jumping off point to head for Zambia, to start our more off-the-beaten-track-part-of-our-journey. Crossing the Zambezi by ferry was already exciting, but the border into Zambia, well, was…..interesting. But worth it. With the Vic Falls at its heighest water levels since 50 odd years, they were overwhelming…and wet! Spending a few days in a room at the quite spacious Jollyboys Backpackers was just what we needed.

Zambia is special, difficult to describe what it is like to travel around there. An experience in itself. The books by Alexandra Fuller might give you a glimpse. But our main destination, and really one of our highlights was South Luangwa National Park in the east of Zambia. In the end we hung around for a week, on the camping Flatdogs (which means crocodiles) just outside the park’s boundaries. In the night grazing hippo’s around L.K., the size of the van! And now and then the odd elephant crossing the campsite. One night even a leopard came through, but only its tracks were there to see the next morning. Really special here were also the night drives (these you cannot do yourself, but during the day you can self-drive parts of the park). Hunting lions! Hyena! Genet! Etcetera! And whole lots of elephants! And it wasn’t even dry season yet….

From Chipata we crossed into Malawi. And although for most that is one of the highlights, expecially for backpackers apparently, for us this was our first confrontation with African-style police. Malawi has police stops every 30 km on average. We did not enjoy that. And Malawi is extremely poor, which hit us in the face extremely hard. Even at Lake Malawi’s Cape Maclear the almost traditional village on the lake side mingled with tourist accomodation was dependent on only a few water pumps and the meager catch of small fishes from the lake. We were heading for Mozambique.

Where Malawi has recently upgraded its roads to an amazingly high standard, Mozambiquan roads are a different story. Tough driving on roads that were in places more pothole than road took us through Tete, Chimoio to the coast at Vilanculos. This town is special for the beautiful islands just an hour boating from the beach and interesting for the town itself. But budget accomodtion choices are limited and since a tough 2007 cyclone not everything is back to being beautiful. We did some nice diving here, but our real scuba diving detsination was Tofo a few hundred kms south.

Tofo is great! Whaleshark, sharks, good reefs, and Mantas!!!! The beach is nice of itself and in the end we stayed over a week here (also because we needed to arrange a tyre for L.K.). From Tofo to Maputo (our first real city in weeks) brought us back into South AFrica with its well stocked supermarkets and proper roads. Nelspruit was a good, quiet place to enjoy that. After which we headed over to the Joburg region where we’re staying with family on the Westrabd from where we are day tripping around. Most impressive are the quite recent Apartheids-era musea. Especially the Apartheidsmuseum is incredibly impressive, followed closely by the Hector Pieterson museum in Soweto (an organised tour through Soweto is recommended).

Our further travels will carry us into Gaborone to meet up with the Wicked team, and then probably back into Kruger, the coast and in the end back to Capetown.

After 112 days of living in, with and around ‘our’ Lion King Van we are now back home. The last month we have had an amazing road trip through South Africa (and a bit of Botswanan meeting the Wicked team) including Kruger, Blyde river canyon (although most of it was in the mist ), Zululand, Xhosaland, and all down the coast making full circle back to Capetown (even taking in a bit of Route 62). Total trip length: 17954km (or something like that).

It has been a great time, thanks you guys at Wicked Africa!!!

(Just uploaded the last pics, videos will follow soon)

@Janis,
Difficult to give you any must-do’s. I would say 45 days is plenty, but try not to cover too much ground, distances are huge. The lions in the pics we saw in Kgalagadi TFP, but we got as close in Kruger NP near Satara Camp. Kgalagadi is really worth it, but you would need to tailor your trip to it, because it is quite a drive. It is much wilder than Kruger and you don’t get run over by pensioners with caravans . As far as Namibia goes, enjoy the driving itself. Just get yourself on its lonely roads in the desert, get yourself out to Etosha, visit the red dunes at Sossusvlei and get a cup of coffee at Solitaire while fillling up your tank on the way. If you want the ocean winds blowing through your hair at the end of the world go to the campsite at Luderitz. Spitzkoppe is a recommended, beautiful place on the way between Windhoek and Swakopmund, though only if it hasn’t rained and taking the recommended long way round from the main road (see LP), otherwise you might get stuck in the river’s sandbed on the way (ask at Chameleon’s in Windhoek). But do not plan too much, socialize with South Africans at camping grounds and you’ll never know where you end up. Have fun!

Still cherishing the memories almost a year after the start of our 4 month trip I am regularly uploading some our vids to YouTube…I saw Wicked Africa has got 4×4s now…that would have been great for us, but it is still amazing what we could do with the 2WD…check http://www.youtube.com/user/joenevs