Khama Rhino Sanctuary

We left Jo'burg at almost our intended time, which was a minor miracle since Philip, Judith, and Mel had all been finishing off some last-minute work late into the prior evening. Our plan for the day was to follow the N1 motorway north to a lunch stop in Mokopane, then continue to our overnight destination just short of the Botswana border.

Unlike my typical African travel plans, our first drive day actually went like clockwork. In fact, after having lunch at the terrific Butter Bistro, and sleeping at the wonderful Tshukudiba Game Lodge, I was wondering if I'd peaked too soon on this trip. It would be hard to top these. But, we were here to see the Big Five, not burgers or beds, so we continued over the border in the morning.

Thankfully, the border crossing at Martin's Drift was much smoother than last time! Rather than sitting in a queue for 3 hours, we were over the border, into the nearest town, and looking for an early lunch stop by midday. Now my planning returned to form, and we drove aimlessly through the dusty backstreets of Palapye looking for a phantom cafe that didn't seem to exist. Thankfully, Mel had spotted a backup lunch option on our way into town, so we doubled back and ate some more burgers.

Our stop for the night was at Khama Rhino Sanctuary. This is a favourite rest stop for overland trucks that traverse up and down Africa, but we got lucky, and the camp ground was nearly empty. Unfortunately, the park itself also felt a bit empty, because we never did manage to see any rhinos. In the end, that's probably a factor of a few things:
a)they're endangered
b)we only went for a quick night drive
c)it's not a petting zoo

But, the night drive did take us past five giraffes and a heap of "jumparoos", the Aussie nickname that we gave to the creatures that looked like the love-children of kangaroos+foxes+rats (we later found out that they were a kind of hare). And, the camping area was very abundant with bird life, so we spent our time ticking off names in our bird guide.

That night we set up our trail camera to see what came through our camp during the night. This was a new addition for this trip, and we were actually in two minds about it. Lethal creatures stalk the African night, and ignorance might be bliss. But we set it up regardless, and our hearts skipped a beat when we reviewed the footage on the small screen in the morning. Unfortunately, our "leopard" turned out to be a stray dog. At least we know the camera worked...En savoir plus