Day 79 - Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

If you are all squealing about last nights temperature, try sleeping in the caravan at nought, nil, zero degrees centigrade🥶🥶🥶 Armed with a tracksuit, socks, a Duvet, two extra blankets and even our 'Goose Down Puf-Jacket's' we survived the night! Haven't slept out so cold in living memory!!!🥶🥶🥶

Eventually we plucked up enough courage to brave the elements and packed up, showered again to warm up and left.

Back onto the N14 we needed supplies (including Droewors that the monkeys stole) from Upington via Kakamus and Keimus. (Hope I spelled those correctly, 'cos they dont sound 'kosher' at all)!!!

Back to the inhabitants! Hundreds of people walking the streets and the gravel pavements, have indented paths from all directions leading to, not two but three bottle stores in the main street only!? It would appear that school was out or even school-holiday's... kids everywhere!?

Roughly twenty kilo's outside of Upington and to the North West, probably 10km from the road is a tower. All of 205m high, with the brightest major flood-lights burning in the middle of the day! At the base were thousands of solar panels. After 'GOOGLING', Karen edtablished it to be a Solar Power Tower (Khi Solar One) KSO generates 650 GWh's of power, annually feeding power into the grid! Now that doesn't mean anything to me, but what I do know is, just those lights alone are monsters!!!

Somewhere in the middle of the Namib a few days ago, I noticed a message on the 'Fortuners' dashboard that my "Key Battery" was soon to be unserviceable!!! Not where... in the middle of the Desert😳 Luckily we made it to Toyota in Upington, who willingly replaced it FOC!!!

After refueling again (and I am not even counting those stops and R-Value's anymore we headed for the Kalahari or the 'Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park'....if you will!!!

A stunning tar road (R360) north out of Upington=> Askham=> Twee Rivieren, inside the Park.

We took up the suggestion of a Springbok Pie at a roadside place just before the entrance to the park. Just before, as you know in this neck if the woods, could mean anything from 5 to 500 miles. Our first stop was incorrectly mapped and we ended up eating a microwaved wrong pie, in the wrong town, about 50 miles wrong! Now, I don’t normally battle with 'Heart- burn' as a rule, but if they had just sold one 'Rennies' tablet with my first Springbok Pie, I wouldn't feel so debilitated 5 hours later... now would I?

After re-confirming the exact name, and a proper ‘6 digit grid reference!, we found the correct pie! By now I was already sweating and only hoping that 'heart-burn' would be the least of all the evils about to spoil my day! I wolfed the second pie and we kept the leftovers, for lunch in the Kgalagadi tomorrow. Depending on how much discomfort I experience, may mean leaving it on the side of the road to give some mangy hyena a dose too! Pity we didn't have it available to feed to the Baboons in Ai/Ai's a few nights ago!!!

As we moved Northwest of Upington, gradually the terrain changed, and more and more we could see dunes of different colours, profusely covered by knee to hip high, silver/white grass. The recent rains all the way here have transformed, previously 'desert-like' monotony into beautiful lush, soft grass undulations all over.

We arrived shortly before 17:00 and successfully checked in. Surprised at the nearly full campsite, we were satisfied that we had booked and paid the previous day in Augrabies Falls for the next two nights! Clearly this is the 4X4 and 'Camping Playground' for the Cape, as Kruger Park is to Gautengers!

We anticipated another cold night, which in fact it was... 0° again 🥶🥶🥶

Love, Peace and Light!

M&K
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