Nyungwe Irrigation Scheme

We didn’t sleep particularly well. It was cold, and there were noisy hippos in the river a few feet from our tent! We had a long driving day ahead of us today to reach Chobe National Park about 9 hours away, so we didn’t linger long over breakfast. We packed up quickly and were on the road by 7.45am.

The road out of Namibia to a different border crossing with Botswana was long and straight, with little other than dry bush to look at. We had a couple of bushy bushy stops and then stopped for a 90-minute lunch break in the last big town in Namibia, Katima Mulilo. It looked like a lively place with a market and plenty of shops. We just had time to have lunch (chicken wraps with chips) in a café with good internet and go to the supermarket to pick up snacks to top up our snack bag and a couple of bottles of red for Mark. While we were checking the internet, we read that newsreader and BBC stalwart Huw Edwards is in bother over paying for explicit photos! Why would someone with such a high profile risk everything for a few kicks??

After lunch, we drove 40 minutes to the border with Botswana to cross over for the second time in as many days. We have thoroughly enjoyed our two weeks in Namibia. It is a vast country. There is still a lot to see here. Perhaps we’ll come back one day!

At the border, we exited Namibia with no difficulties. As we entered Botswana, they didn’t need us to fill in any forms, so we assumed we would be granted entry very quickly. This turned out not to be the case. We each had to get every pair of shoes we had on the truck and put them through a trough of disinfectant! Nobody seemed sure why, but, of course, we complied without complaint.

At the border, there were some enormous baobab trees which I managed to get some sneaky photos 📸 of through the truck 🚚 window 🪟 😀.

Once we were across the border at Ngoma, we were driving through a forested area. Before long, we were seeing lots of wildlife including:

• A huge herd of elephants
• Lots of zebra
• Several warthogs
• Bandit mongoose
• Kudu

We were driving too fast to take photos, but it bodes well for tomorrow morning’s game drive!

We arrived at our campsite, Thebe River Lodge, at about 5pm. We were pitched right next to the river behind an electric fence. It was a long, complicated walk from our area to the nearest facilities. We are here for two nights, so we decided to ask about an upgrade. We haven’t done it yet on this leg of the trip and, after several freezing cold nights, it seemed like a good idea. We got a large private double room with ensuite for £54 a night. It was so worth it! The first thing I did when we had brought our stuff from the truck was to have a lovely hot shower, the best one I’d had since leaving Cape Town!

The wifi worked in our room, so we spent the time before dinner catching up on some posts. For dinner, Henry had cooked pork stir fry with rice. It was very good. After dinner, we went back to our room and listened to Jeremy Vine discussing the Huw Edwards case. He seems to be getting a lot of public sympathy, with most callers criticising The Sun for reporting the story when no criminal laws were broken.Read more