The Road From Hell

It rained and rained, the wind got up and all night the tents were flapping around letting water in and I just gave up trying to sleep at 3am and sat in the tent on my wet pillow with the soggy tent side smacking me in the head every time the wind gusted. It was a horrendous night, but the saving grace was, that everyone else had, had a bad night to.
At 5:30am with daylight now forming through the dreary grey skies I was up in shorts and a T-shirt in the rain trying to make coffee and looking for a dry place to drink it but there wasn’t one. Fortunately, by 7am with everyone soaked through except for Becky who seems to live with her raincoat the rain slowed to a drizzle. All Ellie and I wanted to do was pack up and go and get to our next campsite early so we could set up and dry things out but Pieter had other ideas, because due to the all the rain we had, had getting off the Island was going to be a problem because now the sand and salt we drove over to get here was super soft. So soft we couldn’t even walk on it without sinking, and Pieter wanted to wait a few hours for it to dry out but obviously it was never going to dry out with it still drizzling but then he decided to fix the puncture con the trailer we had, had for the last four days.
By 9am I said let’s make a plan to get off of this hell hole, so we looked at the map. With Pieter and I discussing it the plan was to head south back across the 100 meters of pan we had crossed to get here and then head west to Francistown to get our covid tests done to cross the border tomorrow back into South Africa.
An hour later we set off. Pieter set the Sat Nav for Francistown and then we proceeded to drive on various tracks trying to get off the island, I kept saying what was wrong with going back across the small strip of pan we had crossed and Pieter said this was the way but I knew it wasn’t because when we arrived the island was con our right, and now we were leaving and the island was on our right again.
There was no convincing him to turn back and before we knew it the four wheel drive was engaged as we left solid ground and hit the salt flats. This was the point of no return. We would have to keep going flat out for as long as the salt flat lasted and that was way over the horizon.
Almost straight away the car started to lose traction sliding sideways with the trailer on the back and Becky was now screaming in the back, Pieter changed gear, engaged the differential and ploughed on deeper and deeper into the wet soggy mud with the car snaking all the way and there were so many beeps and lights flashing the car thought it was Christmas. Becky threw herself over the back car seat to sit between me and ellie who held her hand to comfort her but she was having no comfort and was completely hysterical, asking us to stop or slow down because we were going to crash. Into what? I don’t know because there’s here. Deep water approached and Pieter ploughed on, you could feel the car getting bogged down as the water covered the windscreen and the roof. The trailer was completely submerged. The snorkel earn’t it’s money today and still we pushed on. Kilometre after kilometre with no end in sight and the car slid and snaked all the way and Becky cried all the way.
In the end it was 14km of wet and sloppy clay and salt with us disappearing under water multiple times and although the rest of us thought it was fun, although slightly worried we might get stuck. Becky was shaking because she was terrified and it took her hours to calm down
We finally got to more solid ground at 12pm and then Caren the car started making noises and stopped turning left. I jumped out and walked backwards in front of the car to identify problem and as I did there was a loud bang as the left front CV joint completely sheared away from the gearbox.
Pieter looked at it and said we’d be fine but now we were down to 2 wheel drive and we were definitely going to have to drive a lot slower if we wanted the front wheel to stay on.
Another hour later we hit the tarmac roads and Caren the car was limping along at a maximum of 80kph and we had 250 kilometres to go, once again we were in for a long day in the car. I gave Pieter the directions to Francistown but that went completely out the window once again as he said he would rather head to Serowe to get the covid tests as it would be easier. We stopped on route in a little town but Pieter suggested we should push on to the next town as we can eat there. Little did we know, the next town was Serowe which was 150km away and at 5pm we arrived. I was now starving as I hadn’t eaten all day but luckily so was Pieter and after waiting for 45 minutes for a covid test we finally sat down in the hungry lion for a chicken burger and chips and then Pieter said he was going to cook dinner at the campsite.
At 6:30pm we arrived at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, it was dusk we were all tired and the day stopped being fun hours ago. We were all dreading our rucksacks being drenched but the trailer was remarkably dry and so were the tents which was something were all grateful for. We had no electric but when I searched for the toilets I found hot showers and two plug outlets and took over the power banks to charge things up. This camp wasn’t to bad after all.
At 8pm we were sitting around the fire having drinks and the reason for our trip became apparent when Hilda and Pieter were friendly arguing about getting to the island and driving completely across the pans without getting stuck and Pieter thought it was Wednesday not Thursday.
We had lost 2 days driving to the middle of nowhere to see nothing. Broken the car, missed the bird sanctuary and tomorrow we would still have to drive for 7 hours at a pace we’re not sure the car will cope with to get across the border and back to Pilanesberg national park for hour final nights sleep and it was all completely unnecessary. The last 2 days had left a bad vibe in the car but myself, Ellie and Becky were trying hard not to let it spoil the last couple of days.Læs mere