Makala National Park

We were up at 6:30am and I didn’t feel as though we could start packing up straight away as there was a Motorhome right next to us. I waited and waited and in the end I went for a short run at 8am to kill the time. When I got back Ellie was talking to the tour leaders who were British and Irish but lived in Florida. They were leading the group of 20 motorhomes from Cape Town to Zimbabwe and then to Victoria Falls and back again. They described it as adult day care.
Once they had left we could start packing and by 9:30am we were ready to leave. We turned right out of the camp and headed down the washboard gravel track for 8 miles before picking up the N1 to Kimberly.
It was 160 miles to Makala National park and the last 20 were on dirt roads and washboard gravel passing game farms and private reserves and also passing Makala’s own rare breeds and endangered species breeding farm. Here we passed hundreds of Sable, disease resistant Wilderbeast, waterbok, steenboks, and some pure while antelope we didn’t recognise.
Makala really is in the middle of nowhere, it took us over an hour in the dirt roads to reach the main gate. From the main gate it was 6km and 30 minutes to reception on dirt roads and from reception it was another 7.5km and 45 minutes to camp. This is the most remote we have ever been on our own.
There are only 6 camping places in the whole park, we are staying at pitch 3 and there are 4 other campers here. 2 with trailers like ours, 1 with a ground tent and a caravan. We are all overlooking a huge waterhole that is pretty much empty except for the small pool of fresh water being pumped in. We saw hundreds of zebra on the way in and hartibeest. Kudu and Vervet monkeys were at the waterhole when we arrived and we set up camp plugged in our solar panel, made a cup of tea and sat down and watched them. Today would be a good test of our battery power. The sun was shining and we were making power.
At 5pm I was the first to give in and light the Braai. I did it the old fashioned way with kindling and fire lighters where as the other 2 trailers had there gas rods that they put under the wood and light until the wood is hot enough and then remove it. Tonight we had Wors and garlic bread with boiled potatoes in Braai relish. Once dinner and the washing up was done we sat outside as it got dark with our red lights on watching warthogs come to the waterhole. Unfortunately our power situation isn’t great, our trailer won’t run the fridge and I can’t work out why.
At 9pm we headed inside and I was very frustrated with the power situation.En savoir plus