But not us….
Waking up early I head out and inspect wagon, adjust the exhaust and tighten a bolt. Basic stuff that can end a trip is easily fixed with a basic tool kit and some know how. Ignoring these small problems can snowball out of control. leaving you stranded possibly in an area where it is a long walk out.
Top tip: find out what size spanners and sockets your specific vehicle requires, no point in having imperial sockets if your car is metric and on long journeys weight matters.
In town at Spar we load up for 5 nights in the bush, and do the repack in the parking lot. Always making sure there is enough room on the cold side of the fridge for meat and drink. We swing in to the local place for a light lunch and drink and make our way out of town after getting a drink for the pajero.
We take the back road to Motopi as to avoid driving the same roads twice, keep it interesting, and I think it will avoid the vet checks, wrong. Oh well the meat is hidden and we cruise on through after washing our feet. The pavement opens up and we click along making great time, A detour off the main road takes us through a river crossing and to the gates of the Makgadikgadi National Park, MNP from here on out cause spelling that is a nightmare.
The trails smoothed out the further from the main track we got
I quickly air down and we continue on our way enjoying the scenery. As I approach a rather large hill, I stop, think, get out and air down yet again, this will be a tough climb. And so it was as just on the other side was a couple bogged down to the chassis. We do a quick recovery and I teach him about airing down, and a quick sand driving lesson and they are on their way, but not before paying us with a bottle of wine. They had been digging for 4 hours and were getting worried they would be stuck on the track all night waiting for help.
Top tip: If you start to get bogged in sand just stop. Any spinning will only make your situation hopelessly worse.
Carrying on along the now rough track from over inflated tyres spinning the whole time we turn off and head south towards our camp, the sun lowers and causes the grass to become a golden hue against the white sand. Magical. At camp we enjoy the sunset over the plains of grass, and begin dinner, Chicken stir fry, I rate 10/10, Asareh wouldn’t even serve it to guests… the drinks begin to flow so why not finish the night with some deep conversation and even some dancing.
-
- Sunset from camp
-
- The dinner in question
