Day 4 and 5 Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

The next 2 days instead of going to Windhoek and heading towards Angola we are spending on game drive in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Here are some pictures form the next 2 days:

Wildebeest

Lion Family in a shade

Fancy Gemsbok with curly horn ;)

Red Hartebeest 

Cheetah with her hunt and fox in the background

Springboks head butting

While driving we saw few drops of liquid on the windscreen, and we understood that the jerrycans on top were leaking, so we stopped to pour diesel in the car. Outside was so hot! 48.5 degrees!

What a dive!

The Lion King

In the second part of the day the weather became more dramatic! Suddenly the weather changed and there was a small sandstorm

followed by the thunderstorm, we arrived at the camping in pouring rain! So we decided not to set up a tent, but to go for a ride for another hour.

Travel Map
Photos Day 4
Photos Day 5

Day 3 Kleinbegin camp - Mata Mata

This morning we deflated tires to 2 bars because we are going to travel lots of gravel roads from now on. It's already very hot in the morning. We leave our camp and travel on straight yellow green Namibian roads

We met some kudu, goat and sheep here and there. We saw big black snake straight on the road standing up, it looked like a cobra, we thought we drove over it! So we went back to see if it was still alive, yes it was good, and moved slowly. It was quite big more than one meter in length. We didn't bother ourselves to measure it :) This is how it looks, anyone has any idea what kind of snake it is?

The road became curly and mountainous, lots of squirrels and kokerboom trees, and big nests in the trees. In few hours the ground became more sandy, red sand. It's a real sauna outside.

We got to a tiny village of Koes:

Went for a cold drink, outside was 43 Celsius. The town has petrol station, a shop, hotel and a coffee shop. Only few people live in the town.

There was also nice camping, but it was too early to stop and we headed towards Kalahari camp site. At one of the campings near Kalahari game lodge, after a conversation with a campsite owner we decided to go Kgalagadi Transfrontier game park. Usually it is very hard to get in there because you need to book lodging for at least 2 days in the park, which you have to do long time in advance, it is fully booked all year around. So we decided to try our luck. The park lies in South Africa next to Namibian and Botswana borders. Arriving at Mata Mata border post we found out that we can get into park and do not have to enter South Africa i.e. just exit Namibia. The officer asked if we had a booking reservation, we said that we didn't, and he said just go over the border and ask at the park office which was few meters away. We were very lucky to get 2 last places in a camp spots for the following 2 nights!!! We left the border post and drove few kilometres to camp.

Travel Map
Photos

Day 2 Niewoudtville - Kleinbegin Camp

We leaving Niewoudtville towards Loeriesfontein through mountainous area on a good tar road. 27 degrees Celsius. Before Loeriesfontein we turned off onto Nice gravel road, Sinty made some timelapse using GoPro:

Sometimes the road became quite sandy and lots of salt pans everywhere:

Then, suddenly! In the middle of the road we see lots of water! We had to check how deep it was and if the bottom wasn't too soft. Sinty crossed the water, it took her about 7 minutes to get on the other side. Water was thigh deep, and Stephane drove it through. Here we made the video: 

We passed Pofadder which is the last town in South Africa before entering Namibia, there was a petrol station and diesel was R12.92 and we decided we will fill up in Namibia, where it could be cheaper.

The nature becomes more and more beautiful, lots of kokerboom trees:

We crossed Namibia at Onseepkans and it looked we were the only ones in a long time to arrive here. The border guys even had to call a woman out of her house so she could come and process our car papers! We paid 220 rand for car third party insurance. It is valid for 90 days or until you exit Namibia.

The weather is getting hotter and hotter with every kilometer as we are in the dessert. Outside temperature now is 40 Celsius. When it rains in Namibia, it rains showers, and you can see it raining:

We traveled great gravel roads till Karasburg where we filled the diesel, here was cheaper than in South Africa.

27 km outside of Karasburg we found great camp place. We were the only ones again. We had hot water, wood for braai:

After that millions of stars lit on in the Namibian sky......

We drove 461 km. Travel map
Photos

Day 1 Big Bay - Niewoudtville

So! This is our first day of traveling. We woke up early to pack the last bits, and this is how our truck looks like:

In back drawers we keep clothes and toiletries:

and kitchen utensils

This is our fridge, for cold drinks and food

The back of the truck was almost fully packed, we took out one seat, so there's more space for some more food, wood for braai, more drinks and other things. 

In Sinty's door she keeps maps and books and in the middle console we put our phones, usb chargers and more maps.

On the top of the car we installed GoPro camera. 

After last packing we left around 12:30. And the car felt very heavy.....

This is how we look in the car:

First 160 km we did on tar road on N7:

Picketberg town was deserted as it was Sunday. No shops were open, even petrol station was closed. Only some random hitch hikers and yellow plains.

When we get hungry here comes lunch on the go:

Then the road (finally:)) turned to gravel and our Gravel-Travel-Tour started!!!

In Trawal we had the best biltong/droewors! mmmmm....   yummy!!! it's really tasty!

We went through Vanrhynsdorp pass - very spectacular place! We got there before the sunset so the colours and scenery was at its best!

After the pass we turned off the main road. The time was to start thinking about finding a campsite. So the first campsite we drove to leaded through the forest and sandy and rough road for about 10 km. At the end we found out that the camp isn't there, there were just some buildings under construction, probably supposed to be some kind of bungalows in the future. We left to find another - better campsite.

In Niewoudtville we found very nice camping, full of sheep and cows, there were only us staying. We had hot water, place for braai, toilet, showers and electricity. Pork with jacket potatoes and onion and tomato-cucumber salad on the menu tonight.

Today we drove 355 km and spent 6 h on the road. Travel Map
Photos

Getting ready our truck

Arriving to Cape Town the first thing that we did was straight to the garage and get out truck :)

This is how the truck looked like after waiting for us for 7 months

The truck has been fully serviced, and ready to hit the road.
The only thing we had to fix was the zipper of a rooftop tent, it was broken form the previous trips, so we went to Hannibal, they took good care of our tent.

They took off the rooftop tent

Fixed the zipper of tents cover, waterproofed the tent

Then they put the tent back onto the roof

Thanks a lot guys for great job!
Otherwise it is in perfect condition and ready to go!!!!!

Getting ready our Angolan Visas.

The first most important (and complicated) process is to make ready visas for Angola. You can make it only in the country of your residence. We live in Ireland so we had to apply at the Embassy in London. It takes minimum 4 weeks to make it ready. You can submit all the documents on Mondays and Tuesdays and collections are on Thursdays and Fridays. We did our visas through an agency in Dublin. Uh that was a mission.......

First of all here is the list of the necessary documents we needed:

1. Application form (to be printed on computer, can not be filled in by hand)

2. Original passport

3. Color photocopies of main pages of passport and all the visas 

4. Two (2) recent color passport photographs

5. Itinerary with dates and places you intend to travel

6. Bank Statements (200 USD per day, so if you are applying for 30 day visa you need 6000 USD on your account)

7. Proof of accommodation in Angola (paid hotel reservation).

8. Invitation letter from your host in Angola - we got ours from very helpful people at Flamingo Lodge (http://www.aasafaris.com/)

8. Professional Occupation letter

9. Proof of address

10. Copy of yellow fever Certificate

11. Letter requiring a visa

We planned the whole thing quite in advance because we knew this won't be easy. So we sent all the papers to the agency in Dublin in advance because we needed passports back in max 6 weeks. They promised to return our passport in time. After 4 weeks we started to worry because we needed passports back because of our flights. And agency kept promising to return passports tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..... After 5 weeks of constant calling, e-mailing and keeping them under pressure we got really stressful and furious! Now we didn't care if we had our visas or not, we just wanted our passports back! We lost 195 x 2 = 390€ and no passports! It is said on Angolan Embassy's website that you can withdraw your passports in 24 hours. So we were hoping that 24 hours really means 24 hours!

And just 2 days before a flight we got a call from the agency that they got our passports out of Embassy in London and that they had a better news! There were visas in them! Thank God! We were jumping from happiness!

Now we flying to Cape Town and getting ready for the trip!