We left our campsite at just gone 9 with our full convoy of six vehicles. There was a hold up further down the road when we had to wait for a large number of cars and people who had arrived to attend a funeral. Must have been somebody very important as the police were there to sort out the traffic.
Next stop was Kathu for fuel, then a long drive past iron mines and a manganese mine. Lots of mine tailings which dominate the generally flat scenery.
We take the turning to Hoteszel, then turn again towards the border crossing at McCarthy's Rest. Takes a while to get across the two borders, but no real problems. First stop in Botswana is at Tsabong for a fuel top up. Botswana immediately feels more open than S Africa with less fences round the houses and more people walking in the streets. It's a very prosperous country with many diamond mines and a stable government.
Our drive through Botswana starts on a very normal road, but with butterflies on every verge. This Is something we find everywhere, butterflies, mainly whitish/green, but with some brown and some yellow ones. We end up driving through clouds of these wherever we drive in this area of Botswana.
Another driving hazard is tortoises; we see several crossing the road, including a large leopard tortoise that we stop and look at.
After a few hours the surface changes to loose sand. We travel on reduced tyre pressures, and meet no one coming towards us during the rest of our trip. One section is hazardous becauses there are many ants living in the sand leaving us having to avoid large holes made by anteaters: not a problem we've ever encountered in the UK.
We enter the Kgalahadi Transfrontier Park, and the trail changes to harder sand with bushes close on both sides. Another hour later we finally get to our camp site for the night. Tents up then Chris lights a fire to warm up our lasagne for dinner while the sun sets. After dinner we spend some time admiring the full moon before going to bed.
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