There were
two routes we could have taken to get to Nata. The first one involved retracing
our steps and going back to Kasane. The second was to drive further south
through Zimbabwe and to go through a national park. Keen to see more of the
country we chose the latter, which involved long gravel roads.
The drive
was decent, and we only stopped once on the Zimbabwe side because two cars full
of tourists had come to a halt in the middle of the road and gotten out of their car to see and hold a chameleon. We had no idea how they had managed to see the small creature
from the car, but I felt quite bad for it as it got passed around from person
to person. We later realised that it was not quite that difficult to spot, as
we later drove past a small turtle.
The
Zimbabwe border crossing was easy enough, and there were only two other cars
that were trying to get into Zim. We got out and made our way back into Botswana.
Zimbabwe had been a nice stay, albeit short, but memorable because of the
friendly people (and bungee jumping).
Back in Botswana I had to disinfect my shoes again to get into the country.
When we entered Botswana from Namibia the officials had said it was okay to
only disinfect the one pair I had worn in Namibia, but the lady here made me
get out every pair of shoes I had (four) and put them in the wash bucket. I was
struggling to find one of my shoes in the backseat (the backseat of the car had
become my wardrobe...), so I hoped she wouldn’t noticed that I was only disinfecting 7
shoes rather than 8 …
my hand and my pb sandwich
Ze-bruh
camp set-up in Nata ... it was a park where ever you feel place
this guy had two cat in this tent!!!!
The drive
from the Botswana border to Nata went through a park again, and we were able to
spot a few elephants as well as a group of zebras, much more interesting than spotting kangaroos on the side of the road. We reached
Nata by early afternoon, a small town where we began to investigate how to get
to Maun. To take the A3 highway it would be 300km, however we had heard that the road was
very flooded at the moment and it would be difficult to get through. The only other option was to go to
Francistown before going to Maun, which would be well over 700km.
There were
apparently some baobab trees around so we decided to go look for them to go take some pics. They were also in the direction to Maun. However, after following the directions we had
been given, the turn off essentially meant driving completely off-road through
some water, which my dad wasn't keen on, so we opted no to. Instead, we continued further up the A3 to
determine how bad the water was for the following days trip. As we got to the
beginning of the flooded water a man was sat there in his car. After speaking to him he assured my dad
that he had just come through the water and it was fine. So the decision was
made, we would take the shorter route to Maun the next day!
Getting
through the water the next day was actually easy, well easy for me because I was in the
passenger seat. It only lasted a bit over a 1km and wasn’t too deep. A few
weeks ago the only way to get across was to use a truck (I assume you would drive into the truck of something?), which we spotted,
empty, on the side of the road.
From there
it was mostly easy travelling to Maun, except for that one bit where my dad got
a speeding fine for going 90km in a 80km national park. Whoops. The fine was
about $35aud, but it was a poorly signed area. We reached Maun at around
lunchtime from there.
The trip
was over and we had made it in a full circle around Botswana, via Namibia and
Zimbabwe! Ten days seemed a long time ago now. We spent the afternoon cleaning
the car (ie. me packing up all my things and putting them away, before we took the car to
a cleaners where we spent $10aud to get 5 men to clean every surface and inch of the vehicle), and
organising a boat trip for the next day onto the Okavango Delta.
very efficient car washing service, 10/10 would recommend
cold boats rides ... bleh
That night
it rained and rained, the only rain we had seen in Botswana. The tents were
thankfully waterproof and quite comfortable to sleep in, but it was still very
wet and muddy the following day. This meant being very careful to not get muddy
feet in the freshly cleaned car (I wasn't very good at this whoops). We set off on our boat trip at 8am that
morning. This was the first time we had technically been on the delta, because before this we
had been on the panhandle. It took 45mins for the boat out to the national park from Maun,
and then we spent an hour on the boat looking for animals. Because of the poor weather we didn't see any. It was a bit disappointing, and the weather wasn’t
good, it was cloudy and was freeeeezing. Not my idea of fun, but ok I guess.
bye bye britz
After returning
we drove back to Britz Car Rental where we returned our home for the past ten
days, and were driven to the airport. The flight was expected to depart at
around 1:30 with Air Botswana. However soon after we had cleared security and
immigration, the sign on the airport read that the plane had been delayed for a
few hours later. This wouldn’t concern me to much, but my dad had a plane to
catch at 7:30pm that night from Johannesburg to Abu Dhabi and then finally to Melbourne.
The rest of
the afternoon was spent at the small airport of Maun. We ensured that my dads luggage would get sent through to Australia, rather than picking it up in
Johannesburg and checking in again, and that he wouldn’t need to go through
immigration in South Africa. Then we waited. And waited. I went through various stages where I was hopeful that my dad would make his flight home, however as the plane was continued to be delayed, it was becoming less and less likely.
It was
3:50pm when we could finally board the plane that had just arrived, “safe flight to Johannesburg!” said the gate attendants. However, a few mere minutes after boarding the plane we
found out that it wasn’t going to Johannesburg, it was heading to Gaborone, the
capital of Botswana. Confusion and anger erupted and people weren’t getting on
the plane. The flight attendants didn’t know what was happening. The pilot
didn’t know what was happening. I was certain the connecting flight would be
missed. We were supposed to be getting on a flight to Johannesburg (which was already over two hours late), but instead this was taking us to Gaborone?!
Everyone
eventually got on board on the plane when they figured out that this was the last flight leaving Maun for the day. As it would turn out, this plane would fly to Gaborone and then we would hop off and then straight onto another flight headed to Johannesburg. We wouldn't even enter the airport, just walk across the tarmac to the next flight. The flight attendants were
generous in handing out alcohol and snacks, but there were several stressed
faces.
After a
brief stopover in Gaborone we made it to Johannesburg, at 6:40pm. My fathers
flight was leaving at 7:35pm. We rushed off the plane, ran to transfers and had
a rushed goodbye when I couldn’t go any further without an onwards plane
ticket. He made the flight though, and apparently had to get escorted to the
plane to make it on time, before proceeding back to Australia (his luggage didn't quite make it though...).
I was sad
to say goodbye, it had been a pretty great 10 days with my dad after not seeing
him since January, but it was back to university life for me. After all I only
have a few short months left myself until I’m arriving back at Tullamarine
airport (crying face emoji).
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