Outjo – East Gate Rest Camp – Phuduhudu Camp – Dinokeng Resort - Home (Day 45 - 48)

29 June – 2 July 2019

Distance: 1567km Distance to date: 11413km

Road Conditions: (out of 10)

General: 9

First of all, apologies for being absent these last couple of weeks! It’s been such a whirlwind of rushing to get home and then unpacking and cleaning and sorting out things in my own home – proper day-to-day rush.

We spent our last night in Namibia at East Gate Rest Camp that is on the Namibia/Botswana Border. There are a few camping spots that have little picnic tables – we had a good laugh because these are actually quite tiny and it was a big mission for Dad to actually get seated on the benches. It has been getting progressively colder these last few nights the further South we’ve gone, so we had our dinner (rice and beef stew) and got tucked up in our tents.

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Our last few days of travelling were mostly uneventful, besides spending some time with one of my old High School teachers in Windhoek and with my aunt, uncle and three of my second cousins in Dinokeng Resort.

The road in Botswana had an unbelievable amount of warthogs, ostriches and donkeys roaming around. At any moment there were as many as five warthogs in one spot and then a little further you’d see some more.

It was incredibly cold the evening we spent at Phuduhudu Camp near Lobatse, we couldn’t quite manage to keep warm. I pretty much felt like a stuffed sausage within my layers of clothing, all stuffed into my sleeping bag – which also had another blanket in as well.

We had to make our own fire for hot water, but between mom’s wood gathering skills and my own fire tending skills, we had hot water in no time. We chose this camp both because it is near to the Botswana/South Africa border, and also because Mom and Dad had heard of the camp a few years before where they met the son of the owner at one of Dad’s old army friends.

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We had no issues at either the Namibia/Botswana or Botswana/South Africa border posts and were relieved to be back in South Africa where we all had our own signal (or maybe it was just me…).

We decided to spend the night at Dinokeng Resort because it wasn’t far off our route and that would have given us sufficient time to see my Gran the next day.

This whole trip has been such an amazing experience for me and I am incredibly grateful to my Dad and Mom for having me along. Although I’ve tried to capture as much as possible in the blog, it’s just impossible to fully portray the laughs, the bonding, the love and the beauty of the sights around us.

Keep tuned for the next trip – hopefully up the East Side of Africa!