Not Another Damn Lion !!!

Day 15

Mpayathutlwa Camp to Mabuasehube Camp, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (Botswana)

Distance : 30.3 km

A day of travel faces us once again – but only 15 km from our current camp site to our final site for this trip. The team now operates like a well oiled machine. Within an hour and a half we have the camp site looking like new – tents, kitchen, supplies, cooler boxes, fridges, personal gear, sleeping bags, tongs, braai grids, netting, tarpaulins, washing line, showers, chairs, water, fuel – all done and packed.

Packed and ready to go

Fires out and tap is off

A couple of lazy wildebeest were the only inhabitants of the pan that morning

Trailers are hitched up, the coals extinguished and the rubbish placed in the bin and before you know it the team is on the move again.

We swung past the waterhole on the way to Mabuasehube but, as there was no action there, we soon moved off.

Between Pans…

Half an hour later and we arrived at Manbuasehube Pan. The wind had picked up by the time we were ready to set up camp which added to the challenge.  Those of us sleeping in ground tents decided to spread ourselves out underneath a couple of decent trees on the site with Kevin and his rooftop tent parking about 5m away from us. John decided he would be another 5m the other side of Kevin (he drops the back seat in his vehicle and then lays down a mattress for his bed). All of us are now on the south side of the A-frame. Sharpie continues with his apartheid tendencies (he says we all snore too much) and parks his rooftop tent on the north side of the A-frame.

All this will be very relevant by the dawn of Day 17…

The next couple of hours was spent adding ground sheets to the walls of the A-frame to cut the wind, setting up the kitchen and all the other admin work we need to do each time we move. And, unfortunately, we found that the water to the camp had been shut off so we were back to decanting from 25l drums.

Our new camp site

Mabuasehube Pan

Lunch and…

… a little nap …

… or two!

Finally, and after a lunch, soups, ball klappers, a few beers and a short nap we decided to head off to Lesholoago Pan. We were travelling in Sharpie’s car and had almost reached the pan when a call came over the radio about a pair of lion that had walked into the road behind us. We quickly did a 3-point turn and headed back along the road for a kilometre or so until we came upon our fellow travellers and another pair of lion.

These lion were new to us and looked like they were also a honeymoon couple…

The female took a liking to John’s vehicle and sidled over to it where she started sniffing at the tyres and the front fender. As John could not see what she was up to, there was a slightly nervous call over the radio – “Hey guys, please tell me she’s not chewing on anything?”

Somebody’s being marking their territory here

Of course, we lied, and told him he better start checking his spare tyre! As you can imagine, that did not go down to well!

The Lesholoaga Pan had all the mandatory animals around it – springbok, gemsbok, jackal – plus the standard birdlife we had come to expect around the park. The waterhole itself was also full of bees – it looked like there was a beehive under the cover of the small pump house next to the waterhole itself.

After circling the waterhole we dashed back to the camp stopping only for another quick look at the lion, which had not moved far.

Facts for the day:

Distance 30.3 km
Min Alt 1002.170 meters
Max Alt 1062.540 meters
Max Speed 33.4 km/hour
Avg Speed 3.8 km/hour