Day 4 - Down to Upington

Late yesterday afternoon I decided it might be prudent to check the car’s rear near-side tyre – I was a bit suspicious. Much to my surprise, when I enquired at the camp reception I discovered that they did in fact have a man on duty (remember, this was a Sunday afternoon in the middle of the Kalahari Desert). Not only that, but by the time I had driven the 200m to the workshop the emergency duty man was also arriving there. We had the wheel off in double quick time, and into the usual bath of water. And sure enough, there was the issue of tiny bubbles betraying a slow puncture – thanks to a 30mm Kalahari thorn. 10 minutes later the wheel was back on the car and the roses were blooming again. Even more so when I discovered that the charge for this Sunday afternoon emergency call-out was R15 (around £1 or $2). I’m pleased to be able to report that my English ancestry held sway over my Scottish one, and a decent tip was duly issued.

After a quite evening playing Monopoly with Louise & Tisha (and thrashing them, to boot!), we all got a good night’s sleep and were up around 6:30 or so. Even Tish. I don’t say she was awake, but she was out of bed.

We packed the car – or rather the girls packed the car while I checked to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind. It has been known to happen – even to me. And somewhere along the line I’m pretty certain that Gill might have had a hand in the upheaval – probably did the easy bits like sorting and packing bags or some such.

And then, at around 7:30, we hit the road for Upington. The first 50km of road are reasonable dirt, albeit rather corrugated. Louise was driving, so as I was surveying the scenery (dry, dry, dry sand dunes running alongside the dry Nossop river bed!), I was able to reflect upon the time I visited the park in 1988 with a friend, Dick (Dr Richard) Liversidge.

Dick was (sadly he passed away a few years ago) an ornithologist by training (PhD) and profession, an ex-Director of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, a veritable fount of knowledge on animal and plant life in general and that of the Northern Cape in particular, and an all-round great guy. He could (and often did when pressed) speak knowledgably and interestingly on an amazing variety of subjects at the drop of a hat. Dick used to visit the Kalahari Gemsbok Park (as it was previously known) frequently to pursue his varied interests and research projects in bird and other animal life.

A couple of times I was privileged to be invited to join him. On one specific occasion in 1988 we also had the company of three Rotary Exchange students – Dick made it his personal mission in Rotary to see that any students visiting us got a goodly dose of the Gemsbok Park during their stay. And 1988 was the year of the Floods! To this day I claim some sort of record as being the first (only?) person to get a 4x4 vehicle stuck with it front wheels in one stream, its rear wheels in another, and the underside balanced on the ground between them – in the middle of a normally drought-stricken desert!

But that is a story in itself. Suffice it to say that when we left the Park we found that we were unable to get more than about 10km before the entire road was flooded and we could go no further. If I had been on my own, I’m sure I would have just returned to the park and stayed there for a few days (with a few bottles of wine) in the hopes that the floods would subside enough for us to get through. But Dick had other ideas. He simply turned right at the first farm track that we came to and headed off towards Namibia (South West Africa as it was then) over the sand dunes. Fortunately Dick’s faithful old 4x4 Toyota was more than up to the task, and after some 10 hours or so we finally arrived in Upington (250km from the park as the crow normally flies, more like 500km as the Toyota flew that day).

But I digress. Louise was driving - which was great. She and I have split the driving since departing Kimberley, leaving Gill and Tish to relax and back-seat drive all the way (at which little task they both excell).

We reached Upington around 10am. Would you believe it - Just in time for breakfast! And then onward to Augrabies Falls – some 150km downstream (west) on the Orange River from Upington – and away from Kimberley. The girls were under the impression that this was just going to be a 1-hour break sort of on our way back to Kimberley. What they didn’t know was that we had actually booked in for the night as well in two separate chalets – one for the kids, and one for the aged parents. Just to round off our brief little holiday.

But more of that tomorrow. We’ve just been for supper at the local restaurant. And after a bottle of Grand Cru I really don’t think it’s a good idea to proceed any further with this blog – which is likely to end up as a clogged blog.

So that’s it – I’m off to bed – photos of the falls will have to wait till tomorrow.

As a matter of interest I’ve been noticing that this Blog software (courtesy of Google) doesn’t seem to work too well with the pix. So – for anybody who thought it was Downs messing them up – WRONG! It’s Google. But nevertheless it’s still pretty good blogware.