05 May: Twee Rivieren to Johannesburg

Ah, another early morning. We were headed off on a game drive and I think we had to meet at something ridiculous like 5:30 ... or maybe that was the time we woke up. I dunno, but we were 2 very grumpy folk this morning. Very little sleep due to the cold and discomfort of sleeping pretty much on the floor of our tent. At about 3am I got the hell in and got the pump out and repumped the leaky mattress for a bit. It helped a bit, but was flat again by the time we had to get up :( No more tenting this trip for us! Needless to say The Trucker has now thrown the mattress away and we'll have to get a new one before any future tenting happens!

So I got dressed and headed to the ablution block to brush my teeth, go to the loo, you know, the usual. And there at the mirrors (at *very* early o'clock, in the dark!) was our campsite-neighbour doing her hair and make-up. I kid you not! It took everything I had not just to stop, stand and stare. Inside tho, I wondered if this was one of those people who's husband has never seen without make-up? Yes, she was definitely Afrikaans. Anyway. I will tell you that all we saw them do before we left was go for a morning drive and then make breakfast at camp. I'm glad she didn't put on high heels as well (where is that eye-roll smiley when you need it?). #Sigh Whatever works for you, I guess. Anyways, it gave me a little amusement so early in my day. I honestly couldn't be bothered with that much effort so early in the morning!

And then we were bundled up in the back of the game-viewing vehicle, just the 2 of us. Wearing our sleeping bags, scarves, beanies, everything we could to keep warm! We had a lovely driver, from Canada (I know, right?). Anyway, the short story is no, we sadly kept our predator view-count to zero :( In fact we didn't see much of anything. I was very disappointed that even going with the Game Rangers, you stick to the same-old-same-old road that you could do yourself in your very own car. And since we were in a 4x4 it's not like we had the advantage of height in the game-viewing vehicle. At least The Trucker could concentrate on the scenery a bit more than while he's driving.

We did seem to somehow end up focusing more on the smaller animals (and birds, much to The Trucker's dismay ... he is actively NOT a bird person - haha). I kept spotting all these mice, obviously emerging from their nests to catch the first little bit of sunshine and warm up for the day. Was quite cute :) And The Trucker spotted a group of meerkat also emerging for the day.


So with our game drive finished, we packed up our tent and got on our way after a quick breakfast at the restaurant. We had to stop back at the reception/border control point and get stamped back into South Africa. I can't help thinking that they may easily have never noticed if we skipped this altogether (I have previously skipped an exit stamp when leaving Canada in the very early hours of the morning and they rushed us all through to our connecting flight to Frankfurt). It is also kinda weird to have a left-Namibia stamp dated yesterday and an entering-South-Africa stamp a whole day later ... world's longest transit? Haha.

So we were on the road again. I wanted to go home via Hotazel (just for the name! Haha). We didn't know what the roads would be like, but it was still pretty early and we hadn't booked accommodation for this evening because we didn't know what time we'd leave Kgalagadi or how long we'd be in the mood to drive. So we threw caution to the wind and took the road to Hotazel. I can tell you the road was perfectly fine and not a problem to drive at all.

I got my photos next to the (not very impressive) sign, and we missed photos of the Deben sign again ... Oh well. And then it was on to Kuruman again. We stopped for petrol. It was about 3pm. About the time we'd left Joburg for our overnight in Kuruman at the start of our trip. Yes, we could drive all the way thru. And we did. Much better having the Sunday to relax at home before work again on Monday. What a wonderful birthday holiday I've had <3 :)