Botswana Self Drive Holiday. Day Two. Maun to Kaziikini Campsite.

The stay at Thamalakane Safari Lodge included breakfast, this was served in the open dining area that overlooked the river. The was a good selection of cereals, juices & yoghurt's, and you could chose the 'English' option. (fired egg, bacon, toast etc). After breakfast, we had a list of things to do!

Moremi Game Reserve does not have any shops or petrol stations, so you have to take all your supplies with you, we needed to go into Maun and get our supplies for the next six days.

We had booked our campsites in Moremi with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, we had done this in England and I had paid a small deposit. We had to go to the office and pay the rest of our bill in full, prior to getting to the park gates.This is different than in South Africa's Kruger Park, where you pay the deposit, then settle the account at the park gate. We had to have a Permit prior to arriving at Moremi South Gate.

Maun is a small town and we found the Office of the National Parks and Wildlife Service with out any problem. The office was full of tour operators booking up the campsites for the next 3 months! I felt lucky to have got our booking.

We went to the supermarket and got our food, to a very nice butchers for the meat, and most importantly to the Bottle Store for beer and wine! Filled the Land Rover FULL with petrol, then went for a cup of tea!

One of the best things about Southern Africa is that you get a recognisable Cup of Tea, served with cold milk. We went to Hillary's Coffee Shop, this is located near to the airport. I had a massive slice of pecan pie with ice cream....it was SO sweet! Whilst we ate our pie, ballet exams were going on in the adjoining building and all the Mums were waiting at Hillary's for the little ballerinas to finish. Now sitting under the Hibiscus trees listening to the tinkle from the piano really brought back memories from the late 1980s, when i was doing the same thing, waiting in Amanzimtoti, for my small ballerinas to finish the exams!!

We set off on the tar road towards Moremi. We had to purchase our firewood, so stopped just before the Tar road finished to do this.

The Tar road finished just past Shorebe, then the sandy dirt road starts. This road was in very good condition all the way to the 'Vet Fence', we passed through the check point with just a quick check and chat, and arrived in good time at Kaziikini Campsite. the journey was far faster than we had anticipated, only 2 to 2 1/2 hours from Maun. This campsite is run by the local community, it was very clean, with outside ablution blocks. unfortunately the hot water was not working, but at this early stage in our travels this was not a problem. There was a dinning hall and bar, the campsites were situated under trees, so it was very shady.

Check in.

We set up camp & cooked our dinner, but our timing was not good and I ended up washing up in the dark, this is not a good idea when you must boil the water, wash, dry and pack every thing away because of the resident Hyenas!

If there were any Hyenas in camp that night, I did not hear them, I did hear the Lions roaring...very far away at about 04.00, but that was all.