Okavango Delta is great wilderness and a World Heritage Site. Photo/Courtesy
The primary idea was to drive from Maun, Botswana, through the game reserves of Okavango Delta and then end up by Victoria Falls, Zambia, just under 1,000 kilometres of rough African roads.
The secondary idea was to test the navigation system of the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery 2014 models, the first company to benefit from integrated satellite navigation with extensive maps from across 22 sub-Saharan African countries.
My objective, seeing as I know little about cars, was to drive through this part of Africa.
Maun is a small sleepy tourist town, trotting lethargically along the Thamalakane River. It is home to numerous safari and air-charter companies who take tourists to Okavango Delta and is thriving from all the foreign currency spent in it.
Its here we punched the navigation coordinates into the Land Rover Discovery 2014’s system, a sophisticated on-board unit.
Between you and me, it’s just a superior satellite enabled system that gives drivers access to 720,000 kilometres of navigable roads in Africa. It was safe to assume we weren’t going to get lost.
Kalahari Desert
But the rains had other ideas prior to our adventure, according to the weatherman it was the heaviest rain in 20 years.
The Kalahari is currently at its wettest. This meant slippery surfaces in some areas and deep puddles of water in others; otherwise it was great sandy roads and scenery running through the Moremi Game Reserve.
But still, even rain couldn’t take away the joy out of the Okavango Delta, one of Africa’s truly great wilderness and a World Heritage Site.
It has untouched freshwater wetlands, at the very heart of the Kalahari, and is home to elephants, buffalos, lions, hippos, giraffes and zebras.
Despite the rain the Kalahari was warm. At dusk, we set camp in the middle of what looked like nowhere, in Khwai Tented Camp deep in Moremi Game Reserve, set on this large stretch of lagoon.
There are no fences and we were warned that elephants might roam into the camp area at night; we woke up to an Elephant standing close to the camp, peering at us as we had breakfast.
Sited around the campfire we were regaled with tales from around Africa by the famous explorer Kingsley Holgate, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a modern day David Livingstone.
He has traced the whole journey by Livingstone and travelled through every country in Africa using a Land Rover, a dugout canoe, a bicycle and on foot.
He is a phenomenal storyteller complete with a bushy white mane that glistered in the full moon of the Okavango.
The Evoque
At dawn, after coffee and eggs, we were on the road again to the Savuti airstrip where we changed cars into the Range Rover Evoques.
This shift is noticeable; whereas the Discoveries were cocky and confident on the terrain, the Evoques take the terrain with as much capabilities only with more style. The car turned out to be a capable off-roader as well. A lady in the streets and a small beast in the wild.
We drove through Chobe National Park before reaching tarmac, where we were meet with a panoramic view as we bore down Kasane, onto a ferry to cross us through Zambezi River, at Kazungula, into Livingstone, Zambia and on to the best sight in southern Africa; the Victoria Falls.
You have to see the Victoria Falls. It defies anything you might know about nature. It’s a large statement. It’s roaring loud. And it’s moving. You can’t see it, hear it and still not believe there is a God.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
