Summertime Abundance - a couple of milestones

Our camera is back from repairs, and not a moment too soon! On a quick transit trip through Chobe National Park yesterday, I was ever so happy to have it along.

Here are some gorgeous Baobab blossoms. Baobabs around here tend to leaf and flower at individual and unrelated times, and these are the first ones I've seen this season. The flowers are pretty large, but I am not sure if this gives an idea of the scale!

Some warthog piglets have finally been captured on camera...These are not the town warthogs, but the Park dwellers.  Unfortunately during a very complicated and agile retrieval of the camera from its bag behind me on the car seat, I  inadvertently changed some dial settings, resulting in some rather different colour effects!

Here you see one of the babies emulating  its mother, kneeling down in the sand to eat...

Perfect little miniature warthogs...

These two were slightly interested in the strange object leaning out of a car window near to them!

I promise this is the last one. This gives a good idea of the size of the piglets compared to their mother!

This stunning Kudu ran across the road in front of us, and disappeared into the trees. The beautiful greenery is such a relief after the dullness of the dry season...

Here follows an empty photo slot, where I would have put a photo of the amazing scarlet pincushion lilies that flower in the wild at this time of year. Unfortunately, the milestone photo was taken on my phone during camera deprivation time, and needless to say the phone has managed to vaporise all the photos again, before I got round to downloading them! 

I am now off to attend the graduation ceremony of my favourite Daycare Centre in town, and will do an update on the kids later, for those who have been following their progress over the years!

Life is a blur... but an interesting one!

Time is playing its usual tricks on me, but it does tend to really accelerate when travelling is involved!

Being in the far north eastern corner of Botswana, when needing to go on a business trip over to the north western corner of  the country, it's quicker to transit there via neighbouring Namibia then cross back into Botswana again!

Here is the Ngoma border post on our side, which is beautiful and friendly, featuring baobabs, elevated views and the Chobe floodplain. Namibia is on the other side of the river.

I am still really missing The Camera, which will be back next week! My phone has a great camera, but has recently developed an unfortunate habit of randomly vaporising items off its memory card, much to my annoyance! In the interim, we have also remembered that we own film cameras, which are great, despite lacking that instant digital gratification.

The Trans Caprivi Highway must be one of the emptiest, longest, straightest roads in our world. Despite signs warning of elephants, we have never actually seen one here! Elephant dung all over the road attests to their presence, however.

The stunning Silver Leaf Terminalia (Terminalia Sericea) trees are a compelling feature of this particular road at this time of year, annd I enjoyed the stunning natural forests whizzing past the window, as I always do.

 Here we crossed the magnificent Kavango river, which will utimately end up in the waters of the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

After about 500 kilometres, four sets of border exit/entry forms and the usual giant inch-wasting stamps in our passports, we arrived at our destination:  the small town of Shakawe, back in Botswana.

After attending to the work part, we went out with our friend on her boat for sundowners on the river, now re-named the Okavango.

Next day we reversed all the border formalities and returned to Namibia, staying over night at Ngepi Camp alongside the river (Kavango once again!).  Our Tree House, being built on a barrier-less deck, within a tree, right over the river, was just beautiful. I live for spaces which are as free and open as this. Due to the 42 degree celsius (107F) and more temperatures that afternoon, this riverine spot was a cool haven...

Next day, same road, more forms filled in, and back in Botswana. Ready for a Tuesday back at work, and a short week. Here is a repeat photo of my favourite 4 country signpost as one arrives from this border post, mainly for those who may have started reading this blog later than others! For me, it captures the border town spirit...

Rainy Season Update: up till Wednesday, not much had changed since my previous post - sweltering heat, and a few threatening clouds, followed by some scattered showers to drive the humidity level right up.


On Wednesday afternoon I took this photo behind our office, of a stormy African sky ready to explode, and pretty soon afterwards, (hope the little school girl got home in time) we had a storm the likes of which I have never experienced in my years in this area.

Horrendous winds and driving rain for over an hour, left most of us in a soggy stage, with several less sturdy roofs being blown off. So, I feel that I can finally report that the rainy season has started!


The morning after the storm, about half the town's computers and fax machines landed in our workshop... the first lightning victims of the season. Being a small town, we could tell exactly where the worst devastation had been, by observing whose equipment arrived. Nature has given us a good reminder again. As for us, the living area of our house has a coating of mud over the floor - hardly surprising, since it is just a glorified verandah!

In the midst of this chaos,we had to leave town again - urgently needed to redo storm damaged netwok cabling at a remote site office a couple of hundred km south, and while in the area we overnighted at Elephant Sands to realign their satellite dish and reinstate their internet - pushed out of line by elephants, what else?! A gorgeous sunset and herds of elephants searching for pretty much non existent water went unphotographed due to camera issues. The waterholes desperately need refilling by rain...

Warthog Update: On Thursday I spotted the first litter of utterly adorable, miniature warthog piglets trotting around with their mother! Unfortunately, on both occasions I was driving in traffic, on my own and was totally unable to take a photo. Watch this space. They are seriously tiny, and cute!

That's it - I think this is a snapshot of a fairly typical 2 weeks in our full and crazy life. The distances, extremes and closeness of nature and so on do make for interesting times - just about all the time. Weekend greetings to all reading this! I'll be back when I can..