Series 5: EP17: Return, More Game, Long Haul - Bwabwata National Park to Namushasha

You join us on the 28th of September, 2025, and today we have a day of two halves. We are going to start the day with a trip back towards the Botswana border to do a self drive game drive. We'll be in the part of the Bwabwata National Park on the western side of the Cubango River. Then we are heading 300km east to our next overnight location. We are going to be driving through what used to be called the Caprivi Strip but is now the Zambezi Region of Namibia. It should be pretty plain sailing as it's a sealed road and in Namibia they are generally well maintained.

After our DIY game drive (No lions, probably just as well), we hit the road and head off to Kongola. It's a long, straight road and with a speed limit of 80kmh due to the fact that the first 100km or so is a national park. The park areas that the wildlife has to roam around in are huge. On the topic of speed limits, a lot of people tend to ignore them, especially South Africans. I don;t know what the fines are for speeding in Namibia but we have been through quite a few speed traps in both countries. They have all the modern gear, laser speed guns etc. I prefer not to get into trouble with the law when overseas.

The eastern part of the trip to Kongola is a bit more interesting. Unlike Australia, these savannah areas are quite populated with lots of small farms and villages. We saw quite a few instances of people carting water using bullock drawn sleds. in one case, there was a public well right next to the road with people pumping water into containers to take home.

In Kongola we topped up with fuel. The Hilux has dual fuel tanks so we can get close to 1,000km on a fill. Very handy when not every town has fuel. Then the trip down a side road to Namushasha Lodge for the night. Unlike last trip, we don't have a paper map book. Our trip planners use an App with the route on it you can view in Google Maps. You have to make sure you have phone coverage to get your map for the day. For some reason we had no coverage in Divundu even though we used different carriers and there were phone towers there. Luckily the trip from Shametus Lodge to Kongola was pretty straightforward. We got coverage in Kongola to update the map for the tricky bit to find Namushasha Lodge.

Namushasha turns out to be a Gondwana Collection lodge. Not wildly expensive but very nice. Not my favourite places. A bit too up market maybe but you can't complain when your chalet is schmicko, the hot water works and your fridge has a nice Proseco in it so you don;t have to go back to the bar in the heat.

Unfortunately, we are only here for one night. I'm thinking we should have added more time to the trip. All my fault. 20:20 hindsight. So we overnight in luxury, then head off to Kasane in the very east of Botswana. We have to cross the Namibia/Botswana border again and then cross the northern part of another huge and famous national park, Chobe.

Join us then to see what we find. We have a couple of hundred kilometres to drive in the morning then a bit of adventure booked for the afternoon which we are still trying to pin the final details down on. Keep safe and we'll see you then.

#Travel #Africa #Namibia

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