Kgalagadi Trip Report - November 2019

[Tedx2]

Greetings all. In November 2019, following a 5 week stay in Namibia, we had entered Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park at Mata Mata. KTP would be our home for the next +/- 6 weeks moving between the SANParks campsites and the 2 Botswana wilderness campsites, Rooiputs and Polentswa. The attached .pdf file is the first part of our stay, further reports will be posted over the next week or so. Please feel free to join us on our journey. I have also attached the second part of our report below, the third and final part will be added over the weekend. For those with extreme stamina the 3rd and final part of our trip report is attached, thanks for your perseverance.

[mudgrubber]

You are up very early?

[Tedx2]

You are up very early?

We are sitting out Covid on Thursday Island, a tiny island off the northern tip of Australia. Our daughter is in labour with our first grandson and we've been awake all night!!

[RobH]

Excellent, thanks John. Glad all was well medically and I can only reiterate your experience with KTP staff, they really are fantastic.

[Stan Weakley]

Trip reports are like gold, thank you so much!

[Frans 90]

Thank you John for yet another report with great pictures. Looking forward to the rest.

[Tedx2]

Excellent, thanks John. Glad all was well medically and I can only reiterate your experience with KTP staff, they really are fantastic.

Yes Rob, if any confirmation was needed we had it amplified with our medical issue, it isn't only KTP, before entering KTP we had visited KNP, Augrabies and Richtersveld as part of our Southern African "expedition" and we can confirm that the pleasant SANParks staff are a feature of all parks we have visited. I think the way you approach them certainly has a bearing on how they treat you. The way some visitors approach staff at parks makes me cringe.

Trip reports are like gold, thank you so much!

Pleasure Stan, as you know we have just started this pastime. I have to be honest, whilst this takes up a lot of time in some respects it is a selfish creation, we've found that creating the reports brings back some great memories and certainly preserves them for the future for us too. I'm certain you are aware of that from your "slow donkey" report.

Thank you John for yet another report with great pictures. Looking forward to the rest.

Thanks Frans, there are likely to be 3 sections, I'm busy with the second one as we speak, as I mentioned to Stan this allows us to relive the trip whilst we are bottled up on Thursday Island in Australia

[Luka]

Awesomeness. Thank you.

[Tedx2]

Greetings again, please find attached a .pdf for the second part of our November 2019 KTP trip report, hope you continue to enjoy our journey. The third and final part of the report will be added later this week. I have also attached this report to my initial post for first time visitors.

[Luka]

Thanks, so many memories.

[Frans 90]

Thanks again John & Linda. Great read, great shots and some great sightings you had. You are making me think to change 2022 plans again.

[Tedx2]

Awesomeness. Thank you.

Thanks, so many memories.

That is a pleasure Luka, thanks for taking time to read our reports, as you can tell KTP is our favourite all time park, so very many memories

[Tedx2]

Thanks again John & Linda. Great read, great shots and some great sightings you had. You are making me think to change 2022 plans again.

Such a blessing to have visited these parks and to be able to share a little of our experiences with others. I hope that we meet somewhere down the road, hope that we don't have to wait for 2022 and that we will be back on the road in 2021, we are still hoping that we can spend May next year in Botswana

[wilfwalk]

Thanks again John and Linda, you've had amazing sightings and experiences. Thanks for the superb trip report and the equally good photos. Much appreciated.

[Tobie4x4]

Thanks for sharing John, some stunning sightings

[RobH]

Very interesting to see the contrast between November and end of December. There doesn’t seem to be a blade of grass for your trip, whilst it looked like the midlands in summer north of Bedinkt a month later.

[wilfwalk]

With your great photos you've proved that if you put in the hours you get the results - mostly anyway ! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading and seeing - thanks for taking the time to put it all together.

[Tedx2]

Thanks for sharing John, some stunning sightings

Thanks Tobie, we were certainly very blessed, I think anyone being there for as long as we were would hope for some special sightings but I think we have definitely had more than our fair share of "once in a lifetimes". If you have 5 minutes look at the two YouTube postings shown in our signature bar at the bottom of this post, these were both our sightings but placed on YouTube by Five Zero Safaris

[Tedx2]

Thanks again John and Linda, you've had amazing sightings and experiences. Thanks for the superb trip report and the equally good photos. Much appreciated.

With your great photos you've proved that if you put in the hours you get the results - mostly anyway ! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading and seeing - thanks for taking the time to put it all together.

That is an absolute pleasure Wilf, it is our privilege to be able to share. Thank you for acknowledging our post, it's great doing something we feel so passionately about

[Tedx2]

Very interesting to see the contrast between November and end of December. There doesn’t seem to be a blade of grass for your trip, whilst it looked like the midlands in summer north of Bedinkt a month later.

Hi Rob, yes you are correct. When we complete the 3rd and last part of my trip report you will see that the rain had started before we departed on 7th December. The rain was of course required desperately, many of the animals were starting to shows signs of stress in late November. Hopefully the rain extended all the way to Union's End, that was where it was at its worst.