Yup. Radio Silence. For four whole days, nogal. That’s what happens when you get embedded knee-deep in the amber dunescape of the incredible #Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. We disconnected from Planet Normal at Xaus Lodge, part of the exceptional Transfrontier Parks Destinations Organization, and paused life in order to reconnect with Mother Nature and our circadian rhythm.
The earthy and unpretentious – and wholly community-owned – #XausLodge is situated on the edge of a giant (and very dry) heart-shaped pan, and you have to cross 90 transverse #Kalahari dunes to get there. Wheat-colored desert grassland – traversed by a blood-orange jeep-track – time-lines you into a parallel desert trance zone, with zero signal and 360 degrees of nothing as far as you can see.
Long hikes with the superb #Bushman guides; back-of-beyond game drives; sundowners on windswept dunes; up close and insightful connections with the incredible #Khomani #San people: exceptional gourmet cuisine, and panoramas extending for several lifetimes across the arid landscape … it made for a few truly unreal days with our families.
Highlights included no less than FOUR honey badgers, with one inquisitive and rather chunky individual coming to within 5m of the vehicles while snuffling amidst the dune scrubs. Plus, five spotted eagle owls chilling (literally, as dawn temperatures dropped to -3 Degrees Celsius) in the branches of a couple of gnarled boscia albitrunca trees.
These are a few quick edits on the Sony Mobile ZA #Xperia10Plus – loads more to follow. Next up on the tick-list for Peter Van Kets and #DieOom on our Isuzu South Africa #BeyondAukoerebis Expedition is #augrabies, and we cannot wait. The #Xriders ventured off before dawn this morning and we’re hoping to tick off an epic abseil and descent into the Augrabies gorge tomorrow
Click here to view the pics