Solo Makgadikgadi Pans trip

[Henk Coetzee]

In about two weeks time I will be embarking on a trip to Cape Town, through Namaqualand to Windhoek (family birthday) and then back to Pretoria. I'll be driving back on my own (my wife needs to be back at work and will be flying home) and will be taking a few days and driving through the Makgadikgadi Pans.

Does anyone have any wise bits of advice for photographic stops, places to see, places to avoid and so on. My planned stops are Kubu, Kukonje, and one or more of Baines', Chapman's and Green's Baobabs, with the plan to travel relatively short distances on most days and to try and be set up and ready well before the light gets interesting and be up in time for sunrise.

I will be fully self-sufficient so bush camping is not a problem.

If anyone's passing through the same area, let me know.

[bushmoz]

Make sure you have a sat phone and more than sufficient water with you. That is a vast remote area and in the event of a break down or breaking through the crust of the pan, you could be stuck for a long time without seeing other people. There is also no way you could extract yourself from that clay on your own should you get stuck in it.

[MorSny]

Make sure you have a sat phone and more than sufficient water with you. That is a vast remote area and in the event of a break down or breaking through the crust of the pan, you could be stuck for a long time without seeing other people. There is also no way you could extract yourself from that clay on your own should you get stuck in it.

I 2nd what Butch said. I got stuck there last year, in the dry season, and it took 6 of us 4 hours to get me out.

[anco85]

Henk, I'm based in Windhoek. If you want to grab a quick coffee or just a chat over some beers, give me a shout

[AstraPics]

Henk, you are getting good advice here about driving on the pans. The best advice is - if you are going on your own, don't even think about it! The problem with the pans is that the crust looks perfectly dry and hard and then suddenly you are wheelspinning and sinking in and going nowhere. 4x4, locked diffs and mud tyres mean nothing. If there is no other vehicle with you, you will not self-recover. The end.

There is a story of a photographer who stopped out on the pans on a good, hard surface to take some pictures. After a few minutes he turned around to get back into the vehicle to find that it had been slowly sinking in. They started up and only just got enough traction to get away.

In Andrew St Pierre White's book there is a story about a collection of gum poles sticking up out of the pan like a porcupine's quills. When they got closer to investigate there was a Land Rover down inside a hole. They had been trying to lever it out with the poles, but it was still sinking away into the black ooze, never to be recovered.

A tour group at Kubu drove out onto the pans for sundowners and when they tried to leave again they were all stuck. The entire group had to walk back for an hour and go back the next day to spend hours recovering the vehicles.

Kubu is not a problem solo if you approach from the south-west (B300 Orapa road). You only cross a short stretch of the pan and even if you were to bog down there, there are many cars going in and out every day so you will get help. From Kubu you can drive out a short way onto the pan to get some pics and they will look exactly the same as the pics you will get from far out on the pans. In any case, Kubu is the gem of the pans, so if you get some great pics there, you've got the place more or less covered. Kubu Island is one of the most mesmerising places on earth and definitely worth a visit.

This is the road to Kubu Island from Mmatshumo...





The lower picture is taken on the pan which was dry and hard and I had been driving at 120 km/h as smooth and as steady as a freeway before stopping for this shot. About a kilometre later the surface was churned up in all directions where someone had recently got stuck and had obviously had a long, sticky and muddy recovery process.

[Henk Coetzee]

Make sure you have a sat phone and more than sufficient water with you. That is a vast remote area and in the event of a break down or breaking through the crust of the pan, you could be stuck for a long time without seeing other people. There is also no way you could extract yourself from that clay on your own should you get stuck in it.

Thanks for the advice. I'm well aware of the risks of driving on the pans and wouldn't think of crossing them alone. That clay is particularly nasty! I'll be sticking to the better roads. My main reason for getting out there is the need to sit for a few days in the middle of nowhere, without stressing about a bogged vehicle.

Henk, I'm based in Windhoek. If you want to grab a quick coffee or just a chat over some beers, give me a shout

I'll see how time goes once I'm there. My BIL and I share a birthday and I'm never sure what he has planned.