The Wilderness Trail - Polentswa
Since our last visit to Mabuashube they have opened up something called the
Wilderness trail which goes cross country to the Gemsbok
Transfrontier park on the South African border, as this effectively creates
one huge park then we were keen to try this out.
For safety reasons officially the minimum number of vehicles allowed on the
trail at any one time is two but no one had questioned us being a
single vehicle when we booked in Gabs. You take two days, one night
to drive the trail in the one direction and cannot take less or more
so effectively you have the trail for two days as no one should
start behind you until you have a good days head start. You bush
camp overnight at a pan called Mosomane so you are effectively on your own in
hundreds of square miles.
Of course you need to be totally self sufficient and should have
GPS but the terrain
only really gets tricky towards the end as you near the Gemsbok park
when you cross some steep deep red sand dunes after which you
enter the Gemsbok itself where you have the choice of camping on the
Botswana side at a camp called Polentswa or carrying on across the
dry river bed into the SA
side of the park to a camp called Nossob.
We had been to Nossob before and like most SA camps it was too regimented for us
with gate times and fences around the camp. We had booked instead to camp at Polentswa which is the complete
opposite, just three sites on their own in the bush with no fences,
each with a simple A frame shelter, long drop toilet and a bucket shower, for
which you need to bring all your water.
The trail head was about 20 miles from our camp at GL1 so after
re-stocking with water it was
late morning before we started on the trail proper. From here it is about 100 miles across the bush to
Polentswa, Mosomane being roughly half way so compared to our recent
journeys this was going to be nice and leisurely.
The journey to Mosomane was uneventful with little game apart
from small herds of Gemsbok. With all the recent rain the bush was
very thick and green which didn't help game viewing so we arrived in
good time at
Mosomane and had to resist the temptation to crack
onto Polentswa. However, even without game Mosomane is a lovely spot
in which to relax
and during the afternoon the odd Gemsbok, Eland and Kudu wandered
by plus it didn't rain!
That night we were treated to some amazing colours as the sun
set behind the clouds followed by a lovely starry night. The
night sky in the Southern Hemisphere is something else, especially
when you are in the middle of nowhere with no artificial light
whatsoever. We have a competition to see who can spot the most
shooting stars which Sue always wins hands down as I get tired of
looking after a while or always seem to look away just when one
appears!
The track from Mosomane to Polentswa varies from thick green bush
and grass at the start to undulating red sand dunes for the last
40kms or so, then once you reach Polentswa it changes into
mainly grass plains. It has to be said
that with little game it can be a bit monotonous and the fact it
was still quite cloudy didn't help.
Before going to Polentswa we decided to carry onto Nossob to get fuel, water and some
provisions. Nossob
and Polentswa are about 60 kms apart so it entails a 120km round trip to shop, something
you would not want to do too often.
Your allowed to
enter South Africa to explore their side of the park or to shop but you
cannot exit into RSA proper without going through
South African immigration at the parks main camp at Twee Riverien,
the Botswana immigration post is at Two Rivers just a few hundred
yards away. There are supposed to be plans to combine the two
offices but not yet so it can be confusing when the time comes to
sort out the paperwork.
It was about 5pm when we finally pulled into our camp at Polentswa.
Our site was GP2 which is higher than GP1 & 3 and has stunning views of the
pan. GP1 is also nice, right on the edge of the pan but GP3 is set off further
back in the bush and is not as nice, we much preferred GP2 to the others. The other sites
were empty so once again we were completely on our own and the pan
itself was empty except for a few Springbok and the odd Wildebeest
and Gemsbok, very peaceful.
We put the ground tent up and scavenged around for wood
which is always an issue in desert type regions like the Gemsbok. Some of
the bigger pieces Sue had to carry, walking in front of the vehicle
(well there has to be some perks for being the only driver!). We lit
the fire and settled down with a couple of cold G&T's to watch the
sunset, the light was lovely casting long shadows across the tall
golden grasses of
the pan. In Africa the sun going down is a like someone
switching off a light, one minute your in daylight the next almost
pitch darkness, especially when the moon is waning as in our case.
Once it was dark we started to prepare dinner when suddenly right in
front of us a Lion roared. We have been in Africa long
enough to gauge from their call when they are close and this guy was
close and getting closer. He had probably been in the tall grass on the pan
watching us and was now getting ready for his nights patrol and was
just letting us know he was around. but we thought we could hear another
Lion answering in the distance but it was difficult to say as this guy
was almost constantly giving it rock all.
We jumped in Rupert and drove down to GP1 on the pans edge to see
if we could see him but even with the spotlight and him calling
often we could not locate him. The pan looks almost flat
but in fact there are gullies and ridges in it which with the grass
make it very hard to see anything if it doesn't want to be seen!
The only thing we knew was he seemed to be
working his way around us to the hills behind. After about half an
hour we went back to camp but
each time we started doing more with the dinner he would roar again,
seemingly always a little bit closer.
It's at times like this that you wish you had never watched the
movie "The Ghost and The Darkness" (about the man eaters of Tsavo)
as its disconcerting when you cannot see a thing outside of your
immediate circle of light from the camp.
He
continued calling around us until about 10pm but we could never
catch him in the spotlight and to make matters worse our torches
were knackered as most of the batteries needed re-charging so dinner that
night was a pretty rushed affair!
Normally we just leave the mosquito screen zipped up on the tent
door as we like to see out but that night we zipped the canvas outer
door as well, a sure sign I was edgy according to Sue! We heard Lion
and Jackal calling at about 3am but this time way in the distance.
However, the
next morning we found three sets of Lion pad marks on the track
leading up to our camp and could see one set had broken away from
the others and had circled around the back of our tent, I still
maintain what saved us was Sue's snoring.
Less than 1km from Polentswa lies a lonely grave with
a simple wooden cross. The story behind the grave is a strange one
that I suppose will never be fully explained. In October 1952 a
German geologist called Hans Schwarb entered the park through
the main gate on the South African at Twee Riverien (Botswana
was then a British protectorate called Bechuanaland and was pretty
much just a vast wasteland).
Approaching the chief warden he said he wanted to do some
prospecting in the park for minerals and gems. The warden refused
and ordered him to leave the park ASAP which Schwarb said he would do
further North at Mata Mata.
Two weeks later Police patrolling on the Botswana border found a
car abandoned in some bushes near to Polentswa. They did not have
time to search for its owner so they alerted the park warden at Twee
Riverien. When he heard the description he recognised it as Schwarbs
car so taking his son, a bushman tracker and two policemen he went to
where the car had been found to search for Schwarb. Inside the car
they found a note saying "No Water, No Fuel, walking North, follow".
The strange thing was the was still water in the radiator and
Schwarb had passed a waterhole only a few miles back on the South
African side. At first they couldn't understand why there were two
sets of tracks leaving the car but only one coming back towards
it, then they realised Schwarb must have started walking, got
frightened and returned to the car where he left the note before
going off again.
The tracked him for the rest of the day, his trail becoming more
and more haphazard but even
though he was in trouble Schwarb had still stopped to dig sample prospecting
holes searching for diamonds and the like, the warden is
supposed to have said it was like following a man "digging his own grave".
Their worse fears were realised shortly before sunset
when they saw Vultures circling overhead and soon after came across
his remains, which had been badly eaten by animals.
As his body was technically now within Botswana to avoid a lot of red
tape the warden decided to bury him close by under a lone Acacia
tree, covering the grave with rocks to deter animals digging him
up. On this they placed a rough cross made from the Acacia and left
his cigarettes and a tin of biscuits (the only items
found on his body) on which the warden scratched simply "Here lies
Hans Schwarb, 22 October 1952"
Piecing together his movements they believe he had driven towards
Mata Mata but once he established he wasn't being followed he had
driven off into the bush, hid his car and then waited there for the
rest of the day to ensure he hadn't been missed, before heading off
towards Polentswa and his fate.
Why he didn't drink the water in his radiator or walk back
towards the waterhole where eventually some visitor would probably
have found him will never be known, all you can think is he was so
obsessed with finding Diamonds or Gold that he lost all sense.
Regardless it was no way for anyone to end up, the grave is in
such a lonely spot that most people don't even know it exists. We
passed it each day on our game drives so when we were leaving Sue
made a small wreath out of wild flowers which we put on the grave to
show he wasn't totally forgotten.
The scenery around the pan is lovely with hills on one side and
grass plains on the other. We had booked for two nights but decided
to call the booking office in Gabs to see if we could stay longer
and luckily we could for two extra nights.
We had visited the RSA side of the Gemsbok in the 90's and as it
consists mainly of one long track running East to West we had no
desire to go out every day so mainly chilled out in camp. However,
after two days of relative inactivity we needed to recharge the
battery running the fridges and lights and needed to re-fill the
water containers for showering etc so we decided to drive to Nossob
again.
On the way we suddenly came across a Cheetah walking slowly some
way off in the bush, unfortunately the grass was high and she was
walking away from us so the photo's were not that good but this was
the first we had seen in the park so we were well pleased as
Cheetah's are becoming rather scarce given they are shot or poisoned
by ranchers and locals keeping livestock and are killed by Lions.
That night we heard Lion again but this time in the distance,
people had turned up on the other campsites so we were no longer
totally on our own although they were someway away and couldn't be
seen.
The next day we drove the opposite way to Nossob towards Unions
End and the border with Namibia. It's a good way to the parks end at
Unions End and you cannot exit here which is frustrating if you want
to go onto Namibia, so as we had been that way before we only drove
part way. We came across quite a few Lion tracks on the road but no
Lion unfortunately although we were hearing them most nights.
That night we took down the ground tent and slept in the roof
tent in preparation for getting an early departure in the morning.
We had really enjoyed Polentswa for its solitude and lovely views
and the Wilderness Trail was certainly an experience, but it was
time to leave Hans Schwarb and his lonely grave and head back into
South Africa to the Richtersveld en route to Windhoek, Namibia where
we had arranged to meet a friend from Joburg who was joining us for a trip around Namibia.
As usual Botswana had been great and it was sad to leave but we
knew we would return after Namibia.
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