April 2006... Week 1

Week 1

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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