Kutse - Botswana

Kutse, is a smallish park which borders onto the Southern border of the huge Central Kalahari Game Reserve. For us it will always be special as it was the first park we visited in the 80s, when we were very inexperienced and had just bought our first Landrover. It gave us our first taste of the bush and was unforgettable as it coincided with the arrival of Haley's Comet of which we got a great sighting!

In those days you reached the park along a narrow deep sandy track which ran for a hundred or so Kilometres. On the way you passed through a number of villages each more remote than the last and at the gate which was just a basic camp was a bushman settlement where we gave out a load of cooked sausages to an old bushman who was promptly set upon by the women as he tried to stuff as many in his mouth at once before they could get them off him.

Now the narrow track is like a four lane highway, still made of sand, but now pretty well compacted and nowhere as difficult to drive as in the old days. The biggest problem is its rutted and pockmarked with pot holes and when we went in some places it had been washed away by the heavy rains with large sections flooded so we had to wade or go off into the bush to avoid the worse bits.

The gate has also been moved forward and is now an impressive thatched affair. Sadly the bushmen are no more having been 'relocated' so a lot of its magic has been lost, still the park itself remains almost unchanged which is a good thing.

We had booked our first few nights camping at Moreswa Pan on what we consider the best site, number KH24. All the sites in Kutse now have a long drop toilet and a separate bucket shower each encircled by a wooden palisade (but no door).  previously there were no facilities whatsoever, however there is still no water, so you have to be completely self sufficient in all respects.

Moreswa is the southern most part of the park and a long way from the gate. We had last stayed there in 2000 when we drove through the Central Kalahari after it was newly opened to tourists, (previously it was a closed reserve set aside for the bushmen) then the pan had been full of water, an uncommon experience we were told, and we had experienced a mega lightning storm.

We left it a little late setting off from the gate so by 6pm we were still 20 miles or so from the campsite. It was going to be dark when we got there no matter how fast we went.  We hadn't seen much game on the way down as we had taken the shorter less scenic route so we were very surprised as we came around a bend and something big suddenly jumped off the track right ahead of us.

We screeched to a halt not quite sure what we had seen and peered into the bush, slowly a head appeared from behind a bush. We couldn't believe it, it was a Leopard, not very old and in lovely condition. Sue loves Lions but Leopards have always been my favourite predator as they are so self sufficient and curious. This one certainly was as she had plenty of chance to just slip off into the bush but instead curiosity got the better of her and she slowly came out and stood staring at us.

I don't know if she had seen many vehicles before but she was clearly intrigued as she circled the car sniffing the air. She sat with us for a good 20 mins then she slowly walked past my window and carried on up the track until she was round a bend and out of sight, it was a magical experience made all the better because it was so very unexpected, it was just a shame the light was quite poor by then to be able to take better photo's.

It was 8.20pm and pitch dark by the time we got to Moreswa but we didn't care as we were still high on the Leopard. After her we had been slowed up again by a Honey Badger out hunting. Your not allowed to night drive in any of the parks which is a good thing as some people drive too fast killing creatures such as night jars which tend to lie on the track and in the big game areas with Elephant, Buffalo and Hippo about then this can be fatal for all concerned. However, if your careful it can be very rewarding as you see the nocturnal creature you rarely or never see in the daytime.

Although we were going to be at Moreswa for three nights we put up the roof tent for convenience, it helped that it was a full moon so we had natural light. This was our first night back in the bush proper so we celebrated with a few glasses of Galway Pipe port brought all the way from Australia, lovely stuff if you can get it. We had not seen a soul since we'd left the gate over four hours ago so we were pretty sure we were completely on our own in an area as big as some UK counties.

Next morning we awoke to a lovely sunny morning and were delighted to see that the pan had water on it again. We watched from the roof tent, mug of tea in hand as Giraffe, Gemsbok, Eland and Ostrich came down to drink and watched as a black backed Jackal padded through the water on his way home after a nights hunting, this made all the effort worth it.

It grew hotter as we did a game drive North towards Molose water hole about 100km away. On the way we thought we caught a fleeting sight of the bum end of a Caracal (a Lynx like cat), a rare sight indeed. Molose is known for Lion but there were none around, it also has the nearest camping spots North from Moreswa but they were all empty confirming we were alone for at least 100km.

On the way back we very surprised that at roughly the same spot where we had seen the bum earlier we now got a good sighting of the Caracal. Caracal are very secretive animals so sadly it was too brief to get a photo but it was great to see him at all,  only our second Caracal in many years of looking.

By now we could see thunderstorms in the distance and you could almost cut the atmosphere with a knife. It was abnormally quiet as we headed back to camp, with hardly any birdlife but that night we had a spectacular Sunset, it was so perfect that we should have known it couldn't last for long.

In the morning we were up at the crack of dawn and out on a game drive and were soon rewarded by seeing a Cheetah walking through the bush, but again too fleeting to get a photo. We did manage to get some shots of a black backed Jackal drinking at a waterhole which was nice as they are usually seen away from water.

We arrived back at camp for brunch and put up the ground tent, the day was getting progressively hotter but remained sunny. We were very surprised therefore when late that afternoon we were suddenly caught by a sudden downpour which only lasted a few minutes but drenched everything. Later in the distance we could see the lightning storms getting closer so as a precaution we put the sides on the skull cap (the skull cap is the fly sheet  and the sides fit onto the front awning to form a snug shelter).

By dusk the lightning was amazing to watch as it came down in huge flashes across the sky, some forking to the ground, but  still no rain. We managed to light the fire but at 8pm our luck ran out and the heavens opened so we retreated under the awning for the rest of the night joined at one point by a huge bull frog, who looked quite sinister in the light from the lightning flashes.

The storm went crashing on throughout the night and it was about 3am before we got any decent sleep. We couldn't believe it was almost an exact re-enactment of the storm we had experienced at the same spot six years earlier. The next morning everything was sodden from the rain but the pan was full of water and the light as the sun tried to come up was very atmospheric.

We had heard Lion calling at about 5.30am so we drove around the pan in the hope of seeing them but nothing doing. The weather was very overcast and thunder sounded every now and then so we decided to break camp and move to Molose Waterhole. We arrived just after 4pm and came across a single guy in a vehicle, the first we had seen in three days. He was heading down to Moreswa but warned us he had passed about 20 vehicles on the road to Kutse, it was Friday so people were coming for the weekend. He also told us friends of his had camped at Molose three weeks before and had to flee to the top of their vehicle when 16 Lion came into their camp and settled down in the middle of the day!

With his words ringing in our ears we set up camp, the storms still going on all round us in the distance. We lit a good fire and decided to go separately for a shower as it was too risky going together in case Lion were around. In the distance we were treated to another grand lightning show but at least tonight we could cook some dinner.

It was a quiet night with no sound of Lion so we went to bed early but were awoken at midnight by torrential rain on the roof tent, thankfully we were nice and cosy so we just slept on expecting it to have stopped by the morning. Morning came but it was still raining hard, 11.30am and we were still marooned in the roof tent, it wasn't until 1.30pm that it finally stopped, thirteen hours of solid rain, this was getting past a joke!

We decide to break camp and move up to Kutse Pan which is closer to the gate in preparation for our drive to our next destination, Mabuashube NP. By doing this we were throwing our bookings in the bin and taking a chance as we were not due to stay there and as we needed to dry the roof tent as much as possible we didn't leave until 5pm.

There are 10 camp sites dotted around Kutse Pan so there was every chance we could get on one, but which was the question as you normally cannot see one camp from the other, so its difficult to tell if its occupied until you drive up.

It was after 7pm and pitch dark when we reached the sites and as we approached we could see lights from the camp fires showing some were already occupied. We just hoped that not  all 20 of the cars seen on the Kutse road had decided to stop here! To make matters worse we could see more cars were still arriving, it was now a race to find a site and claim possession before it was too late.

Just as we thought we would have to slink off and bush camp somewhere we came upon a free site, ironically what saved us was the Gauteng Laager mentality we hate of loads of people grouping together on the same site.

Later we could hear Lion calling from the direction of Molose, typical, our luck seemed to have run out in Kutse, it was time to move onto Mabuashube