Ngwempisi: Don’t bring your Ford Fiesta

4am alarm. Kettle on. Last minute packing: toothbrush, books, sunscreen. Where are the head torches? Jump in the car. Watch the sunrise over Joburg. We’re going to Eswatini. 

The drive to Sandlane border was easy and we were through in 15 minutes. This meant we were on track to arrive in Manzini by 11h45. The Springboks were playing the All Blacks in their first game of the Rugby World Cup. Our friend Caroline was joining us for the first night and recommended we head to The George Hotel. 

We arrived in the lobby - after fighting Saturday morning Manzini traffic - to find a large family wearing Springbok rugby jerseys. Caroline’s advice had been spot on. We watched the game while we enjoyed a couple cold Sibebes and some great fries. 

The Boks were unlucky - they lost 23-13. Slightly subdued we jumped back in the car and headed back out of Manzini. After a quick stop for petrol, water and ice-cream (a mint Magnum, always) we hit dirt road on our way to Ngwempisi. 

“Everything is fine!”

We wound up and down valleys on a bumpy, challenging road through forestry land and streams. We popped out at a local school and thought the worst was behind us. After passing a homestead we drove onto a large rocky koppie with thick bush ahead of us. The road was not obvious, which was the first red flag. 

The route to the camp was some of the most technical and challenging offroading we have done. We battled rocky slopes, loose rock and at one point wedged one of our cars on top of a boulder. We got into sticky spots and had serious clearance issues. Jolene the Jimny did well. Chris’s Toyota Hilux, which is heavy enough, had the added weight of two rooftop tents. It struggled and he sweated. 

Caroline and Kate were in and out of our cars guiding Ben and Chris and moving rocks. It took us an hour to get down. Our friends who left their car at the top walked down in 15 minutes. 

It was a lot of (nervous) fun. Worth it but hairy at times. We arrived just in time for well earned sundowners. 

Neverland campsite

We arrived at Khopho Camp as the sun began to set. Beers in hand we clambered onto an enormous boulder and watched fires burning down in the Ngwempisi river valley. 

Caroline brought Prosecco - which had made it unscathed despite the bumpy journey. We popped it and enjoyed the fire. 

The camp was opened in 2007 with funding from the European Union. Whoever designed it had a special vision. The only way to describe it is a treehouse built into a tumble of boulders. There are different wooden platforms with stairs and viewpoints. You wind from sleeping areas with 15 bunkbeds to an open air kitchen and then onto a hidden shower with a view down to the river. 

Sadly it has seen better days. It’s quite run down and has not been maintained. There was a lot of rubbish - including a toilet seat hanging from a tree! We brought our tent but flat ground is limited. You can drink the water and there are flush toilets. 

We enjoyed our one night there. We didn’t have time to explore the hiking trails. Ben made it down to the river, which was clear and deep. Good for swimming and fishing! Be warned the climb is very steep and hard to find. 

The next morning we packed up and prepared to tackle the road again. It was a bit easier going up but still challenging. Jolene’s power and lightness really helped. 

We were charged R200 per person for the night,. We thought this was quite expensive considering the state of the camp and the basic facilities. We passed on our recommendations to the manager. 

It is a spectacular spot, with good 4x4-ing and tough hiking trails. A little investment and on-going maintenance would make us return. It is also possible to do multi-night hikes in the reserve hiking to different camps each night.

We dropped Caroline back in Manzini and headed east to Mbuluzi Game Reserve. Blog post coming soon.

How to book

There isn’t much information about the camp online. To book contact the manager, Nothkozo, on +268 7614 5863. He doesn’t have Whatsapp so you need to call. 

Khumaga Wildlife Camp

We were sad to leave the CKGR and we will definitely return in the summer after the rains when it’s cooler and the bush has recovered from the tragic fires. The trip really reminded us of the importance of putting out a campfire at night - even hot ash can start a bushfire in very dry areas like the Kalahari. (Read our trip report from CKGR here.)

Khumaga zebras checking us out.

We’re planners so heading off into the unknown was a new to us but we enjoyed it more than we thought we would. A week or so before we departed Ben had read a blog on 4x4community about Khumaga. We found it on the map and it looked pretty close.

We packed up Jolene, plotted our route and headed back along the sandy track to the main gate. It was slow going and we saw little game.

After signing out we got back on the tarred road and headed towards Khumaga. After days in the dry and dusty Kalahari we were amazed the GPS instructed us to "take the ferry in 300 metres"!

And sure enough, just over a small hill, the Boteti river was in full flood and a pontoon was waiting for us and Jolene.

Jolene floating across the Boteti river on a pontoon.

We paid out fare and drove onto the pontoon. The driver guided us safely across the bank on the other side. We drove up a short dirt road and arrived at the entrance to the Makgadikgadi National Park.

Two very helpful and friendly receptionists welcomed us and recommended we spend the night at the Khumaga Wildlife Camp. Unfortunately, there had been a small burn at the camp recently but nowhere near as bad as at CKGR.

We set up camp under a large Tamboti tree in campsite 10. The camp has excellent ablutions and after the bucket showers and long drops of CKGR Kate headed quickly disappeared to enjoy a long cold shower.

The campsites could be a little more private, but the recent burn meant a lot of the normal vegetation providing privacy was gone. It is a small very well-maintained camp and the staff were extremely friendly.

Khumaga Bird List

• Khumaga Bird List

• White backed vulture

• Double banded sandgrouse

• Pied Kingfisher

• Hammerkop

• Lappet faced vulture

• Sacred Ibis

• Great White Egret

• Goliath Heron

• Greater Flamingo

• Lilac breasted Roller

• Red-billed hornbill

The banks of the Boteti, with little water elsewhere in the region at this time of year, are teeming with game. The river is fed by the highlands of Angola, where it rains for nine months of the year.

We were lucky enough to see a herd of elephant cross the river at sunset. In places the river was so deep that the elephants had to use their trunks as snorkels. They emerged on the bank less than 20 metres in front of us.

Elephants swimming across the Boteti River at sunset.

We headed out on a game drive the next morning thinking this experience couldn’t be topped. We were wrong.

We had a great breakfast on the banks on the Boteti river while we watched its abundant birdlife waking up for the day.

An after breakfast pic on the banks of the Boteti River.

On the way back to camp we stumbled upon a large male lion on a fresh zebra kill. We watched him finish off his meal before he sauntered off. He stopped briefly to have a quick pee on a bush.

The real action then got underway. Over 50 vultures had been watching the lion from trees. But before they could get to the carcass a jackal dashed out and claim it for himself. For the next 45 minutes we watch the jackal fight off the vultures between mouthfuls of zebra.  

Spot the angry jackal.

The vultures eventually fought off the jackal and mobbed the carcass. We quietly drove away and headed back to out camp to pack up and set off.

We arrived back to find out tent collapsed under the weight of a troop of monkeys. They had tried to break in and raid our bags. Luckily they had been unsuccessful and the only damage was a couple monkey turds on our tent.

We packed up our gear and headed off with our sights set on spending a night or two at Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. Check back soon for that trip report.

Chasing waterfalls in Lesotho's Sehlabathebe National Park

Kate and I spent Christmas with her family (the then future in-laws!) in December 2015. We enjoyed a week in Durban and planned to escape the chaos of the coast in summer and drive back to Joburg through Lesotho over 7 days for some peace and quiet in the mountains. 

We had both been to Lesotho before but our experience was limited to trips up and down Sani Pass. We were excited to explore the less touristy parts of the country. 

Day 1: Westville - Kokstad - Ramatsediso border post - Sehlabathebe National Park  (6 hour leisurely drive with stops and a border crossing) 

We packed our beloved Suzuki Jimny (affectionately called "Jolene") and made an early start from Westville. We headed down the N2 and turned up to Kokstad at Port Shepstone. After picking up some last minute supplies at a local Kokstad Spar we took the R52 in a north-westerly direction. We turned off the tar at Cedarville and headed off through farmland towards the Drakensberg. 

The roads were empty and we stopped in the foothills of the Berg for a quick lunch and to repack some of our gear that had become dislodged after hitting the dirt. Kate's mum had made us a tuna pie for lunch and we washed it down with ice cold cokes while double checking our maps.  

We wound our way up through the mountains on public roads - which were nothing more than dusty narrow farm tracks - to the Ramatsediso border post. The pass up to the border post is sadly not as challenging as it used to be. A number of the hairpin bends been tarred which removes a bit of the challenge but it was still good fun. The views are fantastic and the changing vegetation as you climb higher is great to watch. 

Just before we reached the top of the pass - and the border post itself - we came upon a packed Hilux ferrying people up to the top. Turning to Kate, I muttered a quick "I apologise in advance". I dropped to second gear and overtook the Hilux, getting a bit too close to the edge of the cliff for comfort. We got to the top of the pass and made it through immigration in a breeze.  

We knew we had arrived in Lesotho when the border gate opened and the tarred road became a rocky, eroded mess. I couldn’t stop smiling. We turned right and headed for the Sehlabathebe National Park. The road is easy and the view is spectacular.  

We passed small villages and drove through rolling green hills spotted with sheep. As we approached the park we stopped off to pick up some cold quarts of beer at a local bottle store, only to discover that they had run dry of Maluti. I guess it was December after all. We settled for Hansa instead and promised to return our empties.  

Beer mules at the local bottle store. 

We arrived at the park and were greeted by a rusted sign, a friendly guard and a grotesque collection of buildings, which resembled a housing estate in Midrand. The monstrosity has recently been developed by the World Bank.  

The guard’s English was broken and our broken Zulu didn’t prove helpful but we eventually signed in and were given some vague sounding directions on how to get to the campsite. We drove off a little confused but happy to be arriving and enjoying such stunning scenery.  

After a 5-minute drive we arrived at yet another Midrand-style housing development. This one completely deserted but for laundry hanging on a line. When we did eventually manage to find someone we were told we could camp on the rocky ground next to the new housing development.  

We checked Tracks4Africa and after a few minutes of fiddling we saw that we had to continue on the track over the mountain to get to the campsite. We drove over a stunning pass, with some loose gravels sections, to be greeted with the view of the King of Lesotho’s fly fishing lodge and a few intrepid over landers set-up in the distance. 

The campsite is surrounded by imposing mountains. There is a small stream and dam on the site. We set-up camp, built a make shift fire pit, got the new camping chairs out (a Christmas present from Kate's folks) and cracked two cold Hansa as we watched the sunset.  

Our very rustic camp. 

The campsite is in a wonderful position but the facilities are limited. There are no trees (it is Lesotho, after all!) so shade is tricky to find. We were first told that there were no toilets but after our arrival a fellow camper told us we could find a loo up by the old lodge. We trekked up – loo paper in hand – only come face-to-face with a man with a semi-automatic rifle. He told us there was no toilet and we scuttled off back to our tent.  

When we returned to the campsite we recounted the story to our neighbours. They laughed and told us not to worry about the loo guard. He was from the Lesotho army and was stationed there to patrol the parks border with South Africa. Apparently it is used to smuggle guns and drugs into and out of the country.  

Day 2: Exploring Sehlabathebe National Park 

We woke to a cool morning, with crisp mountain air and light rain. We popped a kettle on the gas stove and got the coffee going. After a cup and a bacon sandwich we were ready to head out and explore the park.  

I had planned a hike to what I thought was a nearby waterfall called Tsoelikanyane. Using GPS co-ordinates for the waterfall from the Tracks4Africa map, we set off down a valley as Kate repeatedly reminded me that it will be uphill on the way back.  

At the start of the hike the GPS seemed to be pointing us in the right direction, but after about an hour I began to worry that something didn’t seem quite right. I came very close to admitting that I might be a little bit lost. 

A few kilometres later, just as I was figuring out how to break the news to Kate, we saw a hopeful looking stream in the distance. As we approached we saw a group of Basotho galloping across the other side of the valley.  

We followed the stream until it ran off a cliff in front of us. We peered down to find an enormous pool below us. We scrambled down the wall of the falls, stripped off and jumped in. Who needs Sun City, Thailand, the French Rivera or Miami when you can get this. We had the ice cold, crystal clear pool all to ourselves. It was absolute paradise.  

Tsoelikanyane in Sehlabathebe National Park

After our swim we had a picnic of homemade Christmas cake, cheese, crackers and apples.  

We then hiked back the way we came ecstatic to have found such a hidden gem. With an hour break at the falls, the whole hike took a total of 5 hours. I really recommend making the effort and hiking to this spot. GPS co-ordinates are wrong on Tracks 4 Africa, but not that wrong. Enjoy the adventure, get (slightly) lost and find that waterfall.  

The next day we broke camp and headed off to Malelea Lodge via the Ramabanta Trading Post. Check back next week for the post!

Leaving Sehlabathebe on our way to the Ramabanta Trading Post