August 5th

Arriving in Johannesburg, I can see that the airport has changed since I last landed there in 1997. Going through immigration is a non event and now come the time to meet my friend Paolo whom will be there to meet us as well as the Bushlore driver.











Sure enough Paolo was there as was the Bushlore driver. It was a little emotional as it had been so long since we had seen one other. His wife was there too and they got to meet Charles and Victoria. We had a little chat in the arrival hall and decided that we would make sure to spend some more time together on our departure day, as it was already late and we still had to pick up our car in Randburg and then drive to Gabs.





In Randburg at Boshlore depot we were introduced to our car, once the demo of how the tents and equipment works and all the paperwork completed we were ready to go.





Johan and Antonia, my sister, met us there as they happened to be in Johannesburg and we went for lunch together. The food was great and we had forgoten of how good the meat was in that part of the world.









Off we go, on our way to Gabs 450km to drive, a little getting use to the car but it feels good and quite comfortable. Got confused around Hartbeestpoortdam area as the GPS wanted us to take a different route than the one we wanted to take. Again got confused around in Zeerust as the road to Botswana was not properly indicated, it was allready dark and we might have missed the sign. Night falls early and fast at this time of the year and that confused us, coming from the European summer it is quite a change. We got to Tlokweng, the Botswana border, at around 7:30 pm and it took us an hour and a half to go through both borders. We had forgotten how it all works in Africa and how simple it is to drive across borders here in Europe.



Finaly got to our friend in Gabs at around 9:30 pm for a great reunion as we had not seen them for 15 years.


Went to bed for a well deserved night sleep.