Day 11-12: Jack’s Pan to Peach Pan

The morning was cold again. Jaco was the first one to risk going outside. He put the kettle on and served tea and rusks in bed for Hugo and Caro. We opened the back window of the tent and had a glorious view over the pan. We saw some bat-eared fox and the usual Springbok and Oryx.

We slowly set up camp keeping a hopeful eye out for lions, but still nothing. Eventually at 10:00 we set off again going to the North edge of the pan to look for the Meerkat colony we read about. We got to see 3 or 4 very cute Meerkat but not together.

Back at the cutline we turned South and then took a right at the East West cutline above Mabuasehube. The cutline goes West for 20km before turning North West. We stayed on the cutline driving perfectly straight for another 100km at 50-70km/h. To pass the time we had an hilarious two hours of playing 30 seconds with Caro being very creative in explaining the words.

After about 100km we turned right onto the small two spoor track leading to peach pan. The track is signposted with a notice board of the fees payable at Zutswa.

The track is only 10km, but it took us another 30 minutes as it had thousands of sharp turns around every Bush. Caro almost got sea sick from Hugo pretending to be a Dakar driver and taking the turns too fast for her stomach to handle.

We got to the campsite, with yet another view over another pan, at 13:00. We decided to make a beer bread for lunch and then ended up keeping the fire going until 22:00. The bread came out delicious.

The idea for camping at Peach Pan and Jack’s Pan came from a trip report of Rod and Pam. Using their advice Hugo also packed in an old toothbrush attached to a long pole to clean the radiator. Despite having a seed net on, the radiator got covered in small seeds that somehow still got through.

For dinner we braai’d tjops that we bought in Tshabong and it too tasted much better than expected.

We perhaps got a bit too casual sitting around the campfire at night, but still no sight or sound of any lions. Jaco even put up his own paper-thin tent again. We’ll now probably have to wait until CKGR to spot any lions.

The next morning Hugo and Caro woke with the sounds of Jaco digging open the firepit and starting the fire again for morning tea. Hugo stayed in the tent to finish his book while Caro and Jaco sat around the fire and then we finally heard it: The grunt of lions. After some initial excitement and looking around the sounds stopped, and we still couldn’t see them. We decided to stay another night – after Jaco packed up his tent.

For the rest of the day we just lazed around and built contraptions to provide some shade. Around lunch we decided to bake another bread. But this time a ‘normal’ one with yeast. Jaco surprised us with his kneading skills. Without making a new fire we just buried the black pot in the fire pit. After only twenty minutes we started smelling the bread. Caro opened the bread and it was done. Perfect golden-brown outside and baked all the way through.

We had a few slices and then went back to lazing around. For dinner we braai’d the second steak and made braaibroodjies with thick slices of our potbrood. We also opened a Werda chakalaka flavoured beetroot salad.

Hugo and Jaco again chatted around the fire until 23:00.