Day 18: Xade Gate Camp

As usual the Minnaars had a fitful sleep waking up numerous times from all kinds of sounds. At 04:00 we woke from the cold and had to open our sleeping bag. When we went to bed we didn’t even want to lie under a bedsheet.

Jaco as usual slept peacefully unaware of any sounds or coldness. He got up first again and made coffee in bed for the Minnaars.

We set up camp and bundu bashed back to the road by 08:00. We then deflated the tyres to 1.5 bar again as the next few days we’ll mostly be driving on sand again.

The bad sand track with the seesawing effect continued and we couldn’t go faster than 20km/h. The Xade gate is about 20km inside the CKGR boundary as demarcated by die cutline.

5km before reaching the entrance gate we got to a waterhole that had plenty of elephants. Just as we arrived most started walking away. We turned off the ignition and watched three elephants gulping trunk-fulls of water. In the foreground there were an aasvoël and jogging between the elephant were two jackals. Later Kudu, Oryx and Ostriches were seen coming closer to the water.

We left to check-in at the reception and then went to the Xade 02 Campsite 9km to the East of the gate. The road ‘inside’ the gate was just as soft and bumpy as before, so we decided to just set up camp and not go for any game drives.

The campsite has no facilities and one can see quite far. As with other campsites with no facilities there were some toilet paper flying around.

We’ve ranted about the toilet paper issue before, but one cannot really complain without doing something about it. Hugo and Caro thus went on a toilet paper pickup spree. The things we found really boggles the mind. It seems like most people tried to bury the toilet paper albeit only 2 cm deep, but as can be expected critters comes and dig everything out again. Even burying it 20cm deep won’t hide it from critters.

The amount of toilet paper people use is also insane. Like 20 sheets for presumably just a number 1 as there is no marks on it. Some people try to burn it, but not even 5% of the sheet is burnt.

And people who use serviettes and wet wipes.

Who are these nature loving people (because who else goes into Wildlife parks) that have absolutely no common sense and regard for nature? Our fear is that it is probably everyday ‘respectable’ people like our doctors and teachers and CEOs.

South Africa has an unhealthy obsession with toilet paper which is super inefficient as it rarely really cleans anything instead of just smearing things around. In most of Europe and the East (we haven’t been to the West) people use bidets or water buckets and almost no toilet paper. Especially in the wild where you’re not going to shower that often it is so much more hygienic to just clean with water in the first place.

If you absolutely must use toilet paper just bring it back with you. Burn it in the evening fire or take a special sealable container on your trip for this purpose. If we can pick up your used paper and burn in on our fire where we braai our steak (and survive it) so can you.

Ok rant over.

Besides picking up toilet paper we lazed around and read. For lunch we boiled some eggs and then for dinner we braai’d a steak that we bought at Spar in Ghanzi. The steak was super cheap (compared to South Africa) and tasted amazing.