FROM KASANE TO MAUN VIA KHWAI AND SAVUTI

Exploring Chobe and Moremi game reserves by car

The adventurous route from Kasane via Savuti and Khwai to Maun

Day 1: Kasane to Kachikau

Since so many want to travel this route and so many locals in Botswana living along this route recommend that those who don’t know much about anything NOT do it, we thought we’d give it a go ourselves.

Side note: we aren’t crazy YOLO adventurers who just jump into the unknown at whatever costs.. We are a team of Namibians who have a lot of experience in offroad driving and have extensive knowledge about the Hilux 4×4 automatic and its strengths and weaknesses. So this was a well-prepared, low-risk exploratory trip, not a Christopher Columbus, knife between our teeth, dive into the utter unknown as we sail across the world and find out if its flat or not 😉

Sorry, veering off there..where was I..

Our kick-off in Kasane

We drove from Katima Mulilo to Kasane. Well not really, we were driven. Since we didn’t want to spend too much time on tar roads we already know, we took the airplane from Windhoek Eros Airport to Katima Mulilo (currently going 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Sunday). A relaxed 1 hour flight.

After landing in Katima Mulilo, Namibia, we had a lovely time in Katima Mulilo. Read about that here.

So a transfer service (we opted for Caprivi Adventures Shuttle services because they were recommend by a friend, easy to book online, seemed legit and turned out to be fantastic!) took us from Katima Mulilo, Namibia to Kasane, Botswana.

Since we had a shuttle driver who obviously knows the routine, plus we have Namibian passports and there were only a couple of cars at the border with us at the time, the border crossing from Namibia to Botswana was a breeze and we were through it in under 1 hour.

The first stretch of road from Kasane towards Savuti

Please note that we were travelling in May 2024, the southern hemisphere’s winter and absolute dry season. The road conditions change drastically during the rainy season.

We picked up our rental car in Kasane, Botswana and started our journey. But as luck will have it, we got a punctured tyred and had to drive to Kazungula first to have our tyre fixed. I’m so glad we decided to have the tyre checked out before pushing on..We were running late as it was and at first wanted to push onwards to our days destination at Thobolos Bush camp, thinking that maybe it’s not a slow puncture but that maybe the tyre was just handed to us with too little air.. Luckily we decided to take the time and have the tyre checked out by a pro. Turns out we had hit a nail somewhere in Kasane. Thanks so much to David and his team, they had us back on the road in now time.

But as we only had 1 hour of sunlight left to get from Kazungula to Thobolo Bush lodge (a ca. 110km drive through the national park), we knew it was going to be a tight fit.

1st learning to take home dear readers: ALWAYS add ca. 2 hours buffer to your planned daily route for unexpected time-eaters like flat tyres or epic views which you need to stop for and take 1000 pictures of.. (no matter how sure you are of your time schedule and how well planned your route seems).

So we left Kazungula much later than planned, but were very chilled because the road to Thobolo’s Bush Lodge was said to be almost all tarred except for the last 10km which are “good dirt road” to quote numerous (also local) sources.

Turns out the last 10km is soft red sand (maybe its harder during the rainy season?!) In our case the sun had already sunk so the sand was relatively cool – upside for us (the hotter the sand, the looser and softer it becomes and the more you have to focus not to get your car stuck).

Spoiler alert: we did not get stuck in the first 10 kilometers sand of our short trip through Botswana’s north-east. That would’ve been rather pathetic 😉 But we were honestly unpleasantly surprised about the state of the road and could imagine how quite a few people get themselves stuck there – and judging by the amusing signs along the road as well as branches and dug out dips in the tracks, quite a few people have gotten themselves stuck on those first or last (depending on where you started) couple of kilometers between Thobolo and Kachikau.

We finally reached the gate of our lodge. After a nervous game of paper-scissors-rock to determine who has to open the gate to the fenced-in yard in the pitch black (because yes, we ran out of daylight and the last meters driving in the dark really sucked) amidst a national park where wildlife like Buffalo or lions roam around freely, we were thankful to reach our accommodation for the night and enjoy a soothing glass of beer and wine at the water hole.. enjoying the wildlife from the safe distance of the bar area which has a lovely platform overlooking the waterhole.

Day 2: Kachikau to Khwai via Savuti

After a good night’s rest and a good cup of coffee, we started off towards Savuti.

The road continues to be very sandy and rutted and you need to be sure to get through the occasional dips with enough momentum (and not at uncontrolled speed dear rooky who we came across on our way..). But we had great fun with our Hilux automatic who cruised through the sand quite effortlessly. Although I must say I kept it in tip-tronic: in stretches of thick sand where you need that extra bit of momentum to push through I kept the automatic in 2nd or 3rd gear and at roughly 2000-2500 RPM. Usually the newer automatics change gears much quicker/at lower revs but in 4th or 5th gear at 1000-1500 RPM you loose momentum too quickly and get stuck in the sand. While on long, flat stretches where the sand was thick but the road was good and we could drive a bit faster (ca. 40-60kmh) I manually pushed the automatic into 5th and 6th gear to ensure the higher gears get lubrication. The automatic gearbox doesn’t appreciate driving in the low gears for the whole day in the scorching heat and I knew we still had the whole day to go. So do keep that in mind, take car of your gearbox, whether manual or automatic..

Be careful not to miss the turn off to the left towards Ghoha North Gate. Because of the way it looked on the map we were expecting a T-junction. So while we were enjoying a bit of better sand road, chatting away and fascinated by the thick Mopane forest, we suddenly saw a sign and junction zip past us.
Note to first-time 4×4 drivers: Don’t be afraid to stop or make a U-turn in thicker sand. Just choose the spot for it wisely! 😉 If you need to stop (and obviously have meters left to go to be picky about the spot), go for a relatively flat area where the tracks are most shallow (no high sand walls). We had gone past the sign quite a bit – as we wondered whether that was a turnoff we should’ve taken or not – so reversing wasn’t an option. We carefully turned around and made the turn off towards Ghoha North Gate.

The road towards Ghoha North Gate took what felt like forever. The Mopane forest was beautiful during May with its autumn-coloured foilage. But other than Mopane trees we didn’t see much. Oh yes, lot’s of bumpy, sandy road! Makes for very unpleasant driving. The sand tracks are full of either corrugated iron, or worse, ca. 20cm high horizontal sand ridges accorss the tracks (probably caused by wrong driving and broken shocks). So slow down, otherwise everybody and everything in the car just bounces around. And better be gentle with your vehicle’s shocks, ball-joints etc. Because good luck if you break one of those out there!