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"Bort er bra hjemme er best"

A famous norwegian quote away is good but home is best.

At last we are home, we waited 50 minutes from when the plane landed until the luggage arrived,  not bad when 4 international flights arrive at once.

Good to be home, now to colect the last family member.

Sleep whats that ????

The good thing is, that we have landed at Schipol airport Amsterdam, 35minutes early. The bad thing was a plane change, and our seats backed onto a toilet, which was in constant use during the night.

So we didnt get to sleep much the last night.

We are eating a "breakfast" for the kids at BurgerKing, at least they have coffee :-)

The last stage of the journey home starts in 1 hour, so in a couple hours we are home :-)

Glen

Only a couple of hours left :-(

We have spent the day at Sandton, looking at the Nelson Mandela square and Sandton towers shopping centre.

Last night we went to "Tribes" a bush themed restaurant, checking the menu and pictures on the net it looked good.

We arrive at "Emperors place" where the Restaurant was located to find a mini Las Vegas complex.

Dinner was OK, I suspect the Kudu steak I ordered had said moo before as it tasted like beef to me, but never having Kudu before I´m not sure.

Tired we returned to the city lodge where we had a good nights rest, unfortunately the cleaning lady knocked on the door at 08:00 and wondered what time we were leaving, in all my travels, I have never experienced that.

We checked in early at the airport and I´m glad I did as they had no record of my extra prepaid baggage, I was happy to have a PDF of the receipt, so we got it sorted it the end but it took time.

We are all wondering around the departure hall waiting for 22:30 so we can start the boarding of the aircraft so we can start the long journey to Schipol.

Bergen here we come.

 

Time to start heading home.

This is our last day in South Africa, its a sad day, the trip is over, but the experience has been unbelievable. So many sites sounds, faces and names....

We returned knirken to Bushlore yesterday, I was sorry to see him go, a good friend, he had over 140´000 on the speedo, and nearly 4000km of those were ours.

He had got us out of a few toughspots, through deepwater, and some very very deep sand. I never filled a drop of oil or water in 3 weeks, some minor problems like a loose steering box, battery terminals jumping off, but almost perfect.

Bushlore have over 120 vehicles so they have many on the road. Some niggles like gas bottles with warn out threads and lights not working, but all in all not a bad service.

Would I do this trip again, absolutly, but I would allow more time, less driving, we had a mad dash to get to Kasane in Northern Botswana, and it wasnt before 6 days into the trip that we had time to relax.

We had a good day on Thursday at Maropeng  and the Sterkfontein caves.

We met ZS6HKR - Henry and his wife Cheryl for dinner at Glenburn lodge, we all had a good night.

We were up early for a suprise hot air balloon trip. (borrowed picture, but I will post my own later).

This was amazing, slowly moving across the countryside, we saw Rhino, giraffe and zebra on the trip.

Today we take a trip to Nelson Mandela square and check out Sandton. We were recomended not to visit Downtown Jburg.

Glen

Back in SA

We are back in South Africa, at the Glenburn lodge site, a day earlier then planned.

We felt the road to Kubu Island would be hard on everyone after the tough road to the Nxai pan.

We decided to head south and crossed the border last night at Stockport border post.

The battery problem is back on the Land Rover and sometimes the battery pole jumps off, I have fixed it bush style, with an axe. :-)

We stayed at a hotel in the middle of no where last night with a no nonsense gun toting landlady.

We pushed on early today and got through the traffic in Pretoria and made the hotel in time for lunch.

All is well.

Glen

Lazy days...

Well a late start and a full english breakfast, how good live is in the hotel, comfortable beds, shower and no dust / sand.

We had a late dinner, that will say it took a very long time to get food almost 2 hours, I think the rest of the guest must have thought we hadn't eaten dinner in a month, but we were hungry after a long day on the road.

Today we went to Maun to sort things out.

We have had the steering box tightened, refilled gas, although we had to buy a new cylinder as the threads on one were totally warn out.

We have filled diesel and picked up spares for the cookers and spare mantles.

We have bought alot of dry food for the last few days in the bush.

We are back at the lodge relaxing recharging our batteries and souvenir hunting.

Life is good in Botswana :-) 
 

Maun

We made to Maun, a day early and are roughing it at the Thamalakene river lodge :-)

Its been a fantastic trip so far, we have seen many game and experienced elephants right next to the rover.

The Land Rover has been renamed to kirnken he groans and creaks alot.

Will write more tomorrow.

Some pictures amongst the 160+ GB...