The Drought is over!

Wednesday February 8th, we were on our way to the Lobatse estates to see some caves. We got a late start though after deciding to get a trailer to help fit all our gear and trying to load everything in between the thunder showers.

Mother Lode Grotto members go off to visit the caves of Lobatse Estates.

We're heading south of Gaborone about 45 miles

Here's some of the gps fixes I made

The roads were a little wet

Rough map of lobatse estates

More detailed map of gps points

The road got even wetter!

weaver bird and nest

Camp- our home for the week. Just below Lobatse cave 1.

It was nearly closing time for the estate when we arrived at the gate but they were expecting us so we had no problem at the gate. Getting to the estate office proved to be a challenge though as there was a newly flooded river across the road. My parent’s car would never make it across but their landrover with Bill at the wheel had no problem crossing. A couple of trips saw us all across the river and checking in at the office. We were shown the location of Lobatse cave #1 which was about 4 kilometers from the office on a dirt track. After agreeing to meet my parents back across the river on Sunday morning we headed out to the area near the cave. As it was getting dark rapidly we all set about setting up tents and no sooner had we finished then it began to rain again. We ate huddled in a large tent, and then went to bed. It proceeded to storm throughout most of the night with booming thunder waking us occasionally. The storm was amazing and I could not have imagined camping in a more spectacular storm. The flash and the boom were separated by less than a second, and it seemed to go on all night. Several times I wondered if the lightning had actually hit one of our tents it seemed so close. This continued till after 4 in the morning making for very little rest for any of us.