When we first visited this national park in southern Namibia more than 30 years ago, it was still called the Gemsbok-Kalahari National Park. Today it’s called the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. It stretches across almost 40,000 square kilometres across South Africa and Botswana and encompasses a large part of the Kalahari.

After our journey through southern Namibia along the Orange River, this park was more or less on our way back to Windhoek. We decided to take a wide detour east to visit this park. We’ve had thunderstorms every evening for the past three days, and they were with us again today. We experienced a heavy thunderstorm on March 8, 2025, when we spent the night on a sheep farm. There, we heard the rain drumming incessantly on the tin roof.

The next morning, we crossed the border into South Africa at Rietfontein and drove to Twee Rivieren, located at the southern entrance to this park which is very busy – without a reservation, nothing goes. We had one, but it wasn’t valid until the following day. However, we were lucky and managed to find an unoccupied campsite in Nossob, located 160 kilometres north of Twee Rivieren. When we set off, the sky was already covered with thick, black storm clouds. We’d been driving for half an hour when the floodgates opened. It began to rain in torrents and the windshield wipers struggled to clear the water.

For the next three hours, we drove in a tremendous thunderstorm. Often, it felt more like we were driving a motorboat than a car. The track was almost half a meter under water as we plowed through it. It was a drive we’ll never forget. Nossob Camp was largely submerged; and the bungalows looked like islands in the sea…

PS: If you want to know more about Kgalagadi National Park, read here.