Traversing the great expanse of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana may not be as challenging as you may have been lead to believe − if you plan and prepare carefully (and understand the booking procedure), writes Owen Middleton.

You’ve overstayed your welcome by a day, the Botswana Parks Board official insists.

“That’s impossible!” we protest in unison, blaming an entrance gate official for getting the booking wrong. On our way home, we’re in no mood for yet another booking saga.

Whether it is the unshaven, dirty rabble smelling of a week’s braais in front of him, or the experience of many a tourist becoming unhinged in the Kalahari desert, he pronounces, “It’s your lucky day” and sends us on our way − with that understanding look that comes with the territory.

This encounter punctuates the end of our week traversing the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) − from the Khutse Game Reserve in the south to Piper Pans in the north and many other places made famous by Mark and Delia Owens in their book Cry of the Kalahari. I had been dreaming of doing the south-north line through the reserve since I was 17, after reading about the Owens’ incredible wildlife experiences and seeing the images of great open spaces. The massive, 52 000 km2 reserve in central Botswana is widely regarded as the last expanse of wilderness left south of the Zambezi.

However, you would be forgiven for thinking that, being in the Kalahari, the reserve comprises red sand dunes and endless plains devoid of trees − anything but. Other than the open pans and ancient riverbeds spread out at regular intervals through the CKGR, most of the land is thick Kalahari bushveld.

Three, two, one …

We had planned to travel from Khutse to Xade (one of the main CKGR entrances) and overnight at Piper Pans. Thereafter we would head further north to the hotspots of the Deception Pan area where we would explore the Sunday’s Pan, Leopard Pan and Passarge Valley.

Khutse (the small box tagged onto the south of the big box of the CKGR), and the CKGR are joined with geometrical precision. The mapmaker obviously thought it was cool to just draw lines at right angles, but on the ground it’s an arduous, more than 260 km-long trek from Khutse to Xade – more or less in the centre of the western border of the reserve – and another 80 km to Piper Pans.

Unbeknown to us, however, someone at the Botswana Parks Board booking office believed it was possible to get from Khutse camp to Deception Pan in a day – a distance of some 400 km on sandy tracks − and had made our booking accordingly.

Unaware of this, our group of seven people in three Land Rovers started our trek in Khutse on a different schedule at the end of April this year.

Myself and partner Tamaryn were driving a Defender TDI with Tamaryn’s folks, Dave and Glenda Jupp, in a rented Defender TD5, and an immaculate ’03 Disco was filled with the Milner family of Paddy, Annette and teenager Derek.

In essence, travelling between Khutse and Xade is like riding a rodeo bull for hours on end. However, after hearing 25km-in-5-hours horror stories about this road, it was a great surprise to be cruising in high range third and fourth gear without incident practically the entire journey.

We covered the 263 km from Khutse camp 15 to Xade in 12 hours, averaging 37 km/h on very firm tracks, and taking breaks totalling 3 hours. Only 50 km of this section was in thick-ish sand, but nothing to spook the cars into low range.

We spent the first evening at the Xaxa Waterhole camp, a 15 km diversion off the main track between Khutse and Piper Pans, watching flights of doves flocking in for their evening drink before settling down to roost. Sparrow hawks and goshawks dived out of the shadows, sending the doves scurrying for cover.

We will remember the next morning for the thrill of seeing our first Kalahari lions of the trip − with cubs. The pride got to within 100 m of the camp − on the far side of the water hole, fortunately − before we saw them.

But short of a steenbok here and a gemsbok there, we saw precious little else between Khutse and Piper Pans. “Wouldn’t rush back to do that in a hurry,” Dave would later sum up the unanimous sentiment.

The lack of game and birdlife between Khutse and the Piper Pans all but changes when you finally crest the last sandy rise through thick Kalahari scrub and gaze down on the spectacular open plains of Piper Pans.

Along with Sunday’s Pan and Deception Pan, this most southern of the northern cluster of famous pans and ancient river valleys, is by far the most popular place in the reserve.

It is remarkable how the game concentrates around the pans − you so much as put a tyre on the edge of a pan and there is something to see. Herds of wildebeest, gemsbok and springbok were the most prevalent. Besides the bird life that also increases tenfold, making the flat expanse come alive, we caught sight of great herds of giraffe.