Hallo,
bis zum September vergeht ja noch einige Zeit. Trotzdem habe ich gerade einen aktuellen Straßenbericht aus dem KTP entdeckt.
Roads in the park
All the roads in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park are either sand or gravel roads. The condition of these roads varies between excellent and abysmal. Due to speeding, back wheels of 2x4 cars skidding and too high tyre pressure the roads can become very corrugated. When the road gets too corrugated it is graded making it a smooth flat surface again. Due to the grading the roads can become very 'U' shaped. The Nossob road from Twee Rivieren to Nossob in some places is extremely 'U' shaped making game viewing from a normal sedan car impossible. The road running to Mata Mata from Twee Rivieren does not suffer from this phenomenon but it can be very corrugated. The roads through the dunes linking the Nossob and Aoab riverbeds can also be very corrugated and in some points they suffer from damage done by whistling rats so be careful when you drive that road.
All the roads in the park are gravel roads and they can be tricky if you drive too fast. It's remarkebly easy to roll your vehicle on one of these roads so please don't speed. The maximum speed in the Kgalagadi is 50km/h for tourists and 70km/h for staff.
Update January 2008
Most roads in the park are badly corrugated at the moment. Going to the park in a 2x4 is not advisable. I drove around in a Toyota Corolla Verso and lost two hubcabs, my handbrake stopped functioning and a screw fell out of my dashboard due to the violent vibrations caused bij the corrugation. The Verso suspension does not really work very well on badly corrugated roads making the drive a hard one. This is even so with the tires deflated to 1.6 bar. I found an abandoned Chevrolet at Dikbaardskolk with a broken rear suspension, I guess that the suspension broke because of the extreme corrugation. 4x4 drivers were also complaining about the corrugation and many people had experienced damage to vehicles due to the bad roads. Losing license plates due to the vibrations caused by the corrugation was a fairly common problem, I took off my plates as a precaution.
Schöne Grüße
Jürgen