by Jo Taylor
Good morning! Well it probably will not be morning by the time this actually goes live on the blog. You see, there is barely any network connection here, so I am not even going to attempt to HotSpot my phone to get this online right now. Ryno and I are currently at a campsite in the Karoo about 10-15 km away from Beaufort West called X-Ventures. It is a cute little place and Ryno absolutely adores it because there are tons of dogs running around to play with and loads of waterholes and pools he can swim in. It really is the perfect stop for us since he really has the chance to stretch his legs. Although he has completely abandoned me to go play with all the other dogs. Hehe, I guess 10 hours of my singing concerts was too much for him.
There are, however, the biggest abundance of mozzies here! Just this morning, I swear I have klaaped at least 30 while they were biting me. Mozzies absolutely LOVE me for some reason. Trust me, I have looked up every reason I can online and I gots zero clues why they like me so much. When I was in Malawi just a week plus ago I had over 79 bites at one time (Andrew and I counted)! Do mosquitos love you as well or are you one of the lucky ones that they seem to leave alone?
Yesterday, we did about 10 hours of driving and about 900km. It looks like Dirkie (my Toyota Land Cruiser) is getting about 13.8 liters per 100 km. Which is something I need to know because I am hoping for some big overland trip this year and need to plan out my fuel stops and how much extra fuel I need to carry in Jerry cans.
The Karoo is endless and just so vast in every way – I LOVE it. It is such an incredibly harsh landscape. There are hardly any trees or bushes, just short dry grasses and shrubs. And it seems as if they are always in endless drought. It is amazing to me that anything can survive here. My friend, Michelle, who has done extensive camera trapping and small mammal trapping across the Karoo for her PhD (follower in on Instagram – @karoolady17) told that back in the Voortrekker days, there used to be so many springbok that when they migrated (which apparently used to be one of the biggest migrations before men put up fences, farms and killed out most of the springbok), it would take an entire day for the herd to pass by a single point. I need to look up more on where it ranks as far as land mammal migrations go, but from the tip of my memory (and this could be completely wrong), I want to say that it rivaled the Great Migration of bison in Kenya/Tanzania.
I have seen some cool birdlife during my drive so far along with farmed herds of springbok, sheep and even a big herd of Watusi cattle!! Ryno and I got a little lost and GPS had us turn a bit early trying to find the campsite yesterday evening, but the sweetest couple ever stopped to help us out and invited us to stop by the nearby airport this morning to say hi and learn about what they do there. I really think we should take them up on that!
If you have been following my Instagram, I have been trying to post more in my stories about the trip, so I hope that you have been enjoying it so far. There is a lot of videos of me just rambling and then photos of Ryno sleeping through the whole things and that is about it.
Well, I think we are going to go ahead and pick up camp and start getting things ready to hit the road again. We have about 6 more hours worth of driving and then we will be in Cape Town!
adventureiswild.com 
Jo,
Your killing me with your blog. You and Ryno on such a cool trek across southern Afria to the Cape..Wonderful pictures and my two favorites are Ryno cavorting is a small lake and surfside at the Cape
You are a free spirit who apparently can go wherever you need to . I envy you.!!