The Central Kalahari Game reserve is where you go for the ‘great escape’, and the longer you spend here the less you will like returning. This is big sky country at its most remote, with every chance that you may not bump into another soul. And the experiences that you have here are unique – seeing black-maned lions, barking geckos, pronking springboks and blood red sunsets that match the colour of the shallow dunes. The Central Kalahari Game reserve, originally proclaimed to protect the traditional hunting rights of the Bushmen, covers almost 53 000 square kilometers of semi arid grassland, sparse acacia woodland and dry fossil river beds. Add the Khutse Game Reserve which shares a boundary to the south, and you have one of the largest protected areas anywhere on the planet pretty much to yourself.

Access is off the Nata-Maun road along the Makalamabedi cutline taking you just over four hours from Maun. Alternatively entry points at Rakops and through Khutse. Both the Central Kalahari and Khutse have a number of designated campsites, most of which have no facilities and don’t bank on water being available either. Another option is to use the Deception Valley Lodge as your base. The lodge is situated just outside the reserve’s northern boundary and access to is also along the cutline. It was Mark and Delia Owens who brought Deception to the attention of the world with tales of their life and work in the book Cry of the Kalahari.

Because of the arid conditions, game in these regions is usually scattered, but there are times during the summer months when local migrations take place and, during the early winter period, you may find animals concentrating around the remaining waterholes. Otherwise ask wildlife officials at the entry gates about which pans are being artificially pumped, and head for those. World renowned for their majestic black-maned lions, these parks also offer reasonable numbers of oryx, springbok, eland red-hartebeest and ostrich. Cheetah, giraffe, wildebeest, brown hyena and many of the smaller species can also be seen, but less regularly.

The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is an endless sea of shimmering pans and golden grasslands stretching from one horizon to the other. Across this sea of singing grass and sand, mopane, camelthorn, Kalahari apple and silver cluster-leaf trees stand in grand isolation. It is also one of the world’s most uninhabited regions, with less than 1 000 people living there – half of whom are San.

Four fossil rivers flow through the reserve, among them the dusty carriage-way of a watercourse that meandered through the northern Kalahari 10 000 years ago, and which today is known as Deception Valley – a prime game watching and camping area.