Arnoud Quanjer Wildlife Photography

A camping spot in the CKGR consists of some trees that give you some shade and if you're lucky a long drop toilet and a bucket shower. All the campsites have trees that will give you the necessary shade, but not all of them have the long drop toilet and bucket shower. A bucket shower sounds nice, but of course you have to bring your own water. In the rainy season make sure that the tap of the bucket shower is closed, that way if it rains you will catch some water in the bucket and you can use that to wash or shower. Camping spots in the CKGR are for you alone, there will not be other campers on the same campsite. In the popular area of Deception Valley and Sunday Pan the campsites are a couple of hundred meters apart and in the remoter areas they are many kilometers apart. All the campsites are situated in or very near to a pan or valley. The various locations for campsites are described below.

At the time of writing this article the bookings for the Central Kalahari Game Reserve are being handled by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP). This will most probably change in the near future though as DWNP is outsourcing the management of campgrounds. Check this article for more information.

Passarge Valley

Passarge valley is located in the North of the CKGR. It is a very long and attractive valley that offers three campsites along the valley. General game is good in the valley and there seem to be a fair amount of predators around. The only drawback of this valley is that it's fairly wide and the road runs through the middle of the valley. In some places this means that there's not a lot to see as most of the wildlife was located near the edges of the valley. The campsite I stayed in (Kukama) was by far the most beautiful of all the campsites I stayed at

Tau Pan

This is a beautiful pan with clumps of Acacia trees spread around the pan. The campsite has maybe the best view of all the campsites I've seen in the CKGR. When I was at Tau Pan there were some springbok in the pan, but otherwise it was fairly quiet there. Judging by tracks next to the road this can be a hard place to drive through in the rainy season. In one place you could clearly see the imprint of a 4x4 that had gotten horribly stuck next to the road.

Piper's Pan

When I arrived at Piper's pan I expected my three stay there to be a bit of a waste. There wasn't an animal to be seen anywhere in the pans. The pans looked very attractive with its brown golden grass waving in the wind, but animals were nowhere to be seen. In the end Piper's pan was one of the most productive areas in the CKGR during my stay. On the first morning after I arrived a pride of lions killed an Oryx in one of the pans and I saw these lions on numerous occasions during my stay at Piper's Pan. There was also a jackal den with pups verey close to the road in one of the pans. The pups gave me hours of entertainment early in the morning and late in the afternoon. The pump at Piper's pan isn't working, and by the looks of it it hasn't worked in a long time, so finding wildlife in the dry season might be tricky.

Deception Valley

This valley gained instant world wide fame when Mark and Delia Owens published their book titled 'Cry Of The Kalahari'. For seven years they lived in a remote camp near the path of an ancient riverbed in Deception Valley. Their insights into the behavior and range lions, cheetahs, wildebeests and hyenas were invaluable to scientific discovery and led to lasting conservation efforts. Deception Pan is a wonderful pan which produced some very good predator sightings (lion and cheetah). General game was very good in Deception Pan, there were large groups of springbok and oryx in the pan and the birdlife was prolific. I even got some good ground level pictures of ground squirrels near the old Ownens campsite. Adjacent to the valley is Deception Pan. It's worth doing a small detour into the pan as there is often game to be found in the pan.

Sunday and Leopard Pan

These pans are known for their lion activity. For some reason lions really like this area. During my stay I saw lions on three occasions in these pans. The campsites at Sunday Pan are located on a hill overlooking the pan, the view of the pan is stunning. Like the pump at Piper's Pan the pump at Sunday Pan wasn't working in 2006 and hadn't been working in a long time by the looks of it.