BY the time we attacked the bush again, we had added to our menagerie an Alsatian puppy, with feet three sizes too big for him.
He was absolute murder in the Land Rover, because he would never sit still, but this was the festive season and the kennels were full, so we had to take all three dogs with us.
We got everything possible packed up on the afternoon before our departure and sat on the patio, watching the sun go down. Corrie said we didn’t need to start out at the crack of dawn. He thought that five-thirty would be quite early enough.
We eventually got away at nine and realised, about 30km down the road, that, although we had put the water carriers on the roof, we had omitted to fill them with water. So we had to stop at Mopipi.
Mopipi was one of the incidental spin-offs of the diamond industry. Orapa needed a tremendous amount of water, for both industrial and domestic use.
The nearest river was the Botete, at the dusty little mud-hut settlement of Mopipi, 60km away and the Botete flowed for part of the year only. Water had to be stored and this was done by pumping out of the river and flooding a conveniently-situated salt pan which, quite unintentionally, became the centre of a thriving fishing industry.
Mopipi Village now boasted a school, a clinic and even a hotel. So we pulled in to Mopipi pump station, borrowed a hosepipe and drenched everything in sight.
Halfway through the village, Karen suddenly said: “Oh no.” When asked what was the matter, she said: “No woof” and we had to back-track to find Clumsy Pup, who had jumped out of the window.
We were a bit cramped in the Land Rover, with Karen jumping up and down, shouting ‘kud’ and ‘pingbok’ even when there were no animals to be seen, Clumsy Pup trying to bite Big Dog’s ears and Big Dog treading on Small Dog’s tail.
Katie the Landy seemed to be feeling the strain too. Her temperature rose to a 110 and it sounded as if she was trying to blow her radiator cap through her bonnet.
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