Zambia World Wide

The infrastructure

Dirt roads

In 1967 the only tarred roads in Botswana was in the towns of Lobatsi, Gaberones and Francistown. All the main roads were dirt roads. In many places the road was below the ground surface and when it rained the road became a river. It became a real quagmire and in many cases you would bypass these sections and travel next to the road where the ground was higher.

The roads were very seldom graded. The dirt roads were however often leveled by dragging a large branch of a thorn tree behind a tractor. This was quite effective but it had its drawbacks. A second person facing towards the rear of the tractor had to advise the driver to stop when he spotted a vehicle approaching from the rear. More than often you had to wait until the dust subsided before you could actually go pass the stationary tractor. The other drawback was that the pieces of the branch that broke off had become sharp. Riding over these sharpened pieces of the branch was a sure recipe for a puncture.

The road from Nata to Kasane or Kasane to Maun was nothing more than dirt tracks. Our transport in the early days of Botswana was Bedfords and with stretches of sand or turf getting bogged down was the order of the day. Before embarking on a journey between these towns you would ensure that you had two spare wheels, a spade, an axe, a pump, patches and solution, a 44 gallon drum filled with petrol and a second filled with water. The axe was a necessity especially near Kasane as the elephants would push trees over the track in an effort to prevent vehicles from entering in their area.

Having a mechanical knowledge when traveling on the above dirt tracks was a big advantage. A young Irishman by the name of Jerry Hammond soon found this out when he embarked on his first trip to Kasane. From the beginning his Irish luck had run out. Just outside Nata was a police post. Here the police would take down your particulars and you had to tell them what track you intended using to Kasane and your expected time of arrival at Kasane. Once you went through they would radio Kasane Police station with your particulars and which track you were using. If you did not report to Kasane Police within your expected time of arrival they would give you a certain amount of grace before they sent out a search party. Somewhere along the track the vehicle developed an airlock in the fuel line and Jerry and his companions had no clue on how to rectify it. He soon realized that they had insufficient food and water but this did not worry him too much as he knew the police would soon come looking for them. This was not to be as they had gone off on some other track. The police fortunately found them just in time as they had already drank the water from the radiator. To clear the airlock took less than ten minutes.