Jack's Camp

Riding quad bikes across the salt pans defines the dry-season experience. Jack's Camp occupies a palm grove at the edge of the Makgadikgadi, the floor of a super-lake that evaporated five millennia ago. The camp was established in the 1960s by Jack Bousfield, a safari pioneer who explored this corner of the Kalahari on crocodile-catching expeditions. His son Ralph refurbished the property in 1992 in the style of 1940s expedition camps. Nine canvas tents occupy 270 m² each—135 m² indoors, 135 m² on the deck—furnished with Persian rugs, campaign furniture, brass lamps, and hand-carved beds. Each tent has a private plunge pool, indoor and outdoor showers, and an overhead cooling system. A central mess tent holds a 36-seat dining table that served as an officer's mess in the 1820s, a Natural History Museum of fossils and artefacts collected from the pans, a pool table, and a library. A separate Persian tea tent serves afternoon treats, and a pool pavilion sits among the palms.

Guides lead walks with habituated meerkats at sunrise, tracking the animals as they forage. Game drives cross the one-million-acre private reserve in search of brown hyena, aardwolf, bat-eared fox, and black-maned Kalahari lion—eight thousand brown hyena remain worldwide, and the Makgadikgadi holds a working population. Horse rides thread through the surrounding desert scrub. Walks with San guides demonstrate traditional tracking and water-finding techniques. Between November and April roughly thirty thousand zebra and wildebeest migrate across the pans following seasonal rains; flamingos gather in shallow pools to breed. In the dry months the salt flats harden into a white crust and quad bikes cross the open expanse. Helicopter flights run over the pans, and a day trip visits a fallen baobab, one of the largest trees in Africa. Night drives depart after sunset.