Makopong, a lonely quiet place - border post 16 of 72

Makopong is operating as a border post to Botswana since 1972. It boasts spankling new, modern buildings since 2010. All of this is hard to understand how it is justified as it is a very quite border post. The number of people crossing the border here is expressed in numbers per week, not per day.

We approached the border post from the Western side along the Molopo river. We passed through the Molopo Nature Reserve (part of North West province) before joining the  road from Vorstershoop. This is a bad gravel road. I do not think a standard sedan motor can travel on this road. My Toyota Hilux managed, but only with a lot of attention and  focus on the sandy, dusty gravel road. The 100km  to Bray, East of Makopong is not better either. Staff at the border post are complaining about the lack of  attention to the roads.

It is only the odd locals crossing the border here, plus a few optimistic tourists who want to join the tarred road on the Botswana side going to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

However, there are interesting characters working at the border post. We met Samuel who patented a new sporting code which will be launched early in 2014. He presented us with the patent journal plus a long description of the new sport that can be practised by all. We had to swore that it will remain a  secret until launch day ...