Dispatch 32 - Mud floods and soccer

The school children sing and chant, we're at the soccer field at Nata having a Boundless Soccer Challenge day, a build-up to 2010, a game for nature, culture and community. More than 20 mud splattered Land Rovers line the field, volunteers who've driven up from South Africa to be part of the expedition for a few days. They'd had an incredibly tough time of it, winching, pushing, pulling and wading their Landies from Lekubu Island in the South in an attempt to follow the track that heads North between Ntwetwe and Sowa Pans. Normally the pans would be bone dry at this time of year, now it was flooded by the highest winter rainfall in over 80 years. They hadn't slept for 24 hours, backs were stiff and fingers were torn, but all agreed that getting the two expeditions to meet made it one of the greatest 4x4 adventures of the year. Barefoot soccer in the bush, there's a Man-of-the-Match and a winning trophy. After the expedition the best Man-of-the-Match youngster will get the opportunity to attend a World Cup game - it's proving great fun and you'd be amazed at the soccer talent in these deep rural areas. The volunteers help us to distribute blankets to needy orphans, the Kalahari nights are cold. We wave goodbye to our mud-covered friends, they head East and we continue West to Planet Baobab, a funky place with great food, a jolly pub decorated with old black and white photographs from Drum Magazine, a welcoming pool, themed Tswana village accommodation and wide canvas hammocks slung from the spreading branches of a giant baobab. It's a great place to unwind and explore the Pans. But there's still a few hours of light left as we race the Landies along a narrow track to the shoreline of the completely flooded Ntwetwe Pan. With minutes to spare we get a fire going and set up our camp chairs to watch the yellow red sunset. It's unbelievable, the memories come flooding back from years ago when we'd circumnavigated these great pans sailing with the wind in three-wheeled land-yachts and wearing goggles to avoid the dust. Now it's just water, even the grass islands are covered. "It's the sort of thing you only see once in a lifetime," says Hugh Roe, stoking up the fire for Renoster Coffee.