There weren’t any maps at the office when we entered the park, so it’s all a bit of a guessing game.
The baobabs, known as Baines’ Baobabs or the Seven Sisters, are located in the Nxai Pan National Park (which lies 140 km east of Maun on the Nata road). The turn-off from the main park road to the baobabs was signposted and took us through grassland, past a few smaller pans to the edge of the Kudiakam Pan.
But here things began to get a bit more complicated. For starters, our progress was interrupted by a waterlogged road leading across the main pan (local wisdom is never drive across a wet pan; you might spend the rest of the day digging yourself out).
Four jackals were trotting across the white expanse. I saw two of the jackals break into a fast run – and then a bird flew up. They were clearly on the hunt.
We decided to skirt around the northern edge of the pan, which is where we saw the gemsbok.
But now we are faced with another, albeit shorter, damp stretch of about 100 m between the trees and ourselves. The 16 km-long Kudiakam Pan complex where the trees are located is like a shallow sea with lots of inlets and bays.
As we contemplate our options, a safari vehicle pulls up with four British tourists aboard; they all look a little pink from their time under the African sun. Guide Clinton Gielink is more than willing to help. He drives ahead of us to the trees and then points out our ultimate destination: Campsite No 2.
“See that big tree over there? Follow the tracks around the edge of the pan, on the grass if you must, and then you’ll have to gun it across the last stretch. Put on your hazards if you get stuck. I’ll come and help you.”
Then Clinton turns his vehicle around and takes his safari-truck-load of tourists off for sundowners. They all wave cheerfully and are gone. We’re on our own again. And just in time too, as the sun is starting to set.

When Baines visited in February 1862, these trees were bare. Now their leaves are out. It’s early November and the start of the rainy season, hence our difficulties. It’s not really wet yet, but soon these pans will be full.
Baines, a self-taught artist, spent 15 years travelling southern Africa recording plants, trees and animals. He visited these trees while on a journey with explorer and hunter James Chapman, whose name is associated with another large baobab tree to the south-east of here.
In his journal, Baines wrote that the colour of the trees changed “according to light or shade” to “a red or yellow grey or a deep purple tone”.
The sun dips down to the western horizon and the massive baobabs begin to glow in all of these colours, ultimately flushing a deep, purplish red in the last light and back to grey. Then I hear a strange, rasping sound. Could that be Clinton’s game-viewing truck? But surely he’s too far away…
The light is fading, and we don’t have much time to complete our journey to the big tree in the distance. Under ordinary circumstances this would be a 2,8 km drive across the pan, but we have to take a more circuitous route. We skirt the pan and, to save time, chance it across some of the smaller inlets.
On the last stretch, James does as he was told and “guns it”. The Land Cruiser slithers a bit but we make it safely across and soon find the turn-off to the left that takes us up a hill to the campsite.
Later, James ventures: “I think that might have been a leopard.”

Campsite No 2 is among three baobabs, one of which was our landmark from across the pan. It’s unfenced, with only a long drop and a bucket shower, and a view of the pan. But there’s not much time to admire our surroundings as we set up camp. I quickly pitch my little Cape Union Mart two-man tent – the only problem is that there are only four tent pegs to anchor it. (Note to self: Check kit before you leave home.)
I glance up at the baobabs and see what look like white stars. One of the trees is flower­ing! Baobab blooms last only about 18 hours before they wither and fall off.
A storm is brewing and soon a whole squadron of insects is hurling itself at the light next to the gas cooker. Sitting in camp chairs next to a small fire, we tuck into tuna pasta, seasoned with the odd insect, and watch the light­ning flicker and flash from horizon to horizon. After the adrenaline rush of our journey, it’s magical. The wind picks up and I take refuge in the front seat of the vehicle to wait for the worst of the weather to pass as James retires to his rooftop tent.
I doze, and wake again past midnight to find that the stars are out and the wind has abated. After rearranging the now lop­sided tent, while anxiously shining a torch around, I crawl into bed.
In the morning, miraculously, hardly any rain has fallen. On the pan, marabou storks have arrived to scavenge on the night’s pickings, and the bees hum loudly among the baobab flowers.
We follow our original tracks back to the trees. Baines’ trees have a strong, musty animal smell about them, and a sign informs visitors that you’re not allowed to camp here, burn or bury litter or graffiti the trees (only old explorers are allowed to do that – I half expect to find Kingsley Holgate’s name here).
Some fallen fruit has been cracked open (probably by Clinton to show his visitors). The pips have a sharp, acidic cream-of-tartar flavour.
One of the seven trees lies on its side, and when you clamber into it you’ll find a square hollow cut into the bark, as a recep­tacle for water. I sit on one of the branches of the fallen sister and stroke her bark. It’s simul­taneous­ly smooth and rough, and feels incredibly ancient. Although there is no firm way of dating a baobab, some think these trees could be 2 000 years old; others say “only” 500. As I try to wrap my head around these time scales, I get the same feeling you get when you lie on your back and contemplate the stars. There’s a wildness, a beauty, a sense of timelessness here that is awe-inspiring.
In his book The Shadow of the Sun, Polish author Ryszard Kapuscinski writes: “Like ele­phants among other animals, so are baobabs among trees: They have no equals.” Sitting here in the shade of these giants, I know exactly what he means.