 Located around 50km east from the city of Edmonton, Elk Island National Park in the Canadian province of Alberta is an ideal destination for a day trip out into nature, which is where RBOF ventured to on the last weekend of April. With various picnic sites, hiking and biking tails, a kid’s playground and apparently droves of bison to see, we packed some snacks and drinks, checked the weather forecast (warm, sunny with some clouds) and off we went on our first Canadian RBOF day-trip.
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 As I was cruising along the David Thompson highway in my Hyundai Santa Fe SUV, Led Zeppelin’s “Rock & Roll” was playing on the radio, the magnificent Rocky Mountains were filling up my windscreen view and I thought to myself, “Welcome to Canada!”
 With cosy and comfortable cottages, lush greenery and scenic barbecue areas located on the banks of the Notwane river, the Waterside Cottages just on the outskirts of Gaborone offer a great option for couples, small or larger families to escape the bustle of the city and unwind in peace and tranquility.
 After having gone through a global pandemic and having welcomed a new addition to our family at the same time, it had been a long while since RBOF had actually been on the road in any way, shape or form. Seven months after welcoming our new camper to the family, we decided to brave out into the bush and spend a day and night with him in the chalets at the Mokolodi Nature Reserve. Our streak of "bush excitement" was still as present as ever though...
 We were in the middle of the Mokolodi Nature Reserve, near Gaborone, Botswana. It was a hot and dusty afternoon. I had sliced open my index finger with a knife. Our First Aid kit was somewhere at home. Our baby was tired and crying. And the battery on our 4x4 was dead...
 The global coronavirus pandemic is affecting everyone on our planet at the moment and self-isolation for now seems to be the best way to defeat this virus. "Prevention is better than cure", as they say and that means that we all need to stay at home to help prevent the spread of the virus.
 We woke up at around 7am on our second morning at Ihaha rest camp in the Chobe National Park in northern Botswana, having only slept for about three hours the night before. The massive tree branch that had snapped in the middle of the night, crashing onto our roof tent and car was now lying about a metre away from the vehicle. We were tired, sore, hot and still in shock but those evil Camping Gods were not done with us yet.
 What better way to end off a very busy work year and to get some much needed rest & relaxation than to go camping in northern Botswana for about a week? Well, it would seem we had angered the Camping Gods in 2018 and they were not having any of this “R&R” nonsense. It was going to be one of “THOSE” kind of trips and we had no idea what was coming!
 Most of our online research about the Moremi Game Reserve in north-western Botswana, and more specifically, Third Bridge Campsite within the MGR, revealed that this was proper, wild bush camping in the sense that you were in the middle of the wilderness and wild animals will be a common sighting in camp. This sounded perfect to us and thus we went and spent 3 nights of semi-camping at Third Bridge Campsite.
 Having reached Khankwe 04 campsite in the very late afternoon, we cautiously watched the charcoal grey clouds creep in from the North and the South bringing the darkness with it much sooner than we had hoped. As the dark clouds loomed, the plastic wrapping that held our firewood was getting wet on the outside as the drizzle began. No sense in lighting the fire as the rain fell, but we did need some sort of lighting to make us feel safe in the pitch black of the Khutse Game Reserve. That's where the LightFORCE LED Strip Light, foldable and waterproof camplight comes in!
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