Lost City of the Kalahari (Expedition 2002) Introduction 1967, Grade one, sitting on the floor at primary school in Pretoria and the principal is standing on the stage reading us a story about the Lost City of the Kalahari and about a group of scouts that mounted an expedition to look for it. A few days later I remember going to the library and finding the magazine that the principal had read from. At that stage I could not yet read and I spent hour staring of the pictures and dreaming. Years later having forgot about my childhood fascination with the Lost City of the Kalahari I has paging through a book called Kalahari by Michael Main and the mention of the Lost City stirred up dreams again. Thirty three years had passed between these two moments and during these years I had been rock climbing, had my coastal yacht skippers ticket, was into white water canoeing, hunting and had organised a number of mini expeditions to explore and research some old prospecting trails in the Northern Cape and Southern Namibia. I was living my dream. A few months after reading "Kalahari" I was offered a photographic concession in Botswana and made a hurried trip into the Kalahari to meet with some of the Bushmen leaders. During this time I noted the suggested position of the Lost City on my GPS and although time was limited I had a good look at the area around Hukuntsi and checked infra structure for a full expedition with aircraft and a search team. After much research it seemed like August 2002 would be as good a date as any for the expedition and it was time to put the expedition team together. History On the 8th of March 1886 the Royal Geographic Society members listened intently as Gilarmi Farini told the story of the City of the Kalahari. The previous year on the 7th of November 1885 Farini had read the same paper to the members of the Berlin Geographical Society and the legend of the Lost City of the Kalahari was born. Farini was born in 1839 as William Leonard Hunt and spent his early life in show business and living by his wits. In 1864 at the age of 25 years Farini walked the Niagra Falls on a tight rope, but Farini was more than a showman: he was the genius behind hundreds of innovations, from folding theatre seats and the modern parachute, to the incredible "rollerboat" (the prototype of which lies buried under landfill at the edge of Toronto Harbour). He was a fearless explorer, his journey in southern Africa brought about the legend of the Lost City of the Kalahari. He spoke seven languages, wrote several books, was an expert botanist, and such an accomplished artist that his paintings were shown alongside those of contemporary Canadian masters. In January 1885, Farini, his son Lulu and a friend Gert Louw boarded the SS Roslin Castle and sailed to South Africa. It is said that this trip was business and pleasure as there were many stories about diamonds in the Kalahari which were told to Farini by Gert Louw. Farini had met Gert Louw, a mixed race hunter in America. Gert, who had some Bushman blood in him, had been taken to New York by a showman and put on exhibition as a freak at Coney Island. Gert told Farini the tale of diamonds and it was enough for Farini and the Kalahari expedition was organised. Gert became a centenarian, but he never forgot his experiences overseas. Farini arrived in Cape Town on the 30th of January 1885 and soon thereafter left for the Kalahari via Kimberely and Upington. In Kimberely Farini met Mr D.D.Pritchard who was a mining engineer in the service of Cecil John Rhodes and who had just returned from a trip to Lake Ngami, it is said that Pritchard gave his notes and a map he had recently compiled of the Kalahari to Farini and it was this map that Farini used as his main map of the area. In Kimberely Farini equipped himself with a light spring wagon and mules. Near Upington he exchanged the mules with a farmer for oxen; then he pushed on into the desert. Farini travelled north to Lake Ngami and then turned south eventually arriving at Mier (Rietfontein). At Rietfontein Farini met Dirk Verlander the self appointed chief of the Basters. These people were descendants of a group of slaves who had been in bondage by the Dutch but had escaped and intermarried with the Namaqua Hottentots and their kingdom was completely free of European influence. Some men from Mier were leaving on a hunting trip and Farini was so impressed with Verlander's account of the number of game in the area that Farini arranged for his party to join in the hunt. Here the story gets a little confusing one story recounts that on the return trip to Mier, just after leaving Lehututu he found the city at the base of the KyKy Mountains. The other account states that Farini visited the Baster settlement of Mier and then struck eastwards again. He followed the dry Nossob river past the junction with the equally dry Aoub (Tweerivieren), went on northwards along the Nossob and three days later reached the Ky Ky mountains. At Ky Ky he left the Nossob and turned to the east across the sand. Four more days brought him to the edge of the K'gung forest. Here he hunted and also collected butterflies and insects. Only when the rice ran short did they turn south again for Upington. On the second day they sighted a high mountain which the guide Jan identified as Ky Ky. On reaching the foot of it, however, it turned out to be a mountain that nobody in the party had seen or heard of before and it is at these mountain where Farini found the ruined city. "We camped near the foot of it, beside a long line of stone which looked like the Chinese wall after an earthquake, and which on examination proved to be the ruins of quite an extensive structure, in some places buried beneath the sand, but in others fully exposed to view. We traced the remains for nearly a mile, mostly a heap of huge stones, but all flat sided, and here and there with the cement perfect and plainly visible between the layers. The top row of stones were worn away by the weather and the drifting sands, some of the uppermost ones curiously rubbed on the underside and standing out like a centre-table on one short leg." "The general outline of this wall was in the form of an arc, inside which lay at intervals of about forty feet apart a series of heaps of masonry in the shape of an oval or an obtuse ellipse, about a foot and a half deep, and with a flat bottom, but hollowed out at the sides for about a foot from the edge. Some of these heaps were cut out of solid rock, others were formed of more than one piece of stone, fitted together very accurately. As they were all more or less buried beneath the sand, we made the men help to uncover the largest of them with the shovels-a kind of work they did not much like-and found that where the sand had protected the joints they were quite perfect. This took nearly all one day, greatly to Jan's disgust: he could not understand wasting time uncovering old stones; to him it was labour thrown away. I told him that here must have been either a city or a place of worship, or the burial-ground of a great nation, perhaps thousands of years ago." "On digging down nearly in the middle of the arc, we came upon a pavement about twenty feet wide, made of large stones. The outer stones were long ones, and lay at right angles to the inner ones. This pavement was intersected by another similar one at right angles, forming a Maltese cross, in the centre of 'which at some time must have stood an altar, column, or some sort of monument, for the base was quite distinct, composed of loose pieces of fluted masonry. Having searched for hieroglyphics or inscriptions, and finding none, my son took several photographs and sketches, from which I must leave others more learned on the subject than I to judge as to when and by whom this place was occupied." Three days after leaving the ruins, travelling all the way over a gentle slope, Farini came again to the real Ky Ky mountain. That was the first and last detailed description of the "lost city" ever written. It appeared in Farini's book Through the Kalahari Desert, published in London in 1886. Farini also spoke of fluted columns and anthropologically finding such columns would throw the anthropology world upside down as the only people using fluted columns at that time were the Egyptians and the Greeks and thus one wonder how their influence would have got to this part of Africa. A police sergeant patrolling on camel back reported having found a stone quarry in the desert and he also claims to have found a fourteen foot long boat which confirms speculation that there was a navigable waterway from Lake Ngami to the Gariep River Probably the most valuable recent evidence came from a young Gordonia farmer named Nikolaas Coetzee. In 1933 Coetzee told Dr. W. Meent Borcherds of Upington that some years previously, while hunting to the east of the Nossob, he had seen an arrangement of stones similar to that described by Farini. Coetzee was in a hurry at the time; he was no archaeologist, and he had not stopped to examine the place. In fact, he had only a rough idea of the locality. Since Farini's account of the Lost City of the Kalahari there have been 25 expeditions who have been determined to find the ruins. In 1933 a Mr Paver and archeologist from Johannesburg led one of the first expeditions to find the Lost City. In 1944 Albert Albath set off for the Kalahari with a donkey, it's foal and a rifle, he survived for two months but found nothing. In 1948 French Explorer Francois Balsan walked 280km through the desert looking for the lost city but found nothing. In 1951 he tried again leading the most expensive expedition ever, but found nothing. In 1949 the South African Airforce conducted an aerial search of the area, searching over 4 million hectares, but on this note It is interesting that another airforce pilot unwittingly reported seeing the Lost City from the air and the Dr J.N.Haldeman expedition who using their own aircraft claimed that even from low altitude they could not see their camp on the ground, implying that the bush and scrub made an air search very difficult. Michael Main author of "Kalahari" states "Did it ever exist at all? To answer that question we need to meet Farinin himself and consider an excellent analytical work produced by Dr AJ Clement." In Dr Clement's work The Kalahari and it's Lost City bring up a number of interesting facts indicating that Farini was only in Africa for 175 days not 255 days as he claimed and thus with a wagon and oxen it was impossible to cover the distance he claimed. This is contradicted by the fact that the botanical and insect specimens that Farini presented to Kew Gardens, the British and American Museums and in latter years it has been proved that these specimens came from the Kalahari. Dr Clement goes on to pose the question as to whether Farini had not written of the Eierdop Koppies. I posed this question to Michael Main and Alec Campbell who have also spent some time looking for the Lost City. They agree with Dr Clement that Farini probably described the Eierdop Koppies a natural rock formation with fairly rectangular shaped stones, but on asking if they had found the circle with the maltese cross the stated that they had not. Further to this is the fact that Farini wrote that he walked up the Nossob and turned east to get to the Eierdop Koppies he would have travelled south and then west. References Kalahari Michael Main Through The Kalahari Desert G.A Farini Lost City of the Kalahari Fay Goldie To The River's End Lawrence Green Unsolved Mysteries of Southern Africa Unknown I believe that the Lost City exists and the excitement and enthusiasm with which this expedition has been met amazes me. Gregory van der Reis - Expedition Leader Expedition - Modus Operandi In Farini's word description of the route he describes the Lost City as being at the base of some hills. The only hills in the area are at Tshabong and therefore once arriving in Botswana the vehicle based team will travel to Tshabong where the area surrounding the local hills will be searched. Farini navigated by dead reckoning and thus after the Tsabong search we plan to search the area south west of Hukuntsi. Hukuntsi has a good runway and thus until we have determined that the local pans are hard enough and smooth enough the aircraft will be based there. The ground search will take place on the following basis: There will be two vehicles per team and each team will be given a designated area to search. Each day this area will be increased and teams will rotate taking turns to look after the base. The day will start at sunrise with a briefing and breakfast. Teams will be given the coordinates of their search area and will then leave for their designated area. All teams will radio in their positions to the base controller on the hour. The film crew, still photographer and journalists will join various teams for the day. The teams will return at sunset to the base camp and will report their finds. Supper Plan for the following day. Base Camp The base camp will be equipped with the following: 5 x 5 m Base Tent 220v lights and power Long Distance radio Expedition Communications system Tables Etc. Profiles of Lost City Expedition Members: Expedition Leader - Greg van der Reis Greg is 41 years old and has been offroading since 1983. He has led a number of successful expeditions in the past and is an adventurer drawing from a backround of a BSc degree, entrepreneur, rock climber, hunter, radio amateur and navigation guru. He is very involved with the offroad scene, starting the 4x4 Offroad Adventure Club in 1998, he teaches offroad driving and navigation, and runs the African Expedition Company. Greg organises the biggest dedicated 4x4 Expo in Southern Africa and has just taken over the management of Thunder City Offroad Centre. He became facinated with the Lost City in 1967 and has spent the last two years researching the Lost City for the expedition. Greg is a workaholic and he is married to Gloria and has two daughters Brigitte and Aimee. Logistics - David Nel David Nel lives in Durbanville. He is married to Leona and they have two daughters . He is the managing owner of Prime Park Caltex in Bellville . David is a guide for the Offroad Adventure Club and African Expeditions Company . His hobbies are offroad driving , traveling and outdoor living . He is an active sportsman and adventurer who loves cycling and hiking . David did rock climbing and was a competitive canoeist from 1977 till 1994. Mechanic - Brian Hogg Brian was born in Edinburgh and qualified as a mechanical engineer in the motor industry. On arrival in Cape Town he worked with Leyland then AAD for whom he was the Product Development Manager. He owns a 4x4 Challange Range Rover, a 110 TDi and is rebuilding a 1950 Series 1. Brian was Vice Chairman and Chief Marshal for the Cape Land Rover Club for many years and recently won the Standard Class of the WP 4x4 Challange Mechanic - David Pike Age 51, Motoring and outdoor enthusiast. WP colours for rallying. Active member of the Cape Land Rover Club. Have traveled and camped in most of the out of the way places in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Medic - Malan van Zyl Malan van Zyl, 37, veterinary specialist physician, located in Cape Town. Keen interest in nature and environment and the undiscovered and unexpected, offroad driving, have driven Toyota 4X4 for 14 years, currently driving Toyota Land Cruiser. Medic Assistant - Annie Hogg Annie is South African born but schooled and qualified as a physiotherapist in UK. She met Brian at a motor race in Edinburgh and were married in Scotland from where they left for South Africa late in 1972 in a Range Rover eventually arriving in Cape Town in early 1973. Annie owns two SWB Series 3 Land Rovers which she maintains herself. She has competed in many Cape Land Rover Club events and 4x4 Challanges and has been featured in several "Girls and their Toys" articles. Architectural - Lynne Davidson Initially involved in bookbinding/printing industry, then spent last 26 years in corporate enviroment as M.D. to group of companies with involvement in headwear manufacturing, a team player in the restoration and maintenance of the Old Castle Brewery, the establishment and admin. control of the first authentic Turkish restaurant in Cape Town. Now involved with outdoor/camping activities, mad about mountains, rock formations and budding gemologist. Vet - Gary Bauer Born 1966, Veterinary Ophthalmologist. Runs Land Rovers (9) including the Expedition vehicle (110 TDI). Very interested in Africa - Geography, Wildlife and people including history of various tribes and communities. Fluent in English, Afrikaans, German, Xhosa and Zulu with understanding of Matabele. Have done 2 extensive trips through Botswana including extensive time in Tsodilo Hills. Particularly enjoy offroad work with the vehicle combined with a mission. Mike Porter New member to the team - owns a Land Rover service centre. Research - Stewart Nolan Born England Aged 52. Motor mechanic / apprentice trainer, became part of a Stock Car Racing team going on to race my own Go-kart throughout the British Isle's, before converting a vehicle & changing over to Rally Cross. My love of driving & travelling took me touring as a driver/guide throughout Europe before arriving here in South Africa where I purchased my 1st Landy & continued the same love as in Europe. Still Photographer - Jan Marais I am 40 years old, married and have two daughters. I am co-owner of two engineering firms that design and build fruit packhouse machinery, and recently started manufacturing rooftop tents. During 5 years of 4x4 driving I visited the Namib desert, Kalahari, Kaokoland and Richtersveld, and have done many 4x4 trails. My 4x4 enables me to enjoy outdoor life, combining well with my passion for landscape and nature photography. I have been an amateur photographer for almost 20 years. Still Photographer - Bob Davidson BORN KITWE ZAMBIA 1940, Working experience embraces cadestral survey draftsman. Air Force photographic aerial survey work, commercial industrial photographer, architectural design contract controller, then moved into plastic injection moulding industry in 1980. Participates in outdoor camping activities and enjoys life in the bush. Recently travelled north up Africa via Botswana, Zambia, Malawai to Kilamanjaro, Ngorongo Crater and the Serengeti plains in Tanzania Construction Expert - Paul Henry Age 46, Started exploring offroad in 1978 and have spent time exploring, Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Member of 4x4 Offroad Adventure Club, Valley Gun Club, Cape Gun Club,Dewdale Fishing Academy and SA Wingshooters. Paul is a property developer and drives a Land Cruiser. Aber Ware Arber Ware born 21 July 1949. Director of "Belt Torque" Pty Ltd. Driving a Toyota Prado 3L TDI VX he has toured the Richstersveld & Namibia Johan Malherbe Kalahari junkie. Has spent most vacations exploring the Kalahari. Chris Carolin Chris is 42 years of age and born in Cape Town , and after studing and a brief period at a commercial bank , joined the motor industry in the exotics and is currently the dealer principle of Mitsubishi Motors in Paarden Eiland .An avid member of the 4WD club of the Western Cape and the Off Road Rescue Unit during the 80's , he has travelled extensively in SA , Namibia and Botswana . Also a motorsport enthusiast , he has just finished building a racing car to compete in the classic division at Killarney and has also flown to Egypt to see the end of the Dakar Rally.Has organized many offroad days for clients and loves the outdoors. Is a keen long distance runner and completed too many marathons to mention.Lives in Cape Town and is married to Terry with two children. Aircraft & Pilot - Izak Smit CEO of Two Oceans Air Charter (Pty) Ltd. I have considerable experience of bush flying including areas such as Skeleton coast, Kaokoland, Damaraland, Kalahari, West Coast and Namaqualand. I have visited the area intended for exploration a number of times before and have over the past 13 years travelled Africa extensively on safaris right up to Kenya Aircraft & Pilot - John Fischer John Fischer has flown from Stellenbosch over West Africa and Sahara to Switzerland on a solo flight. Sponsors Currently we have sponsorship from: Two Oceans Air Charter Three aircraft and pilots Caltex waiting for details Kodak - film Outdoor Warehouse - tents and gear for the media. Shirts for the team. Mitsubishi Motors are supplying my vehicle GRS Two Way Radio Garmin Just Done It 4x4 Rentals (vehicle for Film Crew) The Adventure Lost City of the Kalahari Expedition 2002 www.african-expeditions.com/lostcity The alarm goes off, it's 2am, I listen, yes the rain has stopped. I get dressed and rush to pick up Stewart (the expedition's researcher and my navigator). I collect Stewart at 2.30am and then get onto the N7. Our meeting place is the Swartland One Stop, the sky is clear and Orion is still visible and at 3am we meet the film crew (from Carte Blanche) and the rest of the expedition members. Some of the team had left earlier and would meet us at Molopo Lodge. None of us have slept much - packing always seems to be a last minute event and at VanRynsdorp we decide we need some coffee, it's bloody cold outside and the thermometer in the Colt is showing a chilly 7 degrees. It is drizzling and rainy now as we climb the pass towards Calvinia and there is constant chatter on the radio. I swop passengers with the film crew and Dirk De Villiers (of Arende fame) our director joins me for a few hundered kilometers. Dirk has had a psychedelic life and at 79 years old is the oldest member of the team. We chat about old times and he tells of the movie industry, people he has met and the good and bad times. Time flies as I listen to Dirk. We change passengers again just before we pull into Upington. We decide to fill up with fuel, jerry cans and all and find a quiet garage not thinking about the mini bus rank across the road. While unpacking our vehicles to get to the jerry cans an opportunistic bottom feeder grabs one of the film crews money belts and darts across the road. We take chase and luckily he drops the bag, the chase continues into the taxi rank and the thiefs friends block off the pursuers and we cannot get through. The thief disappears into the crowd. We decide that we need a break so go and have a Wimpy coffee. Malan and Gerhard who left the previous day had the same idea and tell us that they came to Upington from Augrabies where they spent the previous night to buy spares for David Pike's Land Rover. The bearing had siezed on the hub and caused some damage. We continued on to Molopo Lodge while Malan took the spares back to Augrabies. Molopo Lodge is convenient but that's about all, the camp sit is below the hotel and I guess that the sewerage discharges somewhere nearby as there is a constant waft in the backround. Paul Henry, Arber Ware and Bob Davidson are already there and as the sun sets we are all sitting around the fire enthusiastically talking about tomorrow. The expedition members arrive from Augrabies, Gary Bauer, Brian Hogg, Mike Porter, David Pike and Malan van Zyl and even later Dylan Evans arrived. Dylan a manufacturing jeweller from Stellenbosch had closed his business for the week just to join us, Gerhard a vet from Pretoria had also flown to Cape Town to join Malan as his navigator. While sitting at the fire two bushmen arrive, one in western garb and the other in traditional dress. He told us that he was David Kruiper's son and yes he had heard of some ruins near Union's End. They danced and sang for us and then disappeared into the night. The next morning I handed out the remaining sponsored gear, the jackets kindly sponsored by Rawson Developments and the shirts and caps from Outdoor Warehouse. It's 7.45am and we leave for the Gemsbok border post. While we wait for the border to open I try and fix Dylan's radio, but after checking the obvious things we get it to work, reception is fine but transmit is intermittent. After clearing customs on the SA side I hook the film crew's trailer and we drive to the Botswana office, nobody is in sight and after some waiting a chap arrives, it is apparantly not his job but he gives us some paperwork and we get started. There are no pens at the border post and so the process is slow. Malan declares his medical kit, almost an hour later the officials are unsure what to do and tell him to rather decalre it as we pass another border. We leave, next stop Tshabong. The road is rather corrugated but we are all excited and soon we get to Tshabong. Andrew Austin from Selebi-Phikwe is already there as is Mark from SA 4x4 Magazine and David Nel who travelled from Johannesburg . The roadside exchange rate varies and at the garage is is excellent, in Cape Town it was R1.67 for 1 Pula, but here we have paid R1.80 and at the garage only R1.55 . We wait next to the road and soon Andrew tell us that Joe Holmes (towing the two microlights) is only a few kilometers away. It is amazing that in Africa where goats wander in the streets we have celphone signal. Once Joe and Richard arrive we depart for Hukuntsi. The trailer is loaded and is hell to tow with a vehicle with independant from suspension and that night Johan Malherbe offers to tow it further. We have a research permit from the Botswana Government and this entitles us to take the "roads less travelled" and as dusk is approaching we leave the main road and make camp for the night. The night is quiet, no animals seem to be around, probably the lack of surface water. The microlight pilots assemble their aircraft and we spend the evening around the fire again, dreaming, chatting, will we find it? The evening was cool but soon the camp was quiet - except for the snorers! 7am and after some coffee we all pack up. Joe and Richard check their aircraft again and again, if something goes wrong here there are no hospitals nearby. Finally clad in their flight gear they start the engines and taxi down the sandy track. Joe leads the way and soon he is racing towards us and is airborne. Richard follows and they are on their way. We agree to meet them in Hukuntsi, Andrew is driving Joe's Cruiser with an enormous trailer and off we go. I am contantly in contact with Joe via an airband radio and we listen to the banter between the two pilots. While driving towards Hukuntsi we see two cheetah cross the road in the distance. The pilots make an rough landing and have to decide whether to dismantle the planes and tow them further or wait for the wind to drop. Andrew who lives in Bots tells us that August is the windy month - bad choice. Paul, Gary, Mike and Andy wait behind to help dismantle the microlights. Gary ZR1VET and I ZS1GD are radio hams so we have reasonable comms and so I leave with the rest of the expedition members and continue to Hukuntsi. We refuel once again and travel towards Ngwatle looking for access to the Kwakai Pan. We find an old track and set up base camp on the southern side of the camp with a small tree covered dune behind us. We set up camp, put up the wind sock, sponsors flags and erect the 5x5 meter army tent. I had not had comms with Gary for a while and then through the crackle we heard them. The road out of Hukuntsi is not marked at all and I took a wrong turning in the day. Finally we saw their headlights and the team was complete. As dusk fell cattle congregated on the pan, bad news! There are no dams or water troughs nearby and the animals are in desperate need of water. They seem to know the tricks, wait until dark and then move in and lick the moisture off the vehicles. You start dozing and then under the roof top tent Mooooooooo! By know you are awake. The cattle rubbing up against the vehicles, and the bloody mooooing just got too much for some. Picture the film crew's tent, zzzzzippppp, and a figure in underpants shouts *&^((*(*))^ cows starts chasing them, the stampede starts and the cattle leave the camp only to return a little later. The next morning the microlights were reassembeld and Joe found an old tree and towed it up and down the pan to smooth out the bumps and make a runway. After the tree he got a few of the vehicles together and they drove, up & down over and over until Joe was happy. 10am was briefing time and each team (two vehicle with two people in each) were given their grid for the day. The grid squares were 20 x 20km and each team departed. The film crew, Mark from SA4x4 and my team left for the coordinates that Farini mentioned in his notes. Yes we knew that Farini's coordinates were incorrect but I believe that it is the best place to start. There are fire breaks everywhere and none are indicated on any maps, so we turned north towards the coordinates 21deg 30 minutes East and 23 deg 30 minutes South. Gary and Mike travelled with us until we reached a vast pan which formed the southern boundary of their grid and we carried on. Two hours later we were had managed to get to within a few kilometers of the bearing and now had to travel through the bush to the coordinates. The bush had been burnt by lightening and the sharp sticks worried us but we continued on. Arriving at Farini's coordinates we found ourselves on the eastern side of a red dune with all the vegetation burnt, we could see for miles and there was definitely no ruins. Paul and Bob's grid square lay next to ours and we searched in grid patterns firstly together and then they moved off to their grip square. We assumed that if a civilisation had been in the area they would have set us camp near a pan or a well and so we located and searched about 15 pans in our area. The area was deserted and we saw nobody a few tire tracks here and there showed that there had been other traffic on the track but I estimated that the track was at least a week old. The bush around the pans is thick and there was a constant scratching noise as we negotiated routes to the pans. The pans themselves were either barren or covered with very fine grass and we were surprised when a small heard of Springbok were seen in the distance. The buck were skittish and moved away rapidly when approached. We finished our grid as the sun was setting and managed to find our way to another fire break and driving purely on GPS we managed to find our way back to camp. In the head lights we saw lots of Steenbok and a porcupine - we crossed the pan to our base at about 9.30pm and were very pleased to hear that Denise and Melanie had made Stewart and I supper. The jackals cried from the edge of the pan and then the wind and rain started. The rain lasted only an hour but as dawn broke with the reddish sky we saw that our runway was mud. Sitting around the fire the previous evening Joe and Richard told of a well they had found on a pan about 25km from us and then on the adjoining pan about 10km further that had seen typical geometric patterns of civilization. This is when we realised that a search of this nature is impossible without aircraft. While Joe, Richard and Andy started making a new runway on the edge of the pan we headed off to investigate the well and the patterns.The pilots were not the only expedition members to find some proof of previous human habitation. Gary and Mike had found an ancient fish trap on one of the pans in their grid, but no buildings. David and Arber found some stone age chipping and cutting tools on a pan about 20km from our base, but yet again no ruins. We departed for the well. This time there were no fire breaks or tracks and we covered the 30 km in approximately 3 hours. The well was deep but dry and some owls had chosen the walls as their new home, we travelled south west again towards the main area on interest, namely the geometric patterns. As we crossed that last vegitated dune we were all wondering if this was it, the Lost City of the Kalahari but after 25 previous expeditions we did not expect the Kalahari to give up it's secrets that easily. We searched the whole crescent shaped dune and all we found was an area where someone had planted some small trees in a rectangular pattern, some 1500mm apart, nothing else. We searched on. By now most of us had, had punctures but driving through high grass we were more worried about damaging a diff on an old stump than a puncture. Malan had bad luck, he called on the radio, a burnt stick had gone right through the sidewall. After repairing the tyre we were on our way again. After a few hours of this we gave up and made our way through the grass back to camp. I decided that I would rather fly up with Joe on the following day to investigate from the air. Farini had been very descriptive of what he had seen and therefore if the were no ruins then it was not the correct site. We travelled on and Stewart and I joined Paul and Bob's team (both Bobs) at the site of David and Arber's find. We searched all over the pan and there was no evidence of any structure (other than a bit of old Land Rover that had been there for probably 50 years). On returning to camp we were happy to see that Johan Malherbe and his wife were recovered and would be joining us the next day. Johan and Mare had been feeling sick for three days and had offerd to look after the camp while we were out searching. Brian and David returned from their grid and reported finding nothing. This was a disappointment as with the modern knowledge available and the adjustment to Farini's coordinates David and Brian had the best chance of being in the right area. Brian reported thick bush and he and David had driven for two full days to search their 20 x 20km block. Dylan and Jan had likewise being searching an area known as the Kwang forest (an area mentioned by Farini) and had opted to stay in the search area overnight instead of returning to the base camp. This area also gave away no secrets and after two days they returned to the pan. Early the next morning Joe and I and Richard and Paul (cameraman) took off to investigate the geometric patterns. It is ideal to take off into the wind but as the pan was still muddy Joe did the best he could and we were launched into the air with a wind blowing 45 degrees off the left. We flew over the well and then onto the pan. As Joe pointed the features out I noticed our tracks running through the geometric patterns, we had searched on the ground and seen nothing! The patterns indicated an old kraal or a number of smaller kraals within a larger kraal, but the structures were long gone and again they were nothing like the ruins Farini described. Approaching Kwakai Pan we noticed from our wind sock that the wind was now 90 degrees off the approach and that we would have to land with a strong cross wind. On finals we were coming in with the aircraft at almost 30 degrees off the bearing, Joe reduced power and just before touch down he turned the aircraft straight and we had made a good but bumpy landing. The wind over the wing creates lift and with the wind 90 degrees off the pilot has to know his story. We had all used a lot of fuel, I had used almost 200 litres of diesel and we decided that a trip into Hukuntsi was a must. In Hukuntsi we refueled and spent some time on our celphones checking up on all back at work. The team members were almost exclusively self employed and it does add to the stress wondering if all is OK back at the office. On returning to the camp I decided to move the search further south and so we packed up the camp. While packing the 5x5 army tent a wind gust came through like never before. I think six of us held the tent while everything else in the camp blew around - one needs a fairly strong wind to blow an empty braai grid around and while fighting the tent I saw a braai grid tumble weeding over the pan. Then just as quickly as it had started the wind died, we continued packing getting ready for daybreak with an ETD of 6.30am. The next morning we moved off to an area approximately 200km away, we passed Brian and David's grid and then the vegetation changed again. There was a lot less bush and more trees, a few Hartebees crossed the road ahead of me. We continued searching any interesting looking area while making our way to the western junction of the Gemsbok Park, (Botswana and Namibia ) an area approximately 100km north of Unions End. On passing north gate of the park Paul, Bob, Gary and Mike decided to traverse the park instead of travelling our route south. This they did and we carried on to Mabua where we dropped off Johan and Mare - they had booked a few days leave and decided to spend a few days in the park. The rest of us continued south sleeping next to the road and then working our way down towards Bokspits. That night we slept at Molopo Lodge and early the next morning we made our way to Eierdop koppies the place that Michael Main and Alec Campbell believe to be the Lost City. We crossed Haakskeen pan and found piles and piles of rocks, no walls, no paved areas, no Maltese cross and no columns. Even if Farini was tired and depressed it is hard to see the ruins in the Eierdopkoppies. The quest is not over! I believe that there is a Lost City in the Kalahari - somewhere, maybe partly under the sands and probably not what Farini described. Farini only started elaborating on the Lost City after the Royal Geographic Society had shown interest in it. If one reads the book Africa Through the Mists of Time by Brenda Sullivan it is recorded that traders were sailing the oceans 4000 years ago and at the obelisk at Karnak by Queen Hatsheput of Egypt 1500BC there are enscriptions about the "Great Encircling Sea", Rameses II 1304 - 1237 BC considered himself "ruler of Africa" and there are archeological finds that point to the Egyptians mining gold and diamonds in Africa at the times of the pharaohs. Is it not possible that a city such as the one described by Farini could have been built in the diamond rich Kalahari? The "blocks cemented together", pavements, Maltese cross and fluted columns point to a culture from North Africa. I believe that in time the Lost City of the Kalahari will be found and it will prove that people from Egypt (called the "strange ones" in African legends) travelled to these parts in search of gold and diamonds. My quest continues! Greg van der Reis Expedition Leader