Namibia Day 9 - Cheetah Farm to Etosha NP

A leisurely morning packing up camp saying goodbye to the Cheetah and enjoying the numerous colourful birds that came to join us for breakfast.

We left about 9 am decided to go different route to Etosha NP meaning we could avoid the tarmac roads and stick with the gravel roads. This proved to be a good choice as on our way we saw a family of wild warthogs at the side of the road mum and two babies and later baboons waiting at the side of the road.

We arrived at Etosha NP through The Anderson Gate with the expected Himba standing by for photo opportunities for a small fee of course.

Driving from the gate to reception we saw zebra, giraffe and springbok.

We carried out the formalities for checking in and being allotted our pitch in the camp at a very slow pace which tends to be the norm now. But as this was a much busier camp than we were up to now used to it seemed to take forever.

After finding our pitch and getting set up we went to have lunch at the restaurant enjoying lovely roast oryx (gemsbok) and a cold beer. Bumped int Rob and Mandy from “Where to Next Africa” other overlanders on facebook who Dave had been following their trip from UK through Africa and recognised. So he went over and introduced himself to have a chat.

After lunch we went and spent an hour or two at the water hole watching an elephant having a drink and posing without a care in the world. There were a couple of Black Backed Jackels hovering around which we would also find out later were also all over the camp site at night stealing from tents and chewing even one campers shoes.

Springboks, Impala, Kudu's and Oryx (amazing) all came down in the afternoon to take a drink. A very peaceful place to sit and watch animals in their own environment.

After few hours watching the animals we caught up with laundry, charged up phones, camera, laptop and chilled with a coffee. The campsite in Etosha NP is a protected area and as such it felt like we were the caged animals as we were behind a fence to protect us and the animals roamed free.

Early evening we had a couple of drinks and BBQ before we headed back to the waterhole for about 5.30pm to get a good spot and stayed till around 10pm watching all the different animals arrive at the waterhole.

We decided to have a drink while watching the animals chilling so Dave went back to the tent to get beer and wine. Whilst there the sound of a lion roaring in the distance could be heard. Dave thought typical our first chance to see a lion and I went for beer and missed it. Thankfully it waited until he got back before it arrived at the waterhole.

The huge male lion came in and drank having the whole watering hole to himself as other animals disappeared. After the Lion left a herd of about 12 elephants , 4 rhinos plus a baby, and about 6 giraffes all came in to the watering hole. Watching how they carefully made their way down in the case of the Elephants how quietly, you could hardly hear them they were so graceful. A couple of bull elephants turned up first followed much later by the rest of the herd including young elephants. The rhinos were not so careful or quiet as the clopped in over the stones. Initially the bull elephants and the rhinos squared up to decide who had the run of the watering hole but an uneasy peace followed with the bull elephants never letting the rhinos out of their view.

We even got to see the 2 sets of Rhinos face off and 2 of them charging at each other.(We couldn’t believe we were so close to all these animals watching how they interact with each other.).

The giraffes when they appeared stayed well back whilst one slowly made his way down to the watering hole, continually stopping and looking around and then back to the other giraffes as if to say why me.

By about 10pm it was quietening down so we decided

to head back to the tent and try to get an early night. It was at this point we saw the chaos the Black Backed Jackals were causing around the camp and it made us glad we had packed our gear away securely as others were not so lucky with the jackals getting into everything and seemed happy to take whatever they could find.

Lying in bed we again listened to a Lion roaring in the distance a truly surreal experience and one to never be forgotten.

To see more pictures from Namibia Day 9 and the rest of our pictures click on the link below to the Photo Gallery and check them out. http://www.polaris-overland.com/countries