Etosha

Hello!

I’m in Namibia!

This is usually the point that I’d end the blog entry in order to annoy you. Or because I don’t have that much to say. This time however, I have quite a lot to share with you. However, I think I’ll go all Tarantino on you and give you a non-linear update on what I’ve been up to. Bear in mind I’m still in the middle of this adventure so while it may be completely out of order, be assured that John Travolta is still alive at the end despite being murdered by Bruce Willis half way through. (A joke completely lost on Grandma - someone please explain delicately but DON’T let her watch Pulp Fiction - Liam I’m looking at you).

*spoiler alert*

Basically, this post is about Etosha, next one will probably be about Cape Town, then about the rest of the Namibia trip and then one about Botswana.

Probably.

Anyway - here is what I’ve been doing for the last 4 days in Etosha. Enjoy….

*There's a LOT of pictures in this entry, so please have patience as they load. If they take too long, please change internet service providers.

Click or tap the pics to embiggen.

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Ian in Africa 2016, CHAPTER 3

So, after a rather lovely time in Swakopmund (see relevant post) I headed northward to Etosha. After a long and arduous 7 hour drive, I arrived at my campsite just as the sun was setting. I set up camp in a borrowed tent (which has no pegs - brilliant!), had a lovely braii (by my standards) followed by a fire to keep warm, then hit the hay ready to be up and out before sunrise.

After a surprisingly comfortable and warm sleep, and after ignoring several alarms, up I got at 5.30AM (usually I’m still up at that hour, as I’m sure you’re aware), striked the campsite and jumped in the car, and bombed along the road for 9km (google it for conversion to miles) till I reached the gate.

After faffing around in Africa Time (a more laid back version of our understanding of the concept of time), I got through, paid the entrance fee, then headed for the first waterhole - and was rewarded with half a dozen or so giraffe! One of my favourite creatures; mainly because they run in slow motion. I have a million photos of giraffe so I’m not going to share the ones I took here - you’ll see some superior ones later. Oh, and there were also some Springbok there too. Again, better pictures later.

So off I went towards the next waterhole - on the way, I spotted something orange-y against the green and brown fauna - a big cat I hoped! And I was in luck! Only, it was a different sort of big cat - one that is extremely rare to see:

A Caracal! Slightly bigger than a domestic cat, with bigger ears and 10 times as beautiful. I’ve only ever seen one once and that was when I was coming out of Etosha 7 years ago; I very nearly ran over it because it was in the middle of the road eating roadkill. It sat for a moment, staring at me, considering whether or not it wanted to kill me (like most cats), then off it went back into the bush.

So then I carried on along the main track to the next waterhole - called “Homob”. Should be called “Homob The Lions” - just 1km from the entrance I saw this lady:

Just sitting there, minding her own business. In’t see gorgeous? After 10 minutes of hoping she’d come over and be friends with me, I carried along the extra 3km to the waterhole, where I saw absolutely nothing. Until I noticed a flash of gold - about 100m away was this guy:

Just lazing. Cos he’s a cat of course, and if cats don’t get 9-12 naps a day then they don’t have enough energy for the big snooze. There was another male snoozing about 3 metres away, though sadly behind a rock and difficult to photograph. This fella was also just too far away to get a decent photo.

So after watching them for a while, in the vain hope that they’d get to their feet and go and kill something, I buggered off to the next waterhole. Before which, I saw a massive herd of Zebra:

And that’s about the only zebra picture you’re getting, because Etosha has 40,000 of them and I’m pretty sure I saw each and every boring one of them. It’s a bloody striped horse for crying out loud!!

Onto the next waterhole - an Elephant!!! Hoorah!! Just one, all by himself. I did take some photos but so that you don’t have to waste time loading it, again, I’ll post some better ones later. So after a few minutes of watching this gentle giant - another on of my favourites, I headed along the main road towards the next waterhole.

You see, the thing about driving in Britain, or most other countries in the world, is that you only really have to pay attention to what’s in front of you or what’s very close to the road. In Africa, not just in game parks, you have to look EVERYWHERE. Because animals have the tendency to wander onto the road - I’m sure you’ve all heard the donkey story, the one that condemned me to a bad back for life.

In Etosha, it’s every single other animal you can think of.  

So a few minutes after leaving the lonesome elephant to his daily intake of 65 LITRES of water (seriously!!), I was driving along to the next waterhole, when something to the right caught my eye:

IT WAS A BLOODY RHINO.

RUNNING TOWARDS ME!!

IT STOPS TO LOOK AT ME!!!

THEN BUGGERS OFF.

WOW. Just beautiful.

All of the above by the way, happened before 10:30AM on the first day. What a way to endear yourself, Etosha.

Later I headed towards my camp for the next two nights - Halali. It’s dead centre in the park, between my entry gate Okaukejo, and the departure gate Namuntoni. Halali is a German word meaning “the end of the hunt” - here it takes on the further connotation of signifying that hunting is well and truly over (and no longer tolerated). After checking in and sorting out some paperwork, I then headed further west to Etosha Pan lookout:

A nice place where you can get out of your car and admire the view of the endless salt pan. Unfortunately, it was at this point that I noticed I had a flat tyre. It’s completely screwed, with a tear in the rubber, so I had to change it in the 30 degree heat.

Not the worst place to have to change a tyre. Still a bit knackering though. I decided after this to drive back towards the general area of Halali, checking out the surrounding waterholes.

Driving along, one again I noticed something in my periphery…

A male lion, just wandering across the road, then into the bush…

Then he gathers pace….

AND POUNCES…

……….

That rather blurry image depicts a male lion taking down a zebra!

My first kill, after nearly 20 years of coming to Africa!

Again, sadly he was too far away to properly focus on him.

I sat for a while watching him eat from afar; there were vultures circling up above:

Waiting for their opportunity to eat. They got a little impatient and tried to intervene, but he was having none of it and chased them away. 

After sitting and watching for a while, zoomed in through my camera’s LCD screen because he was too far away (I really should have brought some binoculars), I decided to have a drive around to see if I could see anything else.

The speed limit in the park is 60km/h for a reason, because if it’s not Rhino running across the road, it’s giraffe:

Just nonchalantly wandering into my path.

Then this guy, with a few friends, running across the road, jumping into his hole then peeking out to see if the coast was clear:

LOOK AT HIS LITTLE FACE!!

That’s a slender mongoose by the way.

So with the sun setting, I hastily made my way to my camp for the next two nights - Halali, like the other camps, has a waterhole very close by. You can walk along a path on the side of the hill, giving you an elevated view of the waterhole and the wildlife at it. At first there was nothing, so I concentrated getting a picture of the glorious sunset:

And then with the fading light, this guy silently wanders out of the bush and starts drinking:

Two rhinos in one day - what a privilege!! After watching him for at least half an hour, I went to set up camp, had a braii then straight to bed, ready for the next days adventure.

DAY TWO

On the second day, I decided to have a tiny bit of a lie-in rather than being straight up at sunrise; after two days of driving all day I needed the extra couple of hours sleep. I went back west this time; I wanted to cover as much of the park as I could, to see as much as I could. 

The nice thing is about driving in yourself is that you have the freedom to go wherever, at any time, for as long as you want. But you also get the chance to have a quite chat with people - what they’d seen, what they’d heard other people had seen, and where. Apparently there was about 3 cheetah at a particular waterhole. Having never seen one in the wild (nor a leopard), I was desperate to see one. Three even moreso. After 2 hours of searching, waiting, hoping, I gave up. They were nowhere to be seen.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much else to be seen on this day at all. Except for the obligatory bloody zebra of course. And some Impala:

Further on up the road, I found this unfortunate guy:

Not resting, sadly he’d definitely passed on:

Poor thing, but that’s the realities the African bush I’m afraid. 

Driving on some more, I ended up at the most northern waterhole of this part of the park. Plenty of wildlife here:

Springbok, Gemsbok, Ostrich, a bit of dead giraffe in the foreground (possibly from the same guy??).

What’s that dead centre?

Yep. Two male lions, just sleeping in the sun. Naturally, too far away for me to get a decent picture. Look at this Gemsbok playing some sort of antelope version of the game chicken:

Suicidal.

Given it’s proximity, these guys COULD be the same pair I saw lazing at Homob the day before. Maybe, although Etosha does apparently have 600 lion.

After watching them for rather along time again, I went on a bit of a drive towards more of the park I’d never been before. And saw practically bugger all. Except for zebra of course.

Back down towards my camp, I saw plenty of more giraffe, and then this fella:

A black backed jackal. Beautiful.

So then back to the campsite relatively early - I’d booked a night time game drive for 7pm so I wanted to get back in time to get stuff together and to see the sunset over the waterhole again; I was a tiny bit annoyed that I’d seen comparatively little that day, particularly the fact that I’d only seen ONE elephant in two whole days.

But Etosha then decided to reward me - a family of elephants - 3 adults and 4 youngsters, strolled into the waterhole. It nearly had me in tears - they’re just beautiful, and I have no idea why my sister is scared of them (though she also won’t go near rivers in England because of the danger of sharks).

Here’s my favourite picture of that moment:

Stunning, aren’t they?

I watched them for almost an hour - when suddenly ANOTHER elephant - absolutely MASSIVE - wanders along, walks directly through the herd (pushing smaller ones out of the way), then goes to the other end of the waterhole, splashing water about just to annoy the others it seems. I chose to put the camera away at this point - for starters, there’s no way I was going to get a better photo than the one above, and secondly, sometimes you just have to sit and watch something beautiful.

I'm thinking of making that one into a canvas.

Then onto the night drive. My own private night drive! I was the only person who’d booked that night - this is apparently a quiet season for Etosha, as the campsite(s) were rather empty too. Just the way I like it to be honest.

At night you’re just about as guaranteed to see anything as you are during the day. Apart from rabbits and jackals, there was nothing going on near the track. We went to a waterhole I’d been to during the day a few times, and with the help of the guide’s spot light, we could see about SEVEN rhino!! Two adult white rhinos with two young, and an adult black rhino with two young!! Naturally, they were too far away, though at least I tried:

You can just about *sort* of make it out, if you know where you’re looking.

We did see some giraffe from quite afar, and another rhino (ANOTHER!) quite close to the road, but after that it was back to the campsite, a late braii, and a late night in bed.

DAY THREE

Up again before dawn, and on the recommendation of the diver the night before, I bombed along the road eastwards to try and hopefully see a Cheetah at a couple of waterholes. Again with the paying attention to the road thing - this chap just sort of wandered out:

But sadly, no cheetahs were to be seen. Plenty of sodding zebra though.

And giraffe, which never, ever get boring.

Just look at them! (Yes, I know that photo is a little wonky but with the amount of pictures I've uploaded in the past 24 hours I really can't be bothered to fix it now)

But other than that - not much else though in the morning. By 11 o’clock I was close to the far east end of the park - closer to my camp for the night. Rather a big, open area - the waterhole is in the middle, with a wide open plain being surrounded by trees. You have to have patience and good eyes in this game, or you’ll miss something.

See this photo for example:

“That’s just a tree Ian”

Not quite:

2 male lions!

Again, sadly just too far away. (The second is to the left and behind a rock - you can just about see his ear)

I spent aaaaageees waiting for them to move, or at least come closer. Nope. As much as I love my camera I really ought to invest in a proper lens for when big cats are lazing about ever so slightly too far away.

I sat there for so long, but luckily the waterhole had something going on for me:

That’s a Cape Vulture. With a jackal in the background. Obviously.

Back to the lions - no movement. Well, apart from to change position. They are cats remember.

Certain that they’d be there for a while, I went off for another drive around the surrounding waterholes; not much going on there, so I went back - and sure enough, they’d moved:

About 3 feet to the left. Brilliant.

So off on another drive around - more giraffe and elephant (BRILLIANT), more zebra (YAWN)

Back to the waterhole, and… THEY’VE MOVED!!

WOW.

Back at the waterhole meanwhile,  I almost missed out beauty:

A Tawny Eagle!!!

And slightly to the left…. 

ANOTHER rhino!! And the bird just below to the right is called a Kori Bustard.

With the sun dropping rather fast, and needing to get back to camp before sunrise (or they lock you out), I waited for as long as possible for the cats to do something, like head for some water, or suddenly chase something. Alas, I was out of time. Back to camp it was, but not before snapping a picture of the sunset:

Another canvas jobby methinks.

DAY FOUR

Back to Chudob, the nearest waterhole to my campsite. According to other people, those lions had been there all day yesterday, so I crossed my fingers and hoped they’d still be there today.

They were:

(A jackal thrown in there for good measure too - they tend to follow lions in the hope that they'll be able to scavenge some food off their kill)

I got there just in time too - after just 15 minutes, they wandered off into the bush, where I’m pretty certain was a pride - I could hear them, but I just couldn’t see them apart from a few flashes of gold - this waterhole should be called “Chudob brought a bigger lens”

And then they were gone. So onto the next waterhole - where something was spotted:

A hyena. A spotted hyena. (see what I did there)

After seeing him I went on a drive around another pan - which proved rather fruitless; a French couple I’d chatted to said they had seen a cheetah there, but nope - nothing. They’re just as elusive as the bloody leopard. 

Anyway. Back on the track - up north this time. Quite a large number of giraffe, and a few elephants, all just munching away on trees. Otherwise - nothing. So I headed back down south, ending up at a tiny waterhole I’d not been to before.

There was barely any water in it! Plenty of zebra (yawn), and a couple of giraffe trying to consume the last drops of water available. Oh, and a warthog:

I very, VERY nearly left. But something else was going on - the giraffes started looking off to the left - their ears twitching. A zebra whinnied, and they all started to scatter. The giraffe too (in slow motion of course). What was causing this?

I moved forward a little bit, peering out into the bush… and saw this…

IT’S A LEOPARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW.

UNBELIEVABLE.

Leopards are so exceptionally rare to see - due to their small numbers, nocturnal behaviour and elusiveness. This is my 5th trip to Africa in 20 years, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one. 

Completely blown away. 

I then reversed back to the waterhole and switched off my engine, just watching her drinking in silence. 

Then she started walking in my direction!!! I reversed out of the way - and she walked right in front of me - like 10 feet, if

that. Completely uninterested in me, just minding her own business, then disappeared into the bush. I was still in shock and trying to suppress little outbursts of excitement. I was like a teenage girl at a One Direction concert (someone please explain that to Grandma. DON'T let her listen to One Direction)

Completely stunned.

The whole thing lasted barely even 10 minutes. I sped along to the next waterhole down as she was heading in that direction, and sat and waited for her to appear. Sadly she didn't, but an elephant did - he was about 3 times the size of my car and was walking in my direction.

(car included in shot to illustrate just how close. I assure you I'm not a shit photographer)

He got to about 10 feet away - not even that - and then I realised that we wasn't going to change direction, or at least stop, so I hastily had to move out of the way to avoid being trampled.

Pretty sure he would have still carried on if I hadn't moved. I sat there for a while, watching him drink:

With an eye on the bush, trying to see if our wonderful leopard would reappear - but to no avail. That's my leopard experience for a lifetime. And what an experience it was - I will certainly never forget it; and the best thing was that there was nobody else there. That's mine and mine alone now!

Deal with it.




So after this mind blowing experience, I still had a a few more hours left in Etosha.I drove around the nearby waterholes, and some a bit further east, without much success. I ended up back at Chudob, hoping that those lion would still be there. Sadly not, but there were some birds of prey:

In the centre, I'm pretty sure that's two Maribou Storks. To the left (and which I've only just noticed if I'm honest), in tree and just below, I'm pretty sure they're tawny eagles. I might need some help from some professional ornithologists though.

And that was that. The sun was setting quickly, and I had to get out of Etosha. Which was a massive shame - but what and INCREDIBLE 4 days it was. I'd never seen a kill before. I'd never seen so much rhino before. I'd never seen a LEOPARD before - what an absolute privilege it was to see each of those. Next time (because there is definitely a next time), I will be coming back with a 4x4 vehicle, a much bigger lens, and I will be in there for at least a week. 

Thank you Etosha, for an amazing experience.







By the way, did I mention I saw a leopard??????

Cheers.