We had a full day in Etosha ahead of us which was extremely exciting as we believed this was going to be one of the highlights of our Namibian trip (of which there have already been many!!). We stopped to get our permits for the park and set off.
The park really was alive with animals but we mainly saw buck – lots of them! – and many beautiful birds. Gemsbok, springbok and zebra were abundant and gathered in their dozens on pretty much every corner. Every now and again we spotted a kudu, ostrich or impala.
We saw so many interesting birds – Kori Bustard, which is the heaviest flying bird, red crested shrike, blue crane, secretary bird, and many more. Cynthia is a keen and very passionate bird watcher so got us all excited about birds. While everything was beautiful, Derek said he had a feeling we were heading for another “Sariska” moment, i.e. only seeing birds and buck as was the case in India.
Beautiful blue cranes
His words were barely cold when we spotted an elephant in the distance. Sure, he was about a kilometre away and barely visible without binoculars but it was still an elephant! Shortly afterwards a truck came past and told us they spotted lions some way back so we headed in that direction. Two lionesses were lying in the long grass, staring at some wildebeest. Within minutes they started running towards the animals and suddenly two more heads popped up much closer – they were on a hunt! While they were highly unsuccessful, it was brilliant to watch them work together.
The start of the chase… things are looking promising
A defeated lioness walks back to her hiding spot
The wildebeest survived. This time.
Not a kilometre down the road we saw six more lions who just made a kill as they were all chilling in the grass while the vultures were circling. A jackal was helping himself to some of the leftovers.
The jackal led us to the lions as we knew he was looking for a take-away
After lunch we spent a few minutes at the nearby waterhole and saw plenty of buck and a mother and baby giraffe.
Back on the road we were treated to a very special moment; an elephant was walking down the road right in front of us. And he was taking his time. This was just incredible! We followed him for a while until he decided to turn off the track and into the bushes. It was absolutely incredible to see this gentle giant so close to us.
Our guide, Rimson, also spotted a cheetah sitting under a bush. Unfortunately it was quite a distance away so we couldn’t see it clearly but we have never seen a cheetah in the wild before so this was pretty special.
The rest of the day was equally brilliant. We saw loads of buck, giraffe, more elephants and many birds.
After arriving at our camp we went straight to the waterhole to watch the sun go down and hopefully see some animals. A female kudu came to drink water and later a rhino. After dinner we returned to the waterhole and so did the rhino. This time he brought friends, or rather enemies! There were five of them but they were all huffing and puffing at each other, while kicking rocks around and making a huge fuss. It was very cool to watch.
