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Published: February 11th 2007
Grrr
It was quite a hair raising moment as this chap, dripping with blood, headed straight for our car! It was in Windhoek that we lost our traveling companions (and their air conditioned motor) and had to go it alone again. We had a full day in Namibia's capital to plan the next 10 days of our trip before we needed to be back in Cape Town. Windhoek is a decent city with plenty of amenities to assist our mission and plenty of opportunities to eat more great steak. It also has some very interesting street names. The main streets in the city are named after world leaders: Fidel Castro St, Nelson Mandela Ave and (er) Robert Mugabe Ave. The area where we stayed they were named after composers: Bach Strasse, Beethoven Ave and Wagner Strasse. This got me thinking, the UK should definitely experiment a bit more with Street names. Maybe future town planner Rickard can help me see areas of cities renamed after great guitarists (Jimmy Page Lane anyone), Lyricists (Morrissey Plaza) or all time great Crystal Palace players (Geoff Thomas High Road). Ho hum.
Our day was pretty successful, after some serious effort we found a minibus that would take us to Botswana the following week and also sorted out a trip to Etosha National Park
Giraffe Giraffe
A double header ... to see us through the weekend. We hired a car, hired a tent, some sleeping mats and the ever essential cool box and headed 450km north to the 40 degree heat of Namibia's great wildlife park. This time we wanted to see cats.
We had an excellent two nights camping under the stars. The park was superb, although we were lucky in that the expected January rains were late so animals had to make it to the popular water holes to get a drink. Although we had some great drives around the park - seeing various antelope, rhino, giraffe, zebra, jackal, hyena, spring hare and elephant (who seemed to object to our Toyota in its way causing us to retreat damn quickly) - it was the floodlit waterhole at our camp that really make this trip so special. Due to the aforementioned drought this was a very popular spot for everyone in the park especially from sunset onwards.
We would head back to the viewing gallery each day at 6pm grab some beers/ciders and watch the sun go down and the animals drink. They would come in waves. First the rhinos would have a bath, then the springbock
I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine
Its tiring work hanging around in this heat and zebra would join them for a quencher. Then the giraffe would arrive and drink awkwardly, constantly checking their backs for predators. After a while a troop of elephants would come in, scaring off the others so they could have the water to themselves and once they had left the others wold creep back in again. As night fell jackals and hyenas would pitch up and eagle owls would swoop. One evening at around midnight, while the hole was busy with a whole variety of wildlife there was a loud growl from the distant bushes and everyone ran. In came a young lion to paw himself a drink in peace.
Who needs TV when you have a watering hole? We would also be there for sunrise (at 5am no less) and go and grab a quick 30 mins after dinner before crashing. You really notice the value of water to all these animals and the risks they take to get it.
This Week Likes: *Lions. 2nd time lucky we see the cats we've been looking for. Not only that, but after a few distant sightings we were lucky enough to stop the car between
Springbok
Glowing from the first few rays of sun of the day a kill spot and the lions shade spot. One at a time we got to see them pad right past us.
*The watering hole by our camp. Better than telly!
*Seeing animals at sunrise. You might think that getting up before 5am would be a strange like for us but it was well worth it.
This Weeks Dislikes: *Having to pay the same amount for a spot of gravel to camp on as we would normally pay for a double room. I blame the air conditioned camper vans that come long, plug in and drain all the electricity. I'm sure we were supplementing them.
*Scavenging foxes who wandered the camp at night. From the tent Marissa was convinced it was actually lions wandering about.
*The park restaurants. Etosha catered very much for the high end tourists, offering only expensive set menus and understocked camp shops - it was tricky business finding a cheap bite to eat.
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Dad / Keith
non-member comment
Great photos
Great photos although the "puns" don't improve. We all feel very sorry for you in that sun, heat and spectacular scenery and you are missing out on our one day of snow when London grinds to a halt!!!