D Day +8 Overlander- S Africa + Namibia

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So the overland trip begins. After meeting our fellow passengers last night and getting to know a few of them, first impressions are good and i think we will get along with everyone. We head off on our big green truck (that came out of retirement should i mention) to adventures unknown.

I won't mention all the places we went but pick out a few of the good ones.

Craigs first big night of drinking came on our second night at the campsite at orange river, i stayed sober of course and we had a blast. There were some real bonding between a few of the lads, im sure the photos will say it all. We all got up very early to go canoeing and lets just say a few ppl were a little hungover, not good when you have to row down a still river for hours. The campsite had two cutey dogs which i named rocky because he liked to chew rocks and the other frisbee becos he stole the guys frisbee and chewd it till it was no more.

The sunsets in Africa are amazing and we spent many a night watching it go down with our new friends. One of the better sunsets came in Namibia on the top of Dune 45. Although the wind was a blowing and we were eating alot of sand the view was amazing. After, the entire group had a race down dune 45, if you see the photos you will see how steep it was. lets just say craig did not win, nor did he come second, or third. lol he came forth and we actually have a video so we may need to clarify that position.

Swakopmund- wot can i say!!! it would have been great apart from the sand storms that took place everyday and i had sand in my cereal, sand in my sandwich sand in my, well you get the drift i had sand evrywhere. and those who know me know i do not like sand. lol This was all overshadowed by the lush food we had and the excellant time we had quad biking through the dunes. Craig took off in the fast group with his crazy ass leader whilst i chose the slow group then powerd into the medium paced group which was enough for me. Again we watched an amazing sunset on our bikes next to the sea.

The next day we had a long drive to our camp site that was in the middle of nowhere. There were no loos and we actually slept under the stars in Spitzkoppe. It may have been the windiest night as of yet but we had the best night sleep so far. A few ppl lost coats sleeping bags ect as they foolishly got up to pee in the night and did not weigh their belongings down.

The next day was a first for both me and craig. We landed at the Cheetah park were we walked with three domesticated cheetahs. There were two older females and one male cub. They were amazing. Later we got hurded into the back of a jeep to witness the wild cheetahs being fed. At first there was nothing then as the cheetahs smelt the meat they gatherd around the jeep. They were so close. They way the purr and fight with eachother whilst waiting to be fed. lush so lush.

The next day we made good time and got to the amazing Etosha National Park in time for an afternoon game drive. We were all watching out for the famous big five and all we got to see were the dead five. lol We actually saw a dead lion and elephant along with some other live animals. We decided to head to our campsite and wait til the next day, where we hopefully would see some alive animals. The next day was more successful. We saw elephants, 3 black rhino(which is very rare), giraffe, zebra, springbok, jackal, kudu and more. That night we stayed in Etosha and i went to the waterhole and saw three giraffe and two zebra. It was cold and i was tired so i only watched for two hours so i thought that was pretty good since sum ppl dnt see a thing all night.

The next campsite was our last in Namibia. We set our tents up next to the "warning crocodiles" sign and near the river where hippos could walk among our tents. great idea. We were told that if we needed the toilet in the nights we had to shine our torches around and if we saw eyes dnt get out of your tent, or course i needed to go but luckily there were no eyes so i ran there and back in super quick time. lol

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