Justins World

The second part of our Etosha trip included 2 nights just outside the park at a fancy lodge. To be honest most of the lodges have been a bit fancy, fancier than i’d usually book, but it also seems going through a company to arrange all the logistics and book the accomodation has meant we got some really good prices for the place we stayed at, because the prices on the websites are way too high to have been what we paid for the 2 weeks.

We left Halali, to drive to the lodge at Mushara just outside the parks eastern gate. We chose to drive along Rhino way because who’d name a road after something we wouldn’t see on the road? What we did see was a herd of 19 Zebras. I boldly claimed we were so lucky to see so many and doubt we’d see this many at the same time. I was proven wrong later that morning when we counted 69 Zebras together and we had well over 300 Zebras just on this day alone!

We drove around to a waterhole called Springbokfontein (Springbok fountain in english). While the chief Zebra counter (well she was actually counting just about everything but Springbok and Impala) was doing her thing, a vehicle we passed waved us down. The guide said there was a cheetah and a cub in a hollow not far from where we are but the lack of height of our vehicle meant we couldn’t see her. Eventually they left and we drove up to the waterhole for a look. As we returned back past where the cheetah was, a stampede of springbok and zebra occurred. Out of the grass strode a mother cheetah and not 1 but 4 cubs! I struggled to get a great view of them as a few cars who were previously obvlious to the cheetahs location happened to strike it lucky and be in the right place. Still with all cat sitings you take what you can get at the time, for as long as you can see them.

Later that morning we also got lucky and saw elephants by a waterhole. That made 4 days in a row sighting elephants. Sometimes you’d drive up to a waterhole and see nothing, sometimes it would be full of springbok, zebra or even a few giraffes. When you get lucky it has a herd of elephants there or even rhinos. We made our way to the Mushara lodge, a place with a nice pool, welcome drinks and we had an amazing outdoor “Braai” dinner that night. A Braai is basically a barbie or BBQ, but South African/Namibian style. After a sweltering hot day though we got some lightening, thunder and even a few spots of rain, that threatened the braai but only those dressed up like it was a formal cruise dining experience seemed to head inside.

Our last day visiting Etosha was strangely quite overcast and wet. No one quite knew where the rain came from, the forecast had the day as 38C and hot. Our morning game drive didn’t yield a lot of anything really, not even the springbok were plentiful. Quite a few zebras though and if you ever want to see zebras then Etosha is a good place. I remember my Kruger trip many years ago and i was lucky to see 2 in the bushes. Here I was coming across hundreds and the official tally was 793 for Etosha alone.

We decided to pay for a guided drive in the late evening, its amazing how sundowner drinks can make a guided game drive suddenly become interesting. Who wouldn’t want a beverage at a waterhole watching the wildlife? Sundowners have become my new favourite time to drink. Although I’m not a fan of tonic, I’ve had a rather good gin and lemonade, I’ve also got onto gin and dry ginger ale as a tasty alternative also. The good news was as we set off on this drive, that the guide knew where a leopard had been for most of the day and we raced across the savannah to see it.

The good news was indeed good and the leopard was still there and word had got around as about 10 vehicles jostled for best view of this amazing big cat. Its springbok kill was hanging in the tree, a gruesome sight through binoculars. The leopard was mostly sleeping and doing its best to ignore the cars. This was my first ever leopard sighting and I was so thrilled and in awe of this amazing animal. I don’t know if anything can top this. Even the lion a metre off the road as we were leaving seemed to be less exciting, then again I had to pinch myself as 2 cat sightings on one drive was really good. I forgot to mention we stretched our elephant sighting streak to 5 straight days also!

This is where our 4 amazing days and nights in etosha ended. We just had one more wildlife place left a short drive down the road in Okonjima on the way back to Windhoek to go. The holiday is nearing an end and its starting to get to me how much I’ll miss Namibia.