Tue. 4th June ‘24
Today, we’re travelling right across the eastern half of Etosha (we’ve been told to ignore the western half as there aren’t many animals that side). It’s going to be 150+ km on unmade roads and from yesterday we know that they aren’t in great condition. Sure enough, within 200m, I was longing for the tarmac. For a long time, today’s post was going to be called “Missing You Already”, but as you’ll see, circumstances conspired against that title.
We first poked our nose into the Ombika and Nebrowni waterholes that we had great success with yesterday. All very quiet today though and so we press on. Before we get too far, there is a familiar sight – a couple of cars stopped at the side of the road. A clear indication that there is something worth seeing. I was frustrated that yesterday I wasn’t able to see the lion – it was quite well hidden – and at first I thought that it was going to be the same story today. But then Janet points out that that rock-like lump in the distance is actually a lioness’ head. A couple of pics as it is right at the limit of our cameras’ range. We’re just about to head on, when I say “what about those lions there?”. A group lying down in the grass much closer but a little off to the left. Win!
For the time being, we are sticking to the main road across the park – we did most of the sideroads around here yesterday and we need to keep cracking on. We do keep being held up however by creatures who insist on posing for us. We’ve seen the hornbills from the previous paragraph before, but the chap here is (we think) a red-footed falcon. He looks very pleased with himself and he was posing on top of a low thorn-bush by the side of the road. We went blasting past him, screeched (well crawled) to a stop, reversed and then started pointing our cameras at him. He didn’t even flinch. What a poseur!
Our immediate priority is the Halali Lodge, about halfway across this side of the park. Not only do we have good memories of staying in a cabin here, but there is also a chance that the coffee is less bad than that at Okoukuejo yesterday. Not sure about the quality, but at least it was a little cheaper. You can’t fault the animals here at Etosha, but the lodges and infrastructure need a spruce up. Anyway, the waterhole here is equipped with seating so we had a very happy half hour just watching the animal comings and goings. The lead shot of the zebras was from here and there were all sorts of antelopes to keep them company. But we should have known it was a sign of the day, that there were also these cheeky squirrels leaping from post to post on the fence around the waterhole that I managed to capture.
As we feel we’re halfway across, and its not yet lunchtime, we feel able to dive off the main road and try a few of the waterholes off sideroads. Nothing doing though, as we’ve already seen, lions are so good at hiding there is no knowing how many we just drove straight by. Another memory that we have is of going on to the salt flat that the park encircles. Back then we took some silly false perspective photos like we did in the Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia. Now we are much more mature adults (ha!), so we just found a spot to take a ‘UFO’ mirage picture before turning around and heading on. Sadly, yes, this is the only non-animal picture in this post.
We’re now getting conscious that time is ticking by. Tonight we’re camping in Onguma Reserve which is just outside the eastern gate to Etosha, and in a moment of rashness, we have signed up for a sundowner game drive with them, so we need to be there by 4pm at the latest. So we try to combine making progress with a last couple of waterholes. All well and good as a plan, but we hadn’t taken into account the cars by the side of the road gawping at something that turned out to be a cheetah, perched on a kill and with a couple of cubs. A distance from the road but nonetheless very fab.
OK, we’re not late yet, but what about those elephants on the horizon? They might be at the waterhole that we’re heading to. All well and good, but what about those other elephants that are on their way to the waterhole? And why does it have to include a mum with a baby in tow? Don’t they know that we have somewhere we need to get to? Before you feel too sorry for us, have a thought for the ostriches or the mum and baby giraffe that we later passed (and have the pictures) but haven’t included in this post!
Despite the best endeavours of all or the animals to delay us, we did make it out of the park by our deadline. Onguma were expecting us and had us scheduled in for their game drive. But even here, the world was against us. Not only did I have to fix the gas burner so that we can have tea tomorrow morning, but also there were these mongooses (mongeese??) to welcome us to the site. I’ll leave it to the reader to guess how these duties were divided!
The game drive was OK, or perfunctory, depending on how you look at it. We were asked at the start what we wanted to see. So I asked for cats. I really want to see a leopard (I’ve never seen one in the wild) but any old feline would be fine. Our hunt for cats seemed to involve visiting the 2 or 3 waterholes in the concession with a quick look around for tracks – but followed by an admission that it had been at least a week since lions had been sighted here. The best we managed was this hammer-head bird drenched in the colours of sunset.
We arrive back at the reception / restaurant (no, we are not going to cook for ourselves tonight) and we feel that all day, the animals – big and small, feathered and furred – have conspired to hinder our progress. Then we had the game drive where they positively hid from us (though equally we think that the search for lions was a bit perfunctory – easily our least satisfying drive to date). To cap it all off, we get back and we find out that we have missed the leopard coming to visit the waterhole in front of the restaurant. Pah! Too many animals all day, but we miss the one I really wanted to catch.