BOSMAN'S BUSH TELEGRAPH - 5 APRIL 2000
Hi all
Just thought I would send you a quick run down on the
next installment of our trip - I am sure that you are all sick of hearing about
our bush adventures by now - just shout if you want to be taken off the distribution
list!
We are currently in Windhoek but are setting off for the
Namibia/Botswana border later today. We
spent the last 6 days in the Etosha National
Park - an experience which was absolutely
glorious. We stayed at all three of the Etosha camps (Numatoni, Halali and Okekeujo) for two
nights each. The camps have just the
right combination of bushveld experience and creature
comforts. They are all situated in the
most stunning areas and there are an assortment of
game drives to be done and water holes to be visited but each of the camps also
has a swimming pool, restaurant, curio shop etc. Our days took quite a set pattern. We would set off at sunrise for an early morning
game drive and would return to the camp by mid morning for brunch. We would then decamp to the swimming pool
enclosure and find a shady tree to lie under and read. After a couple of hours relaxing at the pool
we would then set off for our late afternoon game drive. It was heavenly and superbly relaxing.
Nev and the Land Rover in Etosha
and Fort Namutoni at Namutoni Camp, Etosha
Etosha, like the rest of
Namibia,
has experienced a lot of rain recently - in fact it rained every day that we
were there. This meant that there were
puddles of water scattered throughout the park and the animals were quite
unconcerned about visiting their usual water holes as they could find water all
over. This blasé attitude had the result
that the animals felt no need to come out of the dense bush and show themselves
to the tourists at the water holes - making game spotting extremely
difficult. My initial excitement at
seeing zebra, springbok and giraffe started to wane as we settled into a
routine of spotting only this trio of usual suspects, interspersed with the odd
gemsbok and wildebeest, for the remainder of the six days. We became quite desperate to spot "the
big five" or even just the odd warthog or hyena and took to accosting
German tourists that crossed our path to find out whether they had seen any
game. Another approach that we adopted
was racing back to the camp reception to check the "incident book" in
which all big sightings are recorded and then darting out to the water holes
where people had recorded big game spottings - to no
avail I might add. We must have spotted
a hundred trees and pieces of driftwood that resembled animals or birds only to
be disappointed when we focused on them through our binoculars. It was only late on our fifth day in the park
that we finally spotted a lone elephant.
Our patience (and perseverance) was finally rewarded as we left the park
on the morning of our sixth day when we decided to check one last water hole
and stumbled on a pride of six lions. We
were so relieved that we spent the rest of the morning parked at the water hole
ogling the lions until they meandered back into the bush and out of sight.
The elephant and
the lions that we waited 6 days to see!
The up side of all the rain was that we saw the most
fantastic birds including hundreds of flamingos that migrate to the pan when
there is water in it. We also had five
days of real holiday and now feel ready to tackle Botswana. I think that we will be plagued with more
rain in Botswana
and some of the parks including Moremi may well be
closed. The positive is that there will
definitely be water in the Okovango Swamps which will
make a mokoro trip possible. I am encouraged when I read in our guide book
that there are 73 000 elephants in the Chobe game
reserve and that they are often found in herds of up to 500 - this should make
spotting them a lot easier than it was in Etosha!
After crossing the border later today our first stop
will be at Ghantsi where we will overnight before
heading for Maun tomorrow. We are totally out of touch with SA news (and world
news for that matter) having not seen a newspaper in some time. The Namibian papers are not big on
international news and seem to focus exclusively on local issues. We have tried to listen to the BBC world
service on our short wave radio but it just sounds like fuzz and static. Wont someone let us
know what has happened to the Stormers in the Super
12 and what is going on in Ally McBeal?
Hope that you are all well.
Lots of love
Penny & Neville