Etosha - The park of white roads

It's quite a long drive from Epupa Falls down to Etosha National Park. We stopped off at the supermarket and service station in Opuwo to fill up the car and our fridge. Then as we were coming south there was a quarantine gate for foot and mouth disease. Did we have any meat, again? yes because we had just filled up at the supermarket as there were no other shops between here and our next destination. Damn it. She said we could cook it then and there, but why would we want to do that when we are trying to get to our next destination. We gave them a few sacrificial items and then cooked up what was left when we got to our next stop, what is a 100kms in the middle of a desert really? It's what the locals do.

I thought we had missed our turn off, so we went back only to find that the route google had given me had a locked gate on it. It's so annoying when you waste time like that. It turned out that Tom Tom was correct and we ended up having to go further south to then come back up again.

We arrived at Etosha National Park through the western Gaton gate. There is an east one and south one. Our camps were all pre-booked but we still had to pay for our daily park entrance fees as I didn't want to pay it in advance in case our plans changed. They don't take credit cards here and we had run down our cash. Fortunately they let you go in and expect you to pay further in. Even though I had downloaded some park maps we still bought a booklet which not only showed where the waterholes were but also which ones were still being used. There would be no point in driving 10kms or so down a road to find a dustbowl. It also has pictures of each animal found in the park. Everyone we had spoken to about Etosha had said the roads were really bad. Have they not been to Sossusvlei? Our opinion on the Etosha roads is that the main roads are pretty good. A couple of the side roads to waterholes were a little corrugated. One road, I think it was Rhino drive had huge potholes which made you drive around 20km/hr. Certainly nothing to complain about.

Mud bath

We had booked three nights in three of the campsites which is about 7 days longer than most people stay. Olifantsrus in the west,  Okaukuejo is near the south entrance and Halali is to the east. We didn't stay at Namutoni which is in the far east as we thought it was too far but we did end up going there on a day trip. All the camps have their own waterholes and each set up is different.

Dust bath

Olifantsrus is the newest campsite and only caters to campers in an area that used to be closed off to tourists. It is a lot smaller than the others in the park. Our campsite shares a power pole with our neighbours across the driveway which is bizarre as it means they have to have a long extension lead and people will be driving over it, obviously they didn't want to dig trenches for the cable. One of our neighbours was travelling in a 2WD van and I wondered how it had fared around Sossusvlei. It turned out it didn't. They got two flat tyres and a broken shock absorber. I can't believe the rental companies allow people to bring normal cars to this area. We had to give our company an itinerary of where we were travelling, mainly for crossing borders as there are extra taxes to be paid, but surely they want to know where you are taking their vehicles?

The waterhole at Olifantsrus has a hide on stilts with a long slippery walkway, so you are fair way above the waterhole. There is a glassed in viewing area downstairs but the elephants keep smearing the windows so you can't photograph through them. Even though the campsite is at the end of the ramp you can't see if there are any animals at the waterhole from the fence. The action mainly happens at night but occasionally during the day too. The interesting animals here are the elephants and rhinoceros. The rhinos only come in at night. They both love stirring up the mud and either rolling in it or spraying it over themselves.

The sites at Okaukuejo are in no particular order and the numbering isn't sequential or contiguous and it took us a while to find our site. It was the perfect location being the closest site to the path that led to the waterhole. We could also see animals coming from the west heading towards the waterhole as we were right on the fence line. This waterhole is a favourite for elephants and giraffe. To take photos of animals you need to have a high shutter speed which is made all the more difficult when it's dark. I had taken a few pictures with my little camera but deleted them when I realised they were all blurry. Lindsay persevered in trying to get shots and while the giraffes didn't co operate by drinking all at the same time, he did a really good job.

The slightest unease and they all run away

The Lion cub had a lot of fun playing with a paper bag that the wind threw around so that he could run and catch it.

Sunset at Okaukuejo waterhole

Night time at Halali waterhole

The baby Rhino had a lot of fun scarring off the birds. He would wait until they were on the ground and then run at them, go back to his mother and then do it again and again.

There are cheetah and leopold in the park but we weren't fortunate enough to see them.

While the jackals are eating, the hyenas just come in and take the whole bone

During the day the rhino spend their time in dense bush to hid from predators

Surprisingly very few vultures in the park

The lions only stay at the waterholes for about five minutes, so you are very lucky to see one.

Our time had come to an end. If we had planned it better we should have stayed at Okaukuejo last so that we didn't have as far to drive to the south gate. It's over an hour between the two camps if you stick to the speed limit and we stopped at Okaukuejo to pump up our tyres and get more fuel. It's nearly a six hour drive back to our hotel in Windhoek and as you can't leave your camp until sunrise, you can't get an early start.

Our campsite in Halali, again the closest to the waterhole

As we left through the south gates they checked our papers to make sure we had paid our park fees, which we had a few days before. They also checked for meat as you can't take it out of the park. As we weren't cooking any more meals we didn't have anything to declare. Again, I just don't understand it - the only place that you can purchase meat was in the National Parks camps - was there something wrong with what they were selling us?

Along the main highway back to Windhoek there are baboons and warthogs along the side of the road. Surprisingly we never saw any warthogs anywhere else in the country. I had made sure that I had our passports out just in case any zealous policeman decided he wanted to see them, but thankfully we weren't stopped.

We had arranged for the rental company to pick up our camper from our hotel. As they close at 5pm, he wanted to pick it up at 4pm and Lindsay wanted to get to our hotel even earlier so that we had time to unpack and sort of clean it up. Our only casualties were the rear number plate which had lost a few screws on the second day, so we had used double sided tape to put it back but that didn't last long. Then up in Epupa Falls, the clips that held the top of the camper down snapped so Lindsay had been using rope to fasten "the lid" of the camper ever since. The man from Bushlore was surprised that we hadn't wrecked any tyres or anything else for that matter. We had taken out extra insurance for a broken windscreen but didn't need to use it. We did have one stone hit our windscreen but it didn't mark it, well not noticeably anyway. Our suitcases had been stored at Bushlore during our trip which meant we had to repack everything when he brought them back to us. This is a nice service as not all rental companies will do this.

It was really windy for most of our stay, which is apparently normal for August. I had asked a guide what his favourite time of year was and he said June/July - probably because there are less people. If we come back, I think September would be a better time for Etosha, yes it would be warmer but then the animals would have to come to the waterholes.

I hope you enjoyed our trip as much as we did.

Want to start at the beginning of this trip? Namibia - Pt 1. Then just use the "newer post" button at the bottom of the page to get to the next post.