Etosha means the great white & with our big day of game driving in the daylight, I'm sure we will understand why.
We start off out the gates of our camping grounds just after 7am.
The first sighting of the day is 1 wildebeast grazing on the left of the truck, on the right there is a solo elephant wandering along & a herd of springbok & 1 male impala. Corey busted bird on the left & up ahead we could see blue wildebeast, 3 giraffe & impala crossing the road. One of the giraffes was a baby & we could see it running & chasing birds.
The wildebeast in Etosha are called blue wildebeast and are different to the ones we saw in East Africa which are the black bearded wildebeast.
We saw a group of 4 giraffe, 1 was a tiny baby, the smallest & newest we've seen so far, it still looked uncoordinated.
Across from the giraffe was a small herd of zebra.
The zebra here are very pretty & have a lot more white than black with wider spacing of the stripes. They also have a very defined light brown stripe in between the white.
We continue to see the zebra in small & large herds, we even seen some play fighting.
We finally see a herd of 8 Oryx or Gemsbok, the national icon for Namibia.
I was really excited to see these guys, only found in southern Africa.
We seen a male ostrich pecking at a bush & were told that ostrich can run at 60km/h & sprint short distances of 80km/h.
We saw 2 large elephants walking by the road and noticed their gorgeous light colouring. They use the white dust of Etosha to cover themselves as sun protection & camouflage.
At 10:15am we saw a mixed herd of zebra & red heerte beast, a type of antelope we had to identify with a book. Etosha is one of the only places to find them.
Just down the road we saw another herd of heerte beast with some zebra and a large light coloured bull elephant who was standing near the road eating a bush & showing off his 5th leg.
Just after 12pm we came to a waterhole that had lots of giraffe, female kudu, zebra & swarms of impala. We were told that hippos & crocodiles don't live in Etosha due to the sometimes severe dry season causing a lack of deep water.
After lunch we drove for 1.5 hours seeing only zebra, springbok & the occasional giraffe. At 3:28pm we could see a couple of cars parked up & staring at a tree. 50 meters away was a cheetah!
It didn't do much at first & was nearly completely hidden by grass but it did get up & walk some distance before lying down again. Our camera and lenses aren't good enough to capture it from that distance. We are in the front of the truck again, which offers great views, especially directly out the front of the truck & on the road. The photos that include the top of the cab are really good for perspective & show just how high up we sit in the truck & how close we drive next tot eh animals. Unfortunately at the time of doing the blog I can't find any of the photos that we took with the DSLR & I fear we might have accidentally deleted them or lost them in another folder. Hopefully this is the one and only time this happens. There was some nice photos of the Oryx & of the 2 big elephants covered in dust.
We exited the park at 5:01pm without seeing anything else but the occasional impala or zebra.
We set up camp on a cement slab that has it's own access to power & with a beautiful view of the sunset. We temporarily forget our nightly duties to put camping chairs behind our tent, open a bottle of wine to enjoy with the sunset. We are here for 2 nights & it would turn out to be one of our favourite campsites.
- Alli
We start off out the gates of our camping grounds just after 7am.
The first sighting of the day is 1 wildebeast grazing on the left of the truck, on the right there is a solo elephant wandering along & a herd of springbok & 1 male impala. Corey busted bird on the left & up ahead we could see blue wildebeast, 3 giraffe & impala crossing the road. One of the giraffes was a baby & we could see it running & chasing birds.
The wildebeast in Etosha are called blue wildebeast and are different to the ones we saw in East Africa which are the black bearded wildebeast.
We saw a group of 4 giraffe, 1 was a tiny baby, the smallest & newest we've seen so far, it still looked uncoordinated.
Across from the giraffe was a small herd of zebra.
The zebra here are very pretty & have a lot more white than black with wider spacing of the stripes. They also have a very defined light brown stripe in between the white.
We continue to see the zebra in small & large herds, we even seen some play fighting.
We finally see a herd of 8 Oryx or Gemsbok, the national icon for Namibia.
I was really excited to see these guys, only found in southern Africa.
We seen a male ostrich pecking at a bush & were told that ostrich can run at 60km/h & sprint short distances of 80km/h.
We saw 2 large elephants walking by the road and noticed their gorgeous light colouring. They use the white dust of Etosha to cover themselves as sun protection & camouflage.
At 10:15am we saw a mixed herd of zebra & red heerte beast, a type of antelope we had to identify with a book. Etosha is one of the only places to find them.
Just down the road we saw another herd of heerte beast with some zebra and a large light coloured bull elephant who was standing near the road eating a bush & showing off his 5th leg.
Just after 12pm we came to a waterhole that had lots of giraffe, female kudu, zebra & swarms of impala. We were told that hippos & crocodiles don't live in Etosha due to the sometimes severe dry season causing a lack of deep water.
After lunch we drove for 1.5 hours seeing only zebra, springbok & the occasional giraffe. At 3:28pm we could see a couple of cars parked up & staring at a tree. 50 meters away was a cheetah!
It didn't do much at first & was nearly completely hidden by grass but it did get up & walk some distance before lying down again. Our camera and lenses aren't good enough to capture it from that distance. We are in the front of the truck again, which offers great views, especially directly out the front of the truck & on the road. The photos that include the top of the cab are really good for perspective & show just how high up we sit in the truck & how close we drive next tot eh animals. Unfortunately at the time of doing the blog I can't find any of the photos that we took with the DSLR & I fear we might have accidentally deleted them or lost them in another folder. Hopefully this is the one and only time this happens. There was some nice photos of the Oryx & of the 2 big elephants covered in dust.
We exited the park at 5:01pm without seeing anything else but the occasional impala or zebra.
We set up camp on a cement slab that has it's own access to power & with a beautiful view of the sunset. We temporarily forget our nightly duties to put camping chairs behind our tent, open a bottle of wine to enjoy with the sunset. We are here for 2 nights & it would turn out to be one of our favourite campsites.
- Alli
No comments:
Post a Comment