ALMOST AT THE END

It was certainly sad to say goodbye to Sarah at Windhoek Airport. After travelling together since Arusha in Tanzania, back in early September, we already miss her great jokes “Ooh look a Zebra Crossing!” (as if we had never heard it before) and more obviously both Jan and I are suffering insect bites now which of course we didn’t when Sarah was with us. (Sarah was bitten early on where as Jan and I escaped when she was with us) Only joking Sarah it was a great trip and we are both really pleased that you joined us for a good part. Thank You

This blog will be mainly about animals as we didn’t say a lot about Etosha before. Saah was of course with us for part one and after a couple of days in Windhoek, Namibia’s Capital City we headed back north to Etosha for another three days or so we hoped.

Etosha is for a lot of the year a dry dusty dried up lake bed with lots of animals around the waterholes. This was our first time seeing it after the start of the rains. It changed dramatically with still the dried up salt pans but now many areas had lush new grass sprouting, a lot of plants in flower and the trees all in leaf. The animals were still around but gradually getting spread out. It took us a couple of days to find elephants as there is no need to go to the waterholes now as the rain has brought puddles everywhere and some of the small rivers are filling up. Not only did we find the elephants but the big cats were on the prowl with some good lion sightings as well as a single leopard sheltering from the hot sun in front of a road roller of all things. There were plenty of antelope and other grazers as well as giraffe and the browsing group. The camp sites in Etosha all have floodlit waterholes and our first sightings of Rhino was at these then we managed to find both White and Black Rhino in the day in large numbers.

Zebra Fighting

A Waterhole

Kori Bustard in breeding plumage

An Etosha View

Rhino at a floodlit waterhole

Etosha Roadblock

Lions

Little Sparrowhawk

Elephant at sunset with thousands of Ed Quelia flying around

Black Rhino

Elephant on the road

Resting place

baby Wildebeest

Impala Sparring

Honey Badger raiding bins

Unfortunately for us we suffered a suspension problem with the car and had to leave a day early to get it fixed. This took a couple of days in a small town called Tsumeb but once this was completed it was onwards and crossing the border back into Zambia and on towards Liuwa Plains in the far west of Zambia. The best time we were assured to go was just as the rains start in late November. Well the rains seem to have started very early this year in Zambia and Liuwa was very green with many of the red rain lillies in flower. The wildebeest had arrived in great numbers and were all over the plains and we saw a few Hyena but little else in the way of mammals and no cheetahs or lion that we hoped for. The birdlife though was amazing. Liuwa Plains would be our final camping part of the journey

Misty morning in Liuwa Plains

Hundreds of Crowned Cranes were in the area

A Wildebeest amongst the flowers on the plains

Big open skies are a feature of Liuwa

Wildebeest

Pointing the way

Hyena

The pontoon that we used to cross into Liuwa

Propelling the pontoon

Stormy Skies

This brought us to our final few days of the trip and this will be continued in nthe next blog.