I apologise for the lack of posts. All the accommodations we have experienced around Etosha have had patchy internet capability. While it's advertised as a service you can never seem to access it.
I should probably explain the set up at Etosha. The park itself is huge, thousands of kilometres and within it there are secure accommodation compounds/camps. Secure from the animals that is. The National Park gates close between sunset & sunrise (generally 6pm-6am) & so do the gates of the camps.
So yesterday was a complete disaster; we got lost and ended up at the opposite end of Etosha over 100 kilometres from where we should be. Our accommodation is 10 min outside the south gate and at 5.30pm we were at Namutoni Camp at the north east gate. There was no way we could travel through the park (the direct route is approx 140km of gravel road with max speed limit 60kph) in time to reach the south gate and be out by the time it closed at 6pm. The only other option was to travel via the highway outside the park but we would not reach our accommodation until approx 10pm. Driving at night here is dangerous & the staff at Namutoni told us in no uncertain terms that the losing the cost of 1 nights accommodation was not worth putting our lives at risk. So that settled the issue for us and fortunately the staff were able to find us a room at Namutoni Camp so we stayed within the park.
This morning we began travelling back through the park to Okaukuejo Camp & the south gate.
As bad as our day was yesterday, today was the complete opposite. We saw Kudu within 5 minutes of leaving the camp gate and it just got better as the day went on: Springbok (we actually saw them springing), Zebra, Giraffe, Hartbeest, Wildebeest and within 10 min of Okaukuejo Camp we came across 3 Elephants at the edge of a water hole.
We were parked only 20 metres away - it absolutely made our day.
Tried Springbok & Oryx at dinner; the Springbok was light and quite like beef but I didn’t like the Oryx and wasn't brave enough to try the Eland stew!
I should probably explain the set up at Etosha. The park itself is huge, thousands of kilometres and within it there are secure accommodation compounds/camps. Secure from the animals that is. The National Park gates close between sunset & sunrise (generally 6pm-6am) & so do the gates of the camps.
So yesterday was a complete disaster; we got lost and ended up at the opposite end of Etosha over 100 kilometres from where we should be. Our accommodation is 10 min outside the south gate and at 5.30pm we were at Namutoni Camp at the north east gate. There was no way we could travel through the park (the direct route is approx 140km of gravel road with max speed limit 60kph) in time to reach the south gate and be out by the time it closed at 6pm. The only other option was to travel via the highway outside the park but we would not reach our accommodation until approx 10pm. Driving at night here is dangerous & the staff at Namutoni told us in no uncertain terms that the losing the cost of 1 nights accommodation was not worth putting our lives at risk. So that settled the issue for us and fortunately the staff were able to find us a room at Namutoni Camp so we stayed within the park.
This morning we began travelling back through the park to Okaukuejo Camp & the south gate.
As bad as our day was yesterday, today was the complete opposite. We saw Kudu within 5 minutes of leaving the camp gate and it just got better as the day went on: Springbok (we actually saw them springing), Zebra, Giraffe, Hartbeest, Wildebeest and within 10 min of Okaukuejo Camp we came across 3 Elephants at the edge of a water hole.
We were parked only 20 metres away - it absolutely made our day.
Tried Springbok & Oryx at dinner; the Springbok was light and quite like beef but I didn’t like the Oryx and wasn't brave enough to try the Eland stew!
Namutoni Fort
Kudu
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