Etosha National Park

Days 9-10: Etosha NP is known as the 'jewel in Namibia's wildlife crown' and nearly all the places we have been so far have sold pictures of watering holes packed with herds of animals, including elephants, giraffe, zebra, oryx, ostrich and naturally, the cats. However, in the wet season (now) and especially due to the unusual amount of rain we've seen, the herds are not dependent on the artificial water supplies that have been created and because of this freedom, have migrated elsewhere in the park.

At 22,000km, Etosha is in no way a huge park, but its certainly big enough to lose elephants in. Our game drives in Shashe still provide fruitful, and our highlights include a male lion who obligingly stands up as if to pose for us, giraffe on the road, and white rhino. We also oblingingly trundled off to help another overland truck who had underestimated the strength of the mud, but they got un-stuck after 2 hours - just before we got there!

The campsite we stay at underwent extensive renovation a few years ago, and has excellent facilities as a result, including not one but three pools, a watchtower that is good to climb for sunset pictures, shops and a restaurant. There are even upgrades available if your purse will stretch to a whopping $100 per person. (In general, at a lot of campsites there are often upgrades – rooms, dorms, chalets, huts – available along the way, so if you fancy a night or two away from pitching a tent, it is possible, you just pay the monies due on top of the camping already paid for).

The best feature of the campsite is the watering hole which is just (a matter of feet) outside it – inside the camp, and behind a sturdy wall, are benches all along one side, and the area is subtly floodlit at night so you can sit and watch out for animals who might come by.

In our case, those who braved the wait are rewarded by a young white rhino, who spent an hour and a half contentedly wading through the water.

On the second evening, we are asked to partake in a survey about food on camping tours versus the food available in the restaurant on-site. The conversation went somewhat as follows:

Questioner: Can you tell me what you had for dinner last night?

Me: well... we started with chicken and mushroom soup...with bread, and then we had kudu steaks with potato salad, vegetables and mixed salad. For desert we had homemade cheescake.

Q: (stunned silence)

Etosha Rule: if you go to bed in the evening, don't expect anyone still up at the watering hole to come fetch you if animals arrive. This act of selfishless could cost them seeing the animal they've come to tell you about!