So yesterday afternoon David and Helen from Chalfont St Giles flew into the camp with their pilot as a stop on their Southern Africa safari trip!

They joined us on the afternoon game drive during which we saw zebra, oryx, giraffe, ground squirrel and springbok. In spite of seeing elephant droppings and lion cub and leopard tracks we didn’t find the actual animals. Shame! Though we did hear lions roar on the way to bed (we were on the way to bed rather than the lions!).

The wind really got up during the night and was battering the tents so that nobody in camp slept very well! We left after breakfast and were driven to the gate and managed to see a tree full of vultures.

The first section of road to Etosha was not very good although it did improve gradually and with 210km (out of 340) to do we hit tarmac! This was OK but the road was dead straight for mile after mile and boredom and tiredness didn’t help but we arrived at our hotel around 2pm.

This is a proper hotel with 67 rooms although they are all detached (smart) huts! Having checked in we decided to unload the car and head into the Etosha Park which is a game conservation area. Almost immediately we spotted three giraffes and as we were about to move on a safari viewing vehicle guide said “you must turn round and follow me quickly. The elephants are coming!” So we did and followed into a turning and waited with half a dozen other vehicles and watched as first one bull elephant strolled past - and then the rest of the herd including a very tiny baby being shielded by the grown ups. How lucky was that?!

After that we carried on and saw more giraffe, springbok and then some impala and zebras. We are now getting more selective and picky about what to stop for! Further on we came across a huge bull elephant walking down the road towards us. As he got close the car in front reversed back past us and it’s place was taken by a safari vehicle. It soon became clear that he wasn’t happy flapping it’s ears and curling his trunk as he got closer to the vehicles until we all started reversing quite briskly out of his way!! Eventually, he decided that he had made his point and ambled bad temperedly off the road - at which point we all made a rapid escape. All quite exciting though!

On the way back to the hotel we saw a group of mongooses (geese?) on the road who also took a while to take the hint with several standing up meerkat style to check us out! Got some pics as well.