Within a minute of entering the East gate of Etosha National Park, we were greeted with the sight of thirty giraffe crossing the road! In the dry season Etosha is one of the top game viewing destinations in the world, with the animals coming to drink from floodlit watering holes placed near the campsites. Yet again, we were in the wet season meaning that the vast area of salt pan in the park was now infact a lake. The animals needn't come to the watering holes to get water as everywhere was saturated. We did, however, see some wonderful animals and had a thoroughly enjoyable time driving in the beautiful landscape. It was great to meet up with our Belgian friends, Wim and Sofie, who we had last seen in north Ethiopia. They arrived in Etosha where we caught up on the past few months of travelling in Africa. They had had extremely bad luck - they rolled the car on the Moyale-Marsabit road in north Kenya, Sofie was hospitalised with neck damage, a lot of their possessions were stolen from their car after the accident and Wim contracted malaria whilst in Zanzibar. The poor things needed a holiday so it was great that we could enjoy Etosha together and spend the next couple of weeks preparing and embarking on an 'extreme off road adventure' in the Kaokoland. The campsites in the park are incredibly well organised and much better value than any in East Africa. They had swimming pools, internet connection, hot showers (and a bath!) and individual barbeque areas - we were shocked at how civilised camping could be! The game around Namatoni was spectacular. We saw about 15 lion, three lion chases, three cheetah, mongeese, jackal, zebra, ostriches and the rare black faced impalas. The north eastern area of the park was literally heaving with animals. The southern area of the park didn't have as many animals but on our last day we had the excitement of being charged by an angry bull elephant. Camilla could see it getting closer and closer and screamed to Rich who stalled the car as it was in 3rd gear! Just at the moment when the elephant was literally a few inches from our back door he managed to sort the gears and screech away. Our hearts were both thumping very loudly for a few minutes after that! On our way out, we stopped off for a night at a cheetah park where there are three pet cheetahs and about twenty wild ones on the farmland. The farm sets out to protect them from being shot by locals or trophy hunters (alarmingly a big sport in Namibia). It was great to get so close to these wonderful creatures.