More on Etosha

Etosha is more than just madly dashing from one waterhole to another, although when your day is planned out, that's what you do.  It's just that you do it in an organised fashion, the best idea is to head out at the crack of dawn having picked a waterhole to head to the evening before.  The gates open at sunrise and close at sunset, so if you head off to one of the farther waterholes from which ever camp you are staying at, you can be in for a long day.

What we'd like to do one day is to head to Etosha for a couple of weeks and spend a few days at each camp, focusing on a waterhole a day.  Get there as soon as you can, spend the day there and take a series of photos throughout the day, documenting what comes and goes throughout the day. 

There's a fair variety of animals that come and go as well as bird life.  There's the birds that endemic as well as the migratory birds that come and go.  The guys on the left are Kori Bustards, the heaviest of the flighted birds in Africa, they are big but not ungainly and look so solid, they would probably dress out with enough meat to feed a large family with some left overs for the next few days.

One of the more unique things that we saw on one of our days there was a group of male giraffes who were fighting.  Our guide thought at first they they were just posturing, seeing who was the largest and sizing each other up.  The photo at the right shows them taking a quick drink before they got down to business.  Almost in unison, they paired off and started what looked like a dance, their necks were like the snakes that you see intertwined supporting each other as they wound their way across the veldt.  All of a sudden, started swinging their heads with intent, obviously trying to deliver a great whack to each other.  We were about 100 metres away and you could hear the almighty thump as their heads landed on their opponents flank.  It really was something to watch, it was fascinating, it looked as if it was happening in slow motion (a trite and overused term but it really was like that!).

Take a look at the photo to the left, there's dust flying everywhere, their necks are bent around trying to beat the crap out of their opponent and there's the third guy just looking on waiting his turn.  All of this went on for quite some time, they would stop for a short time and then resume beating the each other up.  This was really only their pre-courtship time, it's serious but not intended to inflict serious harm on each other.  For that they lash out with their hooves, something that's generally reserved for the big cats, the lions, that hunt them, and yes, a pride of lions can take one of these down, we actually see the results of that later in our trip.

Later in the evening, just before we had to dash to the Von Lindequist Gate, situated on the eastern edge of the park, we decided to take a quick detour round a waterhole where we had seen a rhino earlier in the day.  I wouldn't call it a sighting, he was deep in the bush and really only a silhouette against the blue sky, that's about it no photos.

We were driving along quite slowly when we saw two baby giraffe just quietly hiding just off the side of the road.  These two little guys ( a relative term when you think they weigh well over 100kg and fall 2 metres to the ground when they are born) were quietly observing us just passing by, not moving much, just swivelling their heads to keep track of us.

Not a bad way to end the day!!

Cheers

DADFAP