Etosha National Park
Namibia & South Africa, July – August 2024
Day 7 – Jul 17: San tribal village – Etosha National Park (Halali Campsite)
Etosha is one of Africa’s largest national parks, over 22,000 square kilometers, and was established as a game reserve more than 100 years ago. “Etosha” means “Great White Place” in a local dialect, referring to the large salt pan, covering an area of 4,760 km2. Around the pan most of the park is savanna woodlands, with Mopane as the most common tree. The areas close to the pan are only covered with different grasses and small shrubs.
The park has a large network of gravel roads. There aren’t many natural water sources providing water year-round, but there are more than 40 man-made waterholes, spread across the park.
We drove via Grootfontein, where we refueled and did some major shopping for our next destination, Etosha. We were going to spend a whole week there, in 3 different campsites. This was my third trip to Etosha, which helped a lot to decide where to stay, which areas to look for wildlife and which waterholes are best to visit early morning and late afternoon.
We arrived at the park in the late afternoon and entered at the Namutoni Gate. We then drove slowly towards our camp, Halali, visiting a couple of different waterholes along the way.
We checked in at the Halali Restcamp and set up camp, before our afternoon safari drive. Halali is my absolute favorite camp in Etosha, for its waterhole as well as some great diverse habitat nearby. One of it home to cheetahs, one of our top targets to see up close.
A good start in Etosha, with our first lions! We then rushed to our camp, before the gates would close. We had dinner and then went to the Halali waterhole, always an exciting place and great opportunity to see some Rhinos up close!
Day 8 & 9 – Jul 18 & 19: Etosha National Park
The next 2 days we did more or less the same loop along the Etosha Pan and some waterholes, mainly targeting the area where I had found cheetahs during my two previous trips to the park. All you need is good eyes, and a lot of patience…!
In the evening we spent time at the waterhole, just to relax and see what would show up. Never a boring moment, as there’s always something interesting showing up.
Our time at Halali came to an end; it certainly delivered what I had hoped for, so everybody was super excited with this first leg of our visit to Etosha.
Day 10 & 11 – Jul 20 & 21: Etosha National Park
Today we moved to Okaukuejo Campsite, the largest and most popular camp in Etosha. Its central location provides many routes to drive, all in different directions and diverse habitat.
We had an excellent start here, when during our first late afternoon drive we found 2 different mating lion couples, in 2 different locations! I took some spectacular close-up photos, but… Accidentally didn’t properly save these photos when transferring to a hard drive. I still can’t get over it…!
Here a couple of iPhone photos of the lions:
Not only my lion photos are gone, but also photos of a group of a dozen spotted hyenas on the young elephant carcass we had spotted a day earlier… Lesson learnt, will not happen ever again!
Day 12 – Jul 22: Etosha National Park
Today we moved to our third campsite in Etosha, Olifantsrus, in the far west of the park. It’s the smallest camp in the park, and far less popular. We liked the intimacy of the camp a lot, and it also has a great waterhole with watchtower as well as water-level view point from behind glass. Our short stay eventually didn’t deliver the anticipated lion sightings, nor the rare Brown Hyena that I was quietly hoping to see again…
Unfortunately photos were on the same memory card that I failed to download, so no photos of the elephants and night-time visitor to our campsite, a curious Cape Fox…
