Of cheetahs and shooting stars (Northern Namibia)

The longest leg of my three week overland journey from Vic Falls to Cape Town was spent travelling through Namibia, a vast but very lightly populated country which only gained its independence in 1990 after years of rule variously under Germany, Britain and South Africa. With only 2 million people spread over a country more than three times the size of the UK, travelling across Namibia involves a lot of long drives on straight roads (not all of which are paved) with very few towns or villages along the way. However, I found the desert scenery and the remoteness breathtaking and grew to really love Namibia during the two weeks I spent there.

We kicked off our time in Namibia with another safari, this time in the Etosha National Park, a much drier area than the national parks I'd visited in Tanzania and Botswana. Nevertheless, it was still teeming with wildlife and I was lucky to see some animals which I'd either not seen yet or only had fleeting glimpses of. Some, like the oryx don't live in East Africa, while others, such as the rhino and giraffe, I'd seen on previous safaris, but this time got much closer to.

Oryx (also makes a very tasty steak!)

White rhino

Giraffe

The national park is centred around the huge Etosha pan, a large salt lake which covers over 5000 sq km and only has water in it for a few days a year. During our visit we went on two long game drives in our overland truck through the park, with our eyes glued to the windows looking to spot elusive cheetahs, leopards and sable antelope.

Having fun with the camera on the salt lake

An elephant cools off at a watering hole

Giraffes stop for a drink

After leaving the park, we spent a night at a campsite with its own resident leopard. Having not seen a leopard on my three safari trips in Africa so far, this was likely to be my last chance to see the one member of the Big Five (lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard) that had eluded me. While I wouldn't claim this as a proper sighting, it was still cool to see one, albeit it played to type and kept itself as hidden as possible from us - there is a leopard in the photo below - honest!

Spot the leopard

If the leopard had been a little shy, our next night saw us stay on a cheetah farm where we got up close and personal with a number of cheetahs that live there. The cheetah sanctuary has been set up in part to protect local farmers from the threat of cheetahs to their sheep, cows, chickens and other livestock, but also to rehabilitate injured or orphaned cheetahs before releasing them back in to the wild. We were all rather hesitant at first as the cheetahs calmly walked among us, but before long we were all posing for photos with the three adult cheetahs and one cub that live at the farm house. Later we went to see the cheetahs that were being prepared for release back in to the wild being fed their evening meal of donkey meat from the back of a truck, which was as close as we'd get to seeing them properly in the wild.

Walking with cheetahs

Hello puss

A battle of strength with the cheetah cub (he won)

Cheetah eating donkey meat becomes new spectator sport

Cheetahs hunting donkey (sort of)

We then headed further south into Namibia, eating up the kilometres each day and heading relentlessly towards Cape Town. Along the way we stopped at some roadside stalls selling locally made gifts and souvenirs and stopped in one or two of the few towns that are dotted around Namibia.

A typical view from the truck in Namibia

Watch out for elephants!

Our next stop was Spitzkoppe, a 1728m mountain, nicknamed the Matterhorn of Africa. Having been to Zermatt at the foot of Matterhorn, I could certainly see the similarity in shape, but the similarities ended there as there was no snow in sight, surrounded as it was by desert, nor any shops selling swiss army knives and cuckoo clocks! While at Spitzkoppe we went for a walk with a local guide to see some San art work which had been used for hundreds of years to guide groups of hunters-gatherers within the tribe to sources of water and warn them of the presence of predators.

Walking towards Spitzkoppe

San rock art - the rhino points towards the nearest water source

That night I took the opportunity to sleep out under the stars as our guide had promised us this would be the best place to do this on the trip. No-one else from the group was brave enough (or stupid enough depending on how you look at it!) to join me, but I had a very good night's sleep out in the elements watching shooting stars pass over head and the moon rise in between several hours of very peaceful sleep, thankfully uninterrupted by any snakes or scorpions.

My bed for the night at Spitzkoppe

Out on my own away from the tents

Sunrise over the desert