Blog Posts in Category: Wildlife

Today we started the day with what our plan had been for the previous afternoon, by visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site at Twyfelfontein, which has rock engravings between 2000-10,000 years old. After we had done this we then drove to Etosha National Park, where we will be for the next 3 days. Twyfelfontein Rock Engravings We started the morning by visiting Twyfelfontein rock engravings, where we enjoyed a tour with a local guide who explained the fascinating history of the engravings and ensured that we saw all the best examples of the engravings. Twyfelfontein contains Africa’s largest collection of ancient San rock engravings (petroglyphs), featuring over 2,500 images carved into sandstone, depicting animals (giraffes, rhinos, lions, seals), human figures, tracks, and geometric designs, offering insights into shamanistic rituals, spiritual beliefs, and daily life from 2,000 to 10,000 years ago. Following the very unexpectedly high volume of rain the evening before, the tour was much muddier than expected and also much more humid, so by the end I was very ready to get back into an air conditioned car to cool down. Drive The drive to Etosha was really a. Read the full article…

Today the plan was simply to drive to Mowani Mountain Camp which is near Twyfelfontein, and then to go and see the famous rock petroglyphs. However this did not go to plan, as we took a detour en-route to go up the Upper Huab River with our 4×4 to see if we could find any elephants, we are fairly sure we found elephant poo, but no elephants. Then while we were almost at our destination we saw an elephant safari advertised, which when we went in was departing in 10 mins, so with no decision time we decided to go for it, instead of our planned day. The Drive The drive was all really easy with all of the roads being brilliant, and the scenery continued to be absolutely fantastic. Constantly changing during the entire drive, however always beautiful and always interesting. We stopped en-route a few times, the first was to have breakfast and we managed, by total chance, to choose a spot which was at the top of a pass with totally fantastic views. It was however rather windy which made boiling the water for our tea and. Read the full article…

The initial plan for today was for a fairly chilled out day seeing the seals at Cape Cross in the morning, before making the easy drive up the Skeleton Coast looking at shipwrecks, however in the lodge we saw an option to make a large detour and head into the remote Messum Crater, which involved 90km of remote off road driving. After this we then tried to squeeze in an attempt to see some Desert Elephants near the Ugab gate, which we didn’t really have time for, but we were treated to a wonderful lunar landscape – in the absence of the elephants. It was very lucky that we added the other activities to the day, as the shipwrecks were somewhat of an anticlimax, with only one shipwreck really having any meat to its bones. Cape Cross Seals Cape Cross is home to the largest colony of Cape Fur Seals which is up to approximately 100,000 seals during the breading season, which we are in now. The Cape Fur Seal isn’t actually a true seal at all as they are related to sea lions. Unlike seals they have ears and. Read the full article…

Today was expected to be mostly about the activity, and that was probably correct. This isn’t to say that the drive wasn’t enjoyable, but the activity was so much better than we had expected. Pelican Point Kayaking An activity which is really raved about, which we decided to do is kayaking at Pelican Point, the reason it is so special is that there is a massive colony of Cape Seals there, who are totally chilled about people Kayaking near them, in fact they often play with the people in Kayaks as they are curious and playful. When booking I had noticed that there was a self drive option, this really appealed to me as it meant that I knew it would be easy to take my photography gear and it certainly sounded more fun that sitting in the back of a bus for a long time to get to Pelican Point. The drive there was really amazing, and to be honest by the time I got there I wasn’t that interested in actually doing the kayaking as I had had such a good time. We saw Flamingos, Jackals, Cormorants and. Read the full article…

I thought the main event of the day was going to be our sunset dune drive from Walvis Bay, and that the drive there was just going to be a mode of travel, but how wrong I was, as it was absolutely stunning with contrasting scenery from gorges, to water formed landscapes, to mountains and then desert.  The Drive In my head the drive was just a means of transport, and my excitement was for our afternoons activity. Very quickly we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn for the second time of our trip, this time there were road signs to mark the occasion, unlike the first time were we had to rely on the GPS on the second morning of our trip. Within a very short period of leaving our wonderful camp at Bushman’s Desert Camp, we encountered our first surprise, as the road descended into a gorge, the so called Gaub Pass. It was amazing driving within this gorge which was so clearly formed by water, but now in a landscape totally devoid of water. This was going to be a theme which continued for the next 90 minutes,. Read the full article…