Happy Holidays! It was Beverley’s birthday today so as I was walking back to our room to pack I heard the staff singing Happy birthday to her. This (to her delight) continued all day whenever there was any opportunity to sing it! I will send the videos on later as they are too big to be included with the photos and may only work on Apple devices as I recorded them on my phone.
Sunrise was lovely
Heidi showed us some of the rock carvings that were near the Lodge. There was a 3 hour self guided walk you could do but as we had to leave at 8am most of the walk would have been done in the dark had we chosen to do it. These carvings are unusual in that there are hand and footprints and also as you can see in this photo also hoof prints and dots which it is thought that these were educative carvings. There is dispute about the date of them. It’s hard to tell as they are quite sheltered from weathering and the rain is minimal here...
To the top right is one of the footprints
Here are zebra and handprints….
hoof prints for identification
You get an idea of how large the rocks are...
This was a fantastic panel with a variety of animals, the clearest being the zebra
Time for a nap!
We stopped off at the Petrified Forest to have a tour...
Our guide also gave us a rendition of a click song which you can hear here
She explained to us about how these petrified trees came to be here and the Welwitchia plant (above). We saw both the male and female plants. As there had been no rain for 2-3 years these plants had been grazed by animals so the leaves were not as long as usual and they had split so it looked like they had more leaves than the 2 they really have.
You can see the rings in the wood of the trees perfectly preserved
This is the longest tree and it is even longer as it goes under the ground as it has not been fully exposed by the wind erosion yet. These trees are not native to this area and were brought here when the glaciers/ice melted and the water was rushing away.
After the forest we went to a local town for fuel. We also discovered a local shop that sold fabrics like the Herero ladies use for their dresses...
They were around R30 per meter which is equivalent to about £1.70. The more glitzy sparkly fabrics apparently came from Ghana.
Lunch at a bakery…. Woody had a Cornish Pasty which was really filled with a tasty mince mixture. No bulking with potatoes here.
The gem shop in Outjo was closed but the food in the bakery was all very nice...
We drove on to Okakuejo the first camp in Etosha that we stayed in...
The gate into the camp… gates shut at sundown so if you’re not there and booked in you can sleep on the bus. You can only get out of the transport at allotted places where there are also toilets. The last person killed in Etosha was over 20 years ago and he had slept out in the open with the lions.
Sundowners was champagne and chocolate at the waterhole. Water is pumped here so there is always some regardless of what rain falls
Happy Holidays! And happy birthday in a whisper to Beverley
Zebra reflections at the water hole
This tree holds 2 sociable weaver nests on it
And here you can see the tree rat which we watched going up and down the trees just by our bench. The rat is running down the tree and it is silhouetted against the light reflected off the lake
They floodlight the waterhole to help us see what turns up and the animals are used to the noises of people
This is our room
And this was never lit but it looks like a fabulous work of art/firepit.
We had a good meal with further opportunities to sing happy birthday to the delight of our table, everyone else and somewhat less appreciated by Beverley! Still she won’t forget the day in a hurry!
x
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