A second visit to Etosha National Park
With the arrival of many new volunteers from a number of agencies, notably VSO and a group of smaller European groups, there is a whole batch of people wanting to go see the wild animals. I went on a day trip with a small group last weekend to Etosha National Park (my second trip there).
Below are pictures of some of the animals that we saw.
We
entered through the north gate, about a 2 hour drive from my school, and
at the first watering hole, Andoni, came across a pride of seven lions. Four
can be seen in this picture.
The last time that i came to this park, we also entered through the north gate and went to this watering hole. It was here that we saw one male lion stopping whole herds of zebra and wildebeest from getting water. This time, it was a pride, and the zebra and wildebeest were still there, along with an ostrich, an oryx, a jackal and various bok.
One of our two rhinos. They've been widely spotted in the south of the park, but this was in the north, right by the Andoni watering hole. They were pretty well hidden in the woods and ran away not long after we arrived.
This oryx had waded into the water at the Namutoni watering hole and was enjoying a drink when something spooked it. It ran right at the zebra, starting a mini-stampede that saw the watering hole emptied of all animals. A short time later, a springbok drinking at the watering hole was equally spooked away, leading us to believe that there was something in the water - perhaps a snake.
Giraffe
drink water by spreading their front legs far apart and reaching down with
their long necks. Zebra don't usually do this. But this zebra, after watching
this giraffe, imitated it.
Again, something in the water spooked the animals (this was at a different watering hole).
As we were heading out of the park, back toward the north gate, we came across a whole family of elephants making its way toward the Andoni watering hole.
We watched these guys for a good 20 minutes, and they weren't too happy with our presence. They put the babies into the middle of the group and walked single-file, with a guard elephant out on each side of the group.
We couldn't stay with the herd the whole way to the watering hole (we had to exit the park before sunset) but we did get to see them take a dust bath before we left.
As we were leaving the park, a group of wildebeest walked across our path and wandered into the setting sun.
