We left Windhoek just before 8am on Saturday morning and Waze said 915 kms and 8 hours to Springbok where we were overnighting. The drive was pretty uneventful with not a lot of traffic and a very straight road for much of the trip. We crossed the border back into South Africa at just before 3pm and arrived at our guesthouse (Mountain View Guesthouse) at just before 4pm. The only remarkable part of the drive was that at one point the outside temperature hit 40 degrees C!

It turns out that we stayed at the guesthouse back in 2008 when we did our first ever road trip to Namibia. The lady at the guesthouse recommended we eat dinner at Tauren Steak Ranch and that given it was first weekend of the month we better book. We duly did but when we arrived for dinner we realised we didn’t actually need to book but it did fill up somewhat by the time we left. We also realised that in 2008 we ate at the same place. They hadn’t updated their decor since we last ate there in 2008. The food was OK and the service was good.

This morning we were on the road again heading home by 8am. It was just over 5 hours and 520 kms to get home and we made good time arriving 1:20 pm. I know you’re all concerned to know whether I made the 200 mark for birds for the trip and the good news is at 1:19 pm before we turned into the estate, I saw my 200th bird for the trip. No detour – just straight home and managed to see number 200 before we pulled into the driveway. H finished on 204 – I managed to close the gap in the end to 4 birds as number 199 was one of the ones she had seen previously which I hadn’t seen yet until today. 18 lifers for the trip – probably best I have done in a trip for 3-4 years. I’m on 529 lifers overall and it isn’t easy to add 18 lifers in 2 weeks anymore so very happy with the trip overall from a birding perspective. As you probably know, we generally end up seeing one bird more than anything else on these trips and H and I concluded that the bird of this trip was definitely a Sabota Lark. Never seen and heard so many of them ever on a trip.

As I usually do when visiting a foreign country, here are my random thoughts about Namibia:

1. It has definitely declined since we last did a road trip through the country – the roads are worse, the facilities are worse – maybe the impact of Covid?
2. The Namibian people outside of the main areas but working in the tourist trade are apathetic, unmotivated and depressed. It seems they are only working because they must and they seemingly have been told that doing the minimum is fine and they will still get paid. For a country that relies on tourism, they are going to have an issue if they continue like that.
3. NWR (Namibia Wildlife Resorts) are a poor second cousin for Sanparks (in SA). Everything about the way they do things is poor. They need to go to SA and visit some of the Sanparks resorts to see how things should be done. It made us appreciate Sanparks a lot more and even though they have declined too (especially in the Kruger Park), they are head and shoulders still better than the NWR resorts.
4. The game viewing in Etosha was poor – if you want to have good game viewing – go to the Kruger Park rather.
5. Windhoek was a bit of an exception for us in that it seemed much more organised and more like a small city you would find in a more modern country. Things seemed to work, people were friendly and efficient and welcoming. The quality of everything seemed better.
6. Namibia is a big country with very little population and massive distances between places. It really made us wonder what some people did in the small towns though as there doesn’t seem to be much happening at all.
7. Despite us being warned to keep your valuables on you at all times and to keep your passport safe, we never really felt unsafe at any time. It seems much safer than many places we have traveled to and safer than SA too.

We did enjoy our time especially because of the birding and despite me getting sick. It was a good 2 weeks away. Doubt we are heading back to Namibia for a few years though as it is just too far and not as rewarding as we expected it would be.

Until next time …

P & H

We came to Windhoek to do some end of trip birding at two places – Daan Viljoen Game Reserve and Avis Dam. They are both birding hotspots and we hoped to get some of the birds we have so far not seen on the trip. City Centre Windhoek is also a known place to see Bradfield’s Swift but as we managed to see that already earlier in the trip, we no longer needed to get that one. We had breakfast at the hotel and headed out to Daan Viljoen and got there just after 8:30am. It is only a 30 minute drive (20 km) out of the city.

It is not a big reserve and you can walk/hike but neither H nor I were kitted out for hiking. There is a self-drive route of 7km but on the map it was marked as 4×4 only. We asked the lady at reception whether we could do it in my car and she leaned over to check my car out and said ‘sure’. First mistake of the day made right there. About 0.5 km in we realised that a 4×4 would be much better. At one point H had to get out of the car and direct me through a particularly poor spot and she said my front right tyre didn’t touch the ground while navigating through it. There were a few times when H asked me to stop so she could identify a bird and I just said ‘no ways not right now’. I reckon if we had stopped it would have been permanently. We did make it to the end with no damage to the car. H summed it up when she said “I think that we just fully tested the limit of the car”. We did add 6 birds to the trip list at least though admittedly only one of them on the 4×4 route.

After the reserve we headed to Avis Dam. The bird life was significant there and probably the most number of Diederik Cuckoos I have ever seen at one time. Unfortunately not that many new birds for the trip as we only managed to add 2. One of those was sufficient though to take H over the 200 target we had for the trip. She is now on 201 which means I am on 196. I was hoping to close the gap by at least one today as both places we went to were known for the bee-eater that H saw and I didn’t. I will just have to try and sneak in some birds on our homeward drive over the next 2 days!

By the time we were finished birding at the dam, it was lunch time and we were hungry and thirsty (the sun was baking down on us at the dam). We had lunch at Olivia’s Kitchen (apparently a top 10 restaurant in Windhoek according to TripAdvisor). A thunderstorm started just after lunch and it has been raining constantly since then – I can hear the thunder and rain coming down as I type. We stayed in the room for the afternoon.

Dinner was at CTFM. We learnt our lesson and so we went straight after breakfast to book a table. Only to be met with an incredulous look and “It’s Friday night, we are fully booked already!” It seems you have to book well in advance for a Friday night – unclear how well in advance but definitely more than a day it seems. It turned out OK though as we still managed to get a table when we decided to go down for dinner. The food was pretty good last night and was again tonight.

Off to bed soon as the plan is for an early start tomorrow as we have a long drive ahead.

P & H

We packed up, had breakfast and then started to head south out of the Etosha and toward Windhoek. We had 17 kms of road before the gate but failed to add either birds or animals to our list despite our best attempts. Another paper form to be filled in as we exited the gate but I think I could have written whatever I wanted to and no one would have cared at all. There is a mandatory police check but the lady couldn’t have been bothered to get up from her chair to come to the car so she just waved us on.

Brief stop to refuel at Outjo where the three guys refueling and cleaning the windows (and what turned out to be the car in the end almost) were definitely the most cheerful and friendly of anyone we have encountered. They even washed our number plate (it was unreadable due to the mud from Etosha).

The trip south was pretty uneventful with traffic picking up as we got closer to Windhoek. The drive was just over 4 hours. There are many things I just don’t understand in Namibia. From Okahandja through to Windhoek (about 70-80 kms) the road is actually a 2-lane highway. About in the middle of it is a permanent police roadblock. You are going 120 km/h and have to come to a total stop. And it is permanently there so any crook would know and wouldn’t drive that way anyway. Even if they did though, no one is actually going to bother to get off their chair or come out of their air-conditioned hut. It does really make you wonder why it is there in the first place (besides making you brake very quickly).

We noticed the culture of just hanging (or sitting around) was very prevalent in the towns we passed through today. In one town, some people had their boots of their cars open and we using that for seating. Another bloke had actually brought his own fold-up chair to join that boot conversation. It seems people actually plan to sit around in Namibia.

We arrived in Windhoek around 1:30pm and got stuck in traffic making our way through Windhoek to our hotel. We are staying at The Weinberg which feels like 5-star luxury in comparison to what we have been staying for the last week. It is part of a complex and there are 4 restaurants on site too which means we didn’t have to drive anywhere for dinner. We actually went to CTFM (that stands for Cape Town Fish Market) for dinner. Seems somewhat odd to eat at a CTFM in Windhoek but after meat for a week we both felt like fish. What we did find funny was when we arrived we asked for a table and they asked if we had a reservation. Never made a reservation at CTFM in my life – as H said ‘it’s like making a reservation to go to the Spur’! But it seems necessary at CTFM Windhoek as the place was packed and we were lucky to get one of the last remaining tables outside on the patio. The food was good actually so really no complaints from us.

Until tomorrow …

P & H

Lack of WiFi and cellphone signal has been the cause of no post over the last day or so. We are also experiencing an issue in that emails go out to some subscribers but not all of them and we can’t figure out why. The blog is posted on templetravels.co.za if you didn’t get it. Last night we also had a large thunderstorm and that seemed to further disrupt any connectivity we did have.

Yesterday we drove west from Okaukeujo toward Dolomite camp. We didn’t drive the whole way there (that would be over 100 kms) but just did a loop. Game seems very sparse at the moment in Etosha. They say it is because it is so wet and so the game doesn’t need to congregate around the waterholes. We can attest to it being wet. There are puddles on the roads (and in some cases it feels like dams on the road). Today we found three teals swimming in one of the puddles on the road (that gives you an illustration of the amount of water). All this has meant that yesterday we only saw hyena on the morning drive (plus the standards of zebra, giraffe, springbok, gemsbok, wildebees, impala). We spent some time midday at the waterhole and then went out late afternoon for another drive. The bird life has been impressive though and we added 18/19 birds yesterday to our trip list (H got one more than me and extended her lead now to 6 – I was just too tired to sit at the waterhole when she saw it).

We did see a large flock (like in the hundreds – not exaggerating) of Abdim’s Storks. They apparently congregate and feed on terminates. They were all moving together through a field eating the termites as they just up into the air. It looked like an efficient vacuuming operation. First time we have seen that in our lives (and also haven’t seen so many Abdim’s storks together before either).

By the time we got back to the camp yesterday evening the wind had picked up and the storm clouds were brewing. Just managed to get the braai done and supper eaten before the rain came. We made a trip to the waterhole as it was only raining very lightly but while we were there it became perpetually heavier. Walking back to our chalet gave us a free shower!

This morning it was still raining when we woke up so we decided to eat breakfast at the camp (it is included in the accommodation price) and then head off afterwards. It was a good call as the rain abated after breakfast but it was still relatively cool (22 degrees). We headed to the east toward Halali (another camp) which is about 70 kms away. We got there at about 11:30am and by that time the clouds had broken up and it was starting to heat up. We saw jackal on the morning drive (of the more unusual game to see) but nothing else too different but we did add another lifer taking us 15 lifers for the trip. The most unusual sighting though today was at one of the waterholes we saw 2 blue cranes. The bird app doesn’t even list them as being seen in the area but they were definitely blue cranes (H said ‘I know our national bird’). I have now seen 173 unique birds for the trip and H is on 179.

We will just take it easy this afternoon and stay in the camp. H is actually at the waterhole now while I type. She sent me a text message to say that all the storks are at the waterhole at camp today.

Until tomorrow (wifi dependent)

P & H

It was overcast and raining lightly this morning which is never conducive for birding. H and I did a short walk before we packed up and headed for breakfast. We only added one bird to our trip list on the walk. I also didn’t want to walk too far or uphill because I definitely still have some virus/infection still lingering. At least today I felt better than previous days and I was able to do all the driving again.

Etosha (or at least Okaukeujo where we are staying … I think I must just refer to is as Ok in future and you can fill in the rest!) was about a 3 hour drive from the Waterberg. We stopped briefly at Otjiwarongo for fuel and to buy some tongs so I didn’t have to braai using a fork anymore. We entered Etosha at the Anderson Gate and arrived at Okaukeujo camp around 12:30pm. The camp seemed very quiet and it was no problem to get the key to our chalet. We are here for the next 4 nights.

It was 32 degrees and there was not a lot to see from the gate to the camp. We figured rather wait to later and then head out. We went out at about 4:15pm (and it was still 32 degrees) and headed east. All the roads are gravel roads in Etosha and the first 10 kms or so was dry and very barren. Some springbok scattered around but the only thing we stopped for was to do some birding. Incredibly a lot of birds around and calling so easily identifiable.

There definitely has been a lot of rain in Etosha recently. Many of the gravel roads are flooded in portions and require one wheel through a large puddle and another hopefully on firm ground. Some of them required a drive of faith and just hoped the water wasn’t too deep. Another time I would have preferred to have the Beast with us and not my Mercedes SUV.

On the road back toward camp we saw a white rhino – the first significant game sighting. Up until then we had only seen springbok, gemsbok, giraffe, one scrub hare and some red hartebees (and lots of birds obviously). Strange that the first of the big five we would see would be rhino.

We got back to the camp around 7pm and started a fire for our braai and then headed over the waterhole to see if there was anything interesting to be seen. Black faced impala were drinking at the water hole and a few birds but nothing else significant. Just when we finished our braai and were sitting down to eat, we heard a massive roar of a male lion. H and I looked at each other, took our plates inside and headed straight for waterhole. We weren’t disappointed. A male lion was in the process of coming down to waterhole to drink and roaring to make sure everyone knew about it. The waterhole is just a short walk from our chalet which is really convenient. A fantastic sighting watching him drink and then back off again into the night.

It is hot and we are tired and so we are about to head off to sleep.

Until tomorrow …

P & H

PS: It seems yesterday’s blog again didn’t email out to everyone but you can read it on templetravels.co.za

We had a 5 hour drive to do on Friday as we headed to the Waterberg Plateau Park. It is north east of Swakopmund. Unfortunately I have managed to contract a virus/infection of some sort and really wasn’t feeling well at all on Friday morning. That meant H had to drive the majority of the way. The first few hours of driving had heavy traffic as we took the road between Windhoek and Swakopmund. Lots of trucks heading in both directions which made it difficult to overtake. I managed to nap a little and when we stopped for some drinks and a bathroom break at Usakos, we changed drivers and I drove for about 90 minutes until I really couldn’t anymore and H took over again. Fortunately the majority of the route was tar road and only the last 15 kms was gravel leading up to the park.

We arrived at the Waterberg Plateau Park at about 2:30pm and we checked in. There are 80 chalets/rooms here and I reckon about 5 of them were only occupied last night. H and I both napped in the afternoon and then took a drive to restaurant to get WiFi (only place it works in the park and cellphone signal is terrible). We then sat for the balance of the afternoon/early evening on our veranda and just watched the bird life right in front of us and we managed to add another lifer while doing that. The birds are just calling non-stop in the park – I don’t think I have ever heard the quantity and consistency of bird calls anywhere else like this.

We had a braai for dinner (chicken wings and corn). There is no catering facilities really at all but we knew that in advance. The only thing we forgot to bring were braai tongs so I had to the braaiing with a fork instead. Not ideal and definitely burnt a finger in the process (but not too serious – it just blistered today slightly). It was lovely and peaceful sitting outside. The sunset is only 750pm at the moment so you can sit outside and eat dinner and be finished long before it is dark. Makes for a pleasant difference that in the Kruger Park where it is dark by 6pm and then when you eat at night and turn the lights on, all the bugs in the park seem to head toward you.

H was tired from the driving and I hoped for a good nights sleep so that I felt better in the morning so we headed to bed relatively early and were both asleep before 10pm even. We woke around 6am and headed for breakfast (breakfast is included in the rate) just after 7am.

After breakfast we walked from the restaurant down the road to the campsite and did some birding. It was a good call as we added 3 lifers on the walk. We are currently on 13 lifers for the trip and I have seen 125 birds for the trip and H has seen 130 birds. H stretched her lead on me this morning because when we got back from the walk I was wiped out and slept for 2 hours and she just birded from the veranda again and added a number of other birds. I managed to catch up a few of them over the course of the day but she still has 5 more than me. One week into our trip and well over half way of my target of 200 birds for the trip and with some different birding still to come, I would be disappointed to not reach that mark.

Due to the limited WiFi and cellphone signal, not sure when I will be able to send this but hoping to do it tomorrow morning before we leave!

Until then …

P & H

The only reason we came here was to do some birding at Walvis Bay. The birding along the salt pans is one of the best places to see waders in the world. We visited here when we just started birding but we didn’t identify any of the specials of the region (as we just didn’t know what we were doing then in comparison to now). We were not disappointed with our 3 hours of birding this morning.

It is about 30 minute drive down to Walvis Bay Bird Sanctuary where we started our birding. It is just a series of ponds really which you can drive off the main road down to. No need to get out of the car even and everything can be identified with your binoculars. First life was seen at the first pond we stopped at. We knew it was going to be a good morning right away.

We then headed for the salt pans. Besides the birds (which were amazing and everywhere), it is fascinating seeing the production of salt. The constant stream of salt from the conveyor onto the pile of salt was something to behold.

The number of birds was just about the same amount as grains of salt at the salt works. Everywhere you look there were flamingos, plovers and numerous waders. It was hard to keep track of everything we were seeing there was so much. Most of the birding was just done by stopping the car at a safe spot and then birding from our seats in the car. We drove all the way down to Pelican Point – it is about 15 kms of road through the salt works to the point.

In the end we added 6 lifers today and 24 to our trip list. I am now on 102 and H on 105 for the trip. It has really been a good trip for birds so far. At Sossusvlei we saw all but one of the special birds in the area and today we saw 60% of the specials for Walvis Bay. At one point today H said “I am not sure I can tell a plover from a sandpiper any more and what we have seen and what is new”. It was pretty hard to keep track and then you look at something and think ‘Have a seen that before’ and then spend some time and realise you have already seen it earlier in the day. But then suddenly you realise that is actually different and something we haven’t yet seen. You can only do that for so long and then you need a break.

We got back to our apartment by midday and we have just spent the balance of the day relaxing. We did go out this afternoon to get supplies for the next 6 days as we will be self-catering and in places without any shops. We had googled and found there was a Woolworths in Swakopmund. We thought lets go there and get our supplies. Big mistake, it was tiny and very poorly stocked. Couldn’t even buy meat really. Half the shelves were empty. We bought what we could and then stopped at the SuperSpar for the balance of what we needed. You can feel sorry for the people of Swakopmund as the selection there was also not great but we at least have some supplies now for the next 6 days.

WiFi is going to be problematic most likely for next 6 days so the blogs might be more infrequent and certainly will have less photos. In case you never got the blog from 2 days ago (it seems some people did and some didn’t and we can’t figure out why), it is on the website (www.templetravels.co.za) and you can read it there.

Until tomorrow (hopefully) …

P & H