Overland adventure travel

Week 26 on the Big Brother Bus. All 15 and a half of us made it across the border into Namibia, no hassle. Goodbye Angola and goodbye discomfort. First stop was a supermarket selling everything we had been craving. South African Cadburys chocolate was a fave and made its way into many shopping baskets. The Namibian roads saw us shooting along at the fastest pace we had been in a while, and before we knew it we were at the famed Etosha National Park. It was a strange sensation passing into the park and instantly seeing animals everywhere. Makes you realise what ancient Africa must have been like before hunting. After just a few hundred yards in the truck we had seen several big game, Springbok, Wildebeest, Zebra and the beautiful Southern Oryx or Gemsbok. After lunch we had great views of Ostrich, Impala antelope and Giraffe, (a group favourite), many birds, the huge African Elephant and 2 male Lions resting in the shade of a tree with a kill.

The sun was now beating down so we checked into our fortress camp ground Namutoni, and chilled. That afternoon we went for another game drive in the truck and were nearly late back due mainly to a pride of Lions we found with 4 young cubs. On the way back a lucky few of us saw a lonesome Spotted Hyena just before camp. We finished off a great day with a camp meal attended by a few Black-backed Jackals. A couple of us tried to stay up at the camps floodlit watering hole, but the hard day meant all were in bed by midnight. 2 more days in the park added even more animals to the list. Personal favourites included an African Elephant who at one point looked as if he was going to get in the truck and join us. A group of Banded Mongoose which act just like Attenborourgh's Meerkats. Comical ground Squirrels, a black-necked Cobra and another 4 Lions, making a ridiculous total of 13 lions. Not bad considering another overland truck present at the same time saw none!

Our third camp site also had an impressive floodlit watering hole and it was amazing to see the animals come and drink at night. Although no Rhino came , a group favourite visited that night. A Small Spotted Genet (a small bushy tailed spotted cat) which eventually came within 4 feet of us! Wow. By the time we left we had seen no less than 24 mammal, several reptile and well over 100 bird species. Which meant no one was too jealous of our Swiss Land Rover travelling companions Simon and Tamara, who had seen a family of cheetahs while we were munching down a belated breakfast after another morning game drive. Especially after we reached our next destination, Cheetah Park.

On arrival we were greeted by the park owners and there 2 pet dogs and 3 pet Cheetahs! After everyone had a good stroke and occasional lick from the cheetahs (the roughest sand paper lick you could ever imagine) the cheetahs AND dogs chowed down on some raw donkey while the rest of us took photos and recovered from over excessive heart palpitations - some of us still not convinced that we should be on the other side of the fence with these beautiful but carnivorous cats. It was a strange sight to see terrified members of the group simultaneously beaming a smile from ear to ear.

At camp, and once everyone had purchased the park t-shirt which had been handsomely donned from day one of trip by none other then our Jeffrey - we headed into the 'true' park on pickups and trailers to see the more 'wild' cheetahs. Normally spread sparsely across the compound the cheetahs had all grouped together when we entered. Hard to know really whether this was for the meat they were about to be tossed and fight over or because we highly resembled a flock of sheep packed in the trailers - I'm still not sure. But we can happily say that all of us still have the correct number of limbs and bits.

The Cheetah Park does its best for the Cheetahs and has been conserving these awesome cats for 12 or so years. Starting out themselves ridding their farm from what is classed in Namibia as a "pest" due to farm stocks being killed by the cheetah for food - they decided to set up a conservation area on their farm - now buying and rescuing cheetahs from all over the country. Cheetahs in Namibia are reduced to a life of being hunted or being shot by farmers who are told to kill cheetahs rather than protect them or move them into National Parks. They are seen as a pest and not under the endangered animals listing - even though their numbers are dwindling. The night was also sad as we were saying goodbye to Simon and Tamara who were going to continue their own overlanding travels up north. Secretly I think that the longer they do not see another yellow truck load of overlanders will never be too soon !!!!

The next morning we headed out...alone. We made two brief vomit stops for Han and Josh (it had also been Josh's slightly early birthday last night as he was leaving us periodically to get to Cape Town early) before stopping at a small town with a nice patisserie and large supermarket to help us recover.

Next stop was a petrified forest out in the desert. Amazing to see the magnitude and the age of these perfectly preserved trees - 260 million years old. From an age way before the dinosaurs, when the world was very very different and there was just one land mass and this desert was tropical swamp. We also saw the very fragile and slow growing Welwitschia plants, said to be the oldest plants in the world. Some were 1000+ years old, said to only grow approx 1mm a year (with one example being a couple of inches in size but calculating at least 25 years in age) .Imagine what they had seen and how lucky they had been not to be trod on by clumsy thoughtless humans ! Shortly after, we also visited the 6000 year old Twyfelfontein rock carvings - one of Africa's biggest collections depicting scenes of animals that the nomads had used as a guide / map to what was available to hunt and where. We were shown around by a local Damara guide who also spoke the local language made from a variety of 4 click sounds. Quite impressive to see that all the animals carved out were still to be seen in Namibia today. Compare what is drawn in art just 1000 years old back home and its 90% gone. The site buildings had also been constructed in a very ecofriendly manner, a new Africa we hadn't seen yet. Looked like the local baboons appreciated it too.

After the rock paintings we headed off past Burnt Mountain and decided for a more adventurous route south through the Damaraland back roads - we thought we knew where we were going. More than a few of us found this route absolutely fantastic. The scenery was spectacular, the road horrendous and the wildlife incredible. It wasn't because we saw lots of animals, they were sparse and most we had seen before in Etosha, but these were truly wild animals. They never let us get close, they had no fences holding them in and no population monitoring. We saw wild Springbok, Kudu, Oryx, Giraffe, Jackal and best of all, Mountain Zebra, very rare and an animal everyone had told me we would never see. On the way we saw only one road sign... We turned right! Was it the right way though ????

That night we bush camped by a strangely random artificial watering hole. Rob and Luke put their tent up next to the waterhole and listened closely as many animals came to drink all night, though due to some "technical difficulties" they saw none !! Maybe their own snoring put them off !!!! The next day we drove on expecting to be out on the good road in about 3-4 hours. After 5 hours we saw an African Wild Cat, awesome! After another few hours our mountain zebra count had reached 30+, but needless to say we were lost. The crew liked to call this "technical difficulty" as scenically challenged. Another random encounter, this time with humans (the only ones) at a remote river camp, set us in the right direction before we unfortunately blew a tyre and then found two large rocks wedged in between the back tyres. Once all fixed up - we spent another night in the middle of nowhere - again after seeing more Mountain Zebra. Off early the next morning - we finally ended up on the 'real' road - realising we had basically done a huge loop, placing us just short of Twyfelfontein rock carvings once again .Though now one day behind (it was ironic to think that Jeff and Brendan had never got us lost until they reached Namibia - the first country on the entire trip that not one, but both of them knew all too well from previous trips) we were now forced to travel down the coast through the Skeleton Coast National Park, Bummer! In order to make up some time.

As soon as we hit the coast we saw a mangy skanky half bald Hyena carrying a seal pup across the flat wasteland. Cool! The park is very expensive to visit (costing $200 usd for the group basically to drive 3 hrs through the park boundaries - which was one of the reasons why we got lost - by trying to detour around the official entry post to get to another entry further south where there is no entrance fee) and pretty desolate. We visited a wrecked oil rig and the skeleton of a wrecked ship- hence the reason why the area is named the skeleton coast .

Just out of the park - we then reached the much anticipated Cape Cross Seal Colony. This was heaven for the wildlife gurus (though a rather smelly experience) with thousands of Cape Fur Seals and predators all squeezed onto a perfect left hand point break wave. Unfortunately we had to rush off because two of the group, John and Josh needed to catch a bus to Cape Town to meet their partners who were flying in in the next few days. Blame the delay on Angola and our scenic diversion!!!. They were picked up at a small town just down the road and taxied to Swakop, unfortunately missing their bus - resulting in a hair raising catch up game to meet it 250 km + down the road.

The rest of us cruised down to Swakopmund, adventure capital of Namibia- and also being the cleanest and most modern looking town we had been in for a while. Not long after arriving we were given a briefing about all the crazy and insane adventure activities to do. While we were all thinking big and mad we decided to eat together in the local restaurant where servings are insanely large. Large being an understatement! Between us we ate most of the big game we had seen in Etosha. A couple of us had ribs that weighed in at 3kg consisting of 32 ribs within two full racks. Holly was overshadowed and almost drowning in the huge heaped meat combo she ordered - it put a new light on the old saying 'eating for two' - which realistically she was. Many doggy bags were needed this night- and lunch for the next day was definitely taken care of for most of us. That night in the hostel, none other than DJ jay from Scooter was playing, even so, all slept well (some had splashed out on luxury upgrades). Comfy beds at last!

Yet we were all up early ready to fling ourselves out of planes, crash down dunes or simply look around the shops. A couple of activities ended up being cancelled (anything to do with the sea) due to weather, but skydiving and quad biking all went ahead. That evening most were happy to chill out at the cinema watching trashy comedies, how easy we slip into our old ways. But the madness wasn't over yet. Most had booked Sandboarding for the morning.