The 5000km roadtrip

Arriving in Namibia’s Etosha game park, after over hours of barren landscape, not many people (Namibia is the most scarcely populated country in the world) and certainly no animals and met with yet more dust, the chance of seeing any wildlife seemed dismal.

Fortunately a small number of water holes spread across the 22000 square km of national park keeps a surprising number alive. We didn’t quite see the full cast of the lion king, but did see rhino, giraffe, gazelles, oryx (great horns), gunu’s, ravens, waterhog, zebra and a highlight was some mating lions...meters from the car!

We also met the Afrikaans version of crocodile dundee. Apparently he had caught a leopard once with his bare hands! He had been there for 9 months building some new facilities in the camp site. We spent a very surreal evening playing 30 seconds (south african version of articulate) with him and his family. Us uni student took the game a bit too seriously I think - croc dundee picked up cards on his go and could hardly speak from finding the whole thing so funny! Mad!

From the heat of the desert we headed to the coast for a few days enjoying the cool (almost British) climate and a bit a sand boarding (top trick I pulled off was: flipping my legs over my head and head planting myself in the sand). Then we were off to Sossusvlei and some of the largest sand dunes in the world.