Today the plan was simply to drive to Mowani Mountain Camp which is near Twyfelfontein, and then to go and see the famous rock petroglyphs. However this did not go to plan, as we took a detour en-route to go up the Upper Huab River with our 4×4 to see if we could find any elephants, we are fairly sure we found elephant poo, but no elephants. Then while we were almost at our destination we saw an elephant safari advertised, which when we went in was departing in 10 mins, so with no decision time we decided to go for it, instead of our planned day.
- Start: Torra Bay
- Destination: Mowani Mountain Camp
- Distance: 166km
- Planned Duration: 2h35min
- Actual Duration: 9.5 hours – we stopped for breakfast, internet and added in an unplanned safari
- Animals Seen: Jackal, Springbok, Rüppell’s Bustard, Baboon, Elephant, Giraffe
The Drive
The drive was all really easy with all of the roads being brilliant, and the scenery continued to be absolutely fantastic. Constantly changing during the entire drive, however always beautiful and always interesting.
We stopped en-route a few times, the first was to have breakfast and we managed, by total chance, to choose a spot which was at the top of a pass with totally fantastic views. It was however rather windy which made boiling the water for our tea and eating the cereal a bit more challenging.
Soon after breakfast we got back into good phone reception, so stopped for sometime to catch up on some admin which we hadn’t had time todo for the past week, either due to being too busy or having no signal.
We continued our drive, and continued to admire the scenery, and as we were getting closer to the destination we were driving through another gorge which crossed the Upper Huab River, as there were tracks up it, we decided to go searching for elephants, however despite finding much poo, which looked like it as herbivore poo, we couldn’t find any elephants. After about 6km we turned around and made our way back to the road.
As we turned off to Twyfelfontein we saw a sign for elephant drives, called Twyfelfontein Elephant Drives. A quick look on google gave good reviews so we headed in to see what the options were, it turned out they go out twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Unfortunately the duration was too long for us to comfortably do it the next morning, but the afternoon tour departed in 10 mins.
Elephant Drive
After a fairly hectic 10mins getting ready to go out on a 3 hour safari in 37 degree heat, we were sat on the back of the 4×4 in the, very hot breeze, wondering if our spontaneous decision had been the right one. Especially given the rapidly building storm clouds in most directions, but thankfully not the direction we were driving in.
After a while of driving we saw our first wildlife, some baboons, one of which was carrying a very small baby on its chest. Then shortly after the main event, a male Desert Elephant was walking straight towards us to get to a watering hole. This was very exciting and was a good omen of what was to come.
In the area there are two groups of females (and immature males), the group of five and the group fourteen. In addition to these groups there were a number of males around. We were very lucky and saw both of the groups, of which they both had young calfs with them, and also a number of males including the dominant male of the area. We were also very lucky as there was also a giraffe in addition the elephants, so today we ticked off a number of key animals which I was keen to see.
The other thing about today which was really great is that the animals were truly free to roam, they were not in a park, there were no fences to keep them there, it was just their grazing land. Very special.
The elephants we saw are Desert Elephants, which are are not a distinct species of elephant but are African bush elephants.
As were we nearing the end of the safari, our luck with the weather ran out and the storm was definitely moving towards us. After one more view of the elephants we made a run back to base, however we got very wet in the process. The safari vehicles are definitely not built to keep the rain out, just the sun off you!
Sunset
The advantage of rain, is that it can also bring atmospheric light, and that certainly delivered at sunset when it was still drizzling at our campsite but the horizon was clear, so we were treated to wonderful golden light on the rocks surrounding our camp and a full 180 degree rainbow.
Unfortunately the photos could be improved as in my haste I didn’t take anything to clean the polarising filter, other than my already wet technical t-shirt, which resulted in some fairly large smudges on the final photos.
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