Today we started the day with what our plan had been for the previous afternoon, by visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site at Twyfelfontein, which has rock engravings between 2000-10,000 years old. After we had done this we then drove to Etosha National Park, where we will be for the next 3 days.
- Start: Mowni Mountain Camp
- Destination: Okaukuejo Restcamp
- Distance: 335km
- Planned Duration: 4 hours
- Actual Duration: 4.5 hours
- Animals Seen: Velvet Beetle, Desert Rat, Cape Ground Squirrel, Steppe Buzzard/Black Kites(?), Springbok, Gemsbok, Zebra, Giraffe, Gnu, Tortoise, White-crowned Lapwing, Kori Bustard, Pale Chanting Goshawk/Greater Kestrel(?), Tawny Eagle/Bateleur(?), Lappet-faced Vulture, African White-backed Vultures, Ostrich, Guinea fowl
Twyfelfontein Rock Engravings
We started the morning by visiting Twyfelfontein rock engravings, where we enjoyed a tour with a local guide who explained the fascinating history of the engravings and ensured that we saw all the best examples of the engravings.
Twyfelfontein contains Africa’s largest collection of ancient San rock engravings (petroglyphs), featuring over 2,500 images carved into sandstone, depicting animals (giraffes, rhinos, lions, seals), human figures, tracks, and geometric designs, offering insights into shamanistic rituals, spiritual beliefs, and daily life from 2,000 to 10,000 years ago.
Following the very unexpectedly high volume of rain the evening before, the tour was much muddier than expected and also much more humid, so by the end I was very ready to get back into an air conditioned car to cool down.
Drive
The drive to Etosha was really a drive of two halfs, the first half was beautiful and would have been on a great road if it wasn’t for all of the very harsh dips due to rivers, which meant it was a drive with lots of acceleration, braking and bumps which made it fairly tiring. This drive also took us past a lot of poverty, with lots of children out begging on the streets.
Eventually we reached Khorixas, where both the road and the scenery suddenly changed. As we left the town and stayed on tarmac we did some googling and it turned out that we would be on a tarmac road all the way to Etosha, so for the first time in a week we re-inflated the tyres and continued our drive at much faster speeds than we were used to, 120km/h.
After filling up with in Outjo, we ended up at the park gates ahead of our planned journey time, something which has not yet happened on this trip.
Etosha National Park
Pretty much as soon as we had entered the park gates, we saw a dazzle of Zebra, which made us very excited. The journey to Okaukuejo Restcamp continued with lots of further animals including, Gnu, Springbok, Gemsbok, Giraffe.
After we had checked in and sorted ourselves out, we let the air back out of the tires and headed out on a self drive safari until just before sunset. The start of the route was fairly slow with wildlife, but it certainly picked up towards the end and we had a great time.
When we got back to camp we were a bit disappointed to find out that our friends had seen a lion on a section of road we had driven past, they were just about 45minutes ahead of us. But at least we had another 2.5 days to hopefully get lucky ourselves.
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