Meteorite Camp, Grootfontein to Etosha National Park- Monday 22nd Feb

  We awoke about 5.30 am to find the 3 guard dogs plus another one had  protected us well overnight from any invading animals

Only had a short drive of about 145kms to Etosha with  a stop for fuel and essentials at Tsumeb

Arrived at the gates about 11.30 for check in and payment

Then onto Namutoni where the Old Fort was first built by the Germans in 1889 before it was taken over by the South Africans during WW1 in 1915 then over the next 40 years fell into disrepair before refurbished in 1983 .

Etosha National Park spend an area of 22270 sq kms and gets it name which means Great White Place from the large Etosha pan which is almost entirely within the park. The Etosha  pan ,an immense at saline desert covers 23% of the park which is home to 114 mammals,340 bird ,16 reptile and amphibian and 1 fish species.

Bookings are essential as we were to find out in the afternoon as the park started to fill up. We are camped at Namutoni which is on the right.

We had our allocated spot this time which would mean we would be sharing a camp site with other tourists!! What's going on here I said to Joanne !!

Then it was off to the pool for the afternoon followed by a game drive from 4.30 to 6.30 when we were lucky enough to come across a pair of rhinos where Jan had said we might be able to find some -here's one in full flight going across the road in front of us.

In 1907 both the black and white rhinos weren't present in the park and then from the late 50's onwards both types where introduced into the park and they were declared a protected species. However due to poaching in the late 80's all rhinos where de-horned which stopped most of the poaching

We did another loop drive further on and spotted another in the bushes and then unfortunately came across a dead giraffe 

Arrived back to camp for a shower and drink before dinner whilst viewing the numerous camping hire vehicles arrive before the gates are closed at 7.29 pm sharp. Most have roof top tents and by the looks of the numbers present the rental place must be doing well

We were having BBQ split chicken for dinner with salad 

Post dinner we packed away most things as it looked like we would be in for a thunder storm however this didn't eventuate .