Wild? He was livid!

Wild? He was livid!

We couldn’t blog about Namibia without mentioning the wildlife!

As we drove out of the airport at Windhoek, we saw giraffe (albeit behind a fence) and we knew we were in for some special animal encounters in the country.

Whereas the centre and south of Namibia has many large fenced private farms, the north has more “conservancies”.  In these conservancies, the local communities (in cooperation with the government) manage their own areas. 

The conservancies are unfenced, which adds a whole new level of excitement to travelling in the North.  It’s quite common to see giraffe nibbling on trees beside the road or a reckless ostrich darting across the route ahead of you.    

Dry sandy river beds are favourite places for animals and we knew that desert elephants and lions were frequent visitors in the bed of the Hoanib River.  Apart from a few giraffe at the start, we hadn’t seen anything very unusual, but we started to see some elephant droppings, which got us excited (it’s the little things in life!).  As we rounded a bushy green tree, on a narrow bit of the track, we startled a large bull elephant who had been happily munching leaves, just a couple of metres away.  I’m not sure who was more surprised – him or us!  Bertha immediately stalled in shock – which meant we were now very much stationary and in his space!  After a moment to take it all in (and as Dave was trying to make a speedy exit – impossible, of course, for Bertha to do anything quickly!), the elephant decided that he had seen enough.  He started advancing slowly towards us, flapping his ears in a rather disconcerting manner.  Now Bertha was probably a good match for the elephant in size and bulk, so, as he was still weighing his options, we managed to amble noisily off.  No face lost by either party!