Day Twenty-Three: Mamili Park, Namibia
Five of our vehicles headed off on this adventure with no guide but our trusty (?) GPS's and Michael's recommendation that this was a good park to see.
We headed East down the now paved road that had been nothing but thick sand the last time he had driven it (May 2013) but he warned us that the road wasn't finished and we should expect sand at some point. No worries. We were prepared and experienced "roadsters" by now.
So, off we drove with adventure in mind.....and adventure we got!
The GPS tried to put us on the right track but the absence of signs (or the hidden ones that were illegible) didn't help. We stopped and asked for directions from many locals - a guy on a bike, a construction worker, children in a little village (who tried to get us to take them with us to show us the way!), a couple of guys just walking down the street and finally a labourer who sounded the most convincing of how to get to a particular town we knew the turn off had to be. He spoke very authoritatively of exactly where the village was and how to find the park from there. The only thing was, he spoke so fast and with such an unusual accent that we only picked up every third word! We thanked him profusely anyway and he looked so pleased he could help us. We struggled back to try to find where he'd said and only needed to stop one more time for help before we finally found the entrance to the park - only two hours later than we'd planned.
We made our way down along a very winding, twisty, sandy, bumpy road until we finally came to a bush lodge close to the river we were looking for. Hot, tired and very thirsty, we asked the proprietor if we could possibly use their facilities in return for spending some money in their bar.....no problem! We enjoyed a nice cool drink and then pulled our sandwiches out of our coolers and set up "camp" in a little space at the base of their lodge. There we were sitting and standing and eating our lunches and wondering what was next in store.
Well, we loaded back into our vehicles and set off into the park determined to find the river and therefore, the animals who would be drinking from it! There were some road tracks in the park and we had been given a rudimentary map but, along with that and the GPS, we weren't too well off. We drove and we drove, getting jostled and bumped about on the "roads". We drove here and we drove there. We did see impala, warthogs (lots of warthogs!), a few kudu and a few elephants but, other than that, we just saw a lot of parkland. And it was starting to get later in the day and the group was getting a little tired.
Five of our vehicles headed off on this adventure with no guide but our trusty (?) GPS's and Michael's recommendation that this was a good park to see.
We headed East down the now paved road that had been nothing but thick sand the last time he had driven it (May 2013) but he warned us that the road wasn't finished and we should expect sand at some point. No worries. We were prepared and experienced "roadsters" by now.
So, off we drove with adventure in mind.....and adventure we got!
The GPS tried to put us on the right track but the absence of signs (or the hidden ones that were illegible) didn't help. We stopped and asked for directions from many locals - a guy on a bike, a construction worker, children in a little village (who tried to get us to take them with us to show us the way!), a couple of guys just walking down the street and finally a labourer who sounded the most convincing of how to get to a particular town we knew the turn off had to be. He spoke very authoritatively of exactly where the village was and how to find the park from there. The only thing was, he spoke so fast and with such an unusual accent that we only picked up every third word! We thanked him profusely anyway and he looked so pleased he could help us. We struggled back to try to find where he'd said and only needed to stop one more time for help before we finally found the entrance to the park - only two hours later than we'd planned.
We made our way down along a very winding, twisty, sandy, bumpy road until we finally came to a bush lodge close to the river we were looking for. Hot, tired and very thirsty, we asked the proprietor if we could possibly use their facilities in return for spending some money in their bar.....no problem! We enjoyed a nice cool drink and then pulled our sandwiches out of our coolers and set up "camp" in a little space at the base of their lodge. There we were sitting and standing and eating our lunches and wondering what was next in store.
Well, we loaded back into our vehicles and set off into the park determined to find the river and therefore, the animals who would be drinking from it! There were some road tracks in the park and we had been given a rudimentary map but, along with that and the GPS, we weren't too well off. We drove and we drove, getting jostled and bumped about on the "roads". We drove here and we drove there. We did see impala, warthogs (lots of warthogs!), a few kudu and a few elephants but, other than that, we just saw a lot of parkland. And it was starting to get later in the day and the group was getting a little tired.
A poll was taken and "home" was the decision so we then struggled to find our way out of there which was another challenge but we finally made it back to the highway and the relieving thought of a cold G&T at the finish!
After all that fairly uneventful day, it was therefore quite a shock to be driving down the paved road only a km. from our lodge when suddenly a huge roan impala was charging along beside us and decided to make a run for it across the front of our vehicle. We slammed on the brakes and managed to only just clip his hind haunch as he kept on going like it was nothing. Meanwhile, we pulled over to collect our thoughts and let our hearts return to a normal beat! Whew! Talk about close!
Back to the lodge for dinner and an early night....tomorrow....Botswana!.......JT
No comments:
Post a Comment