Cheetah

Day 18: Namibia

Today was our last day in Etosha. We got up early, packed the tents away and headed for the waterhole. As it was empty, we carried on in the car towards another waterhole. Within minutes, we were lucky enough to see a large herd of African elephants crossing the road, slowly eating there way along the sides of the track. They were such fun to watch. A few kilomètres later, we came across three bull elephants: they were huge and were much taller than the car as they walked past. Another very close encounter.

We set of driving again, then the most incredible thing happened.....out the corner of my eye I saw a cheetah chasing a springbok just 10 mètres from the side of the road. I shouted for my husband to stop the car and we slowly backed up as, although I didn’t see the kill, I was sure the springbok had been taken down. It didn’t take long to find them. The cheetah was sat with the, now dead, springbok and was panting like crazy. We could only see the top of his head and body but he soon left his catch and moved into the bushes to recover. Twenty minutes later, he came out again and dragged the springbok back to the bushes, just out of our sight. We were stunned that we had seen this. Mixed feelings because of the dead springbok but thrilled to have seen a cheetah so close. What an amazing day.....yet again.

We left the park and drove on to the Waterberg Plateau NP, which took about four hours, put up the tents and had a meal out in the National Park restaurant (a bizarre experience as we are in the middle of nowhere yet the restaurant was excellent and there was a great choice of food).

The extras show the cheetah and its kill, plus our car/tents to give you some idea of what we are staying in.