Mudorib – Hoanib _ Elephant Song
During the night we heard animal noises. The animals seemed to be calling to each other, the calls travelling down the Mudorib valley. Some seemed fairly near to us, but they were answered by calls in the distance further down the Mudorib. In the morning there was no tracks, and I could only think they were jackals. Except jackals tend to sound like dog barks, and these didn’t. It was only later that I realised they must have been hyenas.
We set off to find out where our elephants had gone, and I spotted some lion prints. We followed the prints and saw a lodge vehicle parked up, so assumed we had found the lion.
The lodge vehicle sped off before we could get to where it was, and drove up a high sandy bank in a rather precarious fashion. It came to a halt and the passengers got out. Several of them pointed in a direction to the left of us.
We drove a little way in the direction they were pointing and came within 10 metres of the lion. We backed up, and it walked past us looking very intently in the direction of a herd of springbok.
We watched as the lion stalked the springbok, stopping occasionally to roll on its back. I assume this was to cover itself in their scent. We lost sight of the lion. We pride ourselves on not disturbing wildlife, so didn’t want to follow it too close. Also, I had no great desire to see a kill. I have in the past, and they are not nice to watch. We drove a little way up a small ridge, and got out to see what would happen between the lioness and the springbok.
The herd of springbok were obviously disturbed, as they were huddled together – usually a springbok herd is spread out over an area. They clearly knew the ion was around.
The lion being a cat, obviously decided it was too much work to chase them in the heat of the day, especially now they were alert to her presence. It lay down beside a hedge, and yes – you guessed it, went to sleep.
The lodge vehicle drew up besides us, and we spent a short while talking to everyone in the vehicle. The guide was a white Zimbabwean, which was unusual. When we first came to Namibia in 2003, most of the guides were white Namibians or South Africans. Now, it was great to see a healthy mix of white and black Namibians wildlife guides.
Everyone got bored with the lion sleeping, and we went on our way. We saw the Germans again, and had a chat with them. The man was totally in love with Africa ever since he was little. He had travelled in Namibia for years, but said how it was changing. But then so was everywhere.
We found the ellie’s again and had a great time watching them. We hoped they were headed for a waterhole, but instead they set up for the night in a canyon where the babies lay down and went to sleep.
We had intended to go to Purros, and then over to Khaudum National Park in the east of Namibia, but the Ellie’s had brought us close to Elephant Song again, so we went there for the night. Shortly after we arrived we saw the morning’s lodge vehicle drive past below us, we waved goodbye to them from our camp above the Hoanib.
It was really nice to be in a proper campsite, and I had a long shower and hair wash. We had fallen in love with the elephants and the Hoanib. It was time for us to make a choice. Originally we wanted to go north to the Botswana/Zambia/Angola/Namibia border, and visit Khaudum national park, a truly remote game area. It was raining in that area when we arrived in Namibia, so we chose to come up through the deserts first. Now the trip up to Khaudum looked tiresome, over 2000 Km’s with lots of boring driving on tarmac roads
We decided to stay in Hoanib, and explore some of the deeper canyons, and find the other herd of ellies and a lion or two. We had a plan that when we got bored we could go either to Etosha, Brandberg or Swapkopmund. Of course that never happened. We were in love with the elephants , the Hoanib, and the view from Elephant Song camp.
Desert Wonderers 