Etosha National Park

On the way to Etosha national park, we made a stop at a cheetah park to watch them feed.  These cheetahs were rescued as cubs and raised in the park however they will never survive if released to the wild.  They look like big harmless kittens until you stick meat through the fence to feed them and you appreciate their killing capability.

Etosha National Park was incredible to see the variety of animals and really with the exception of the lions, the animals live in harmony.   

We managed to see lions sleeping in the grass by the side of the road and if we 
didn't have our tour guide spotting, we would have missed them completely as their colourings blended with the grass perfectly. 

We almost got excited about the possibility of a game kill when the giraffes wondered past a lion resting under a tree.   The kill did not eventuate either because the lioness wasn't hungry or she realised without her mates to support her the kill would be unsuccessful.  There are some irresponsible tourists who  

also ignored the rules of the park and got out of their vehicles and could have become game kill.

Meeting tourists in the way to Etosha we heard from several of them there were lions mating right by the side of the road and according to our tour guide, they will mate continuously for five days straight so we were in with a chance of seeing the

same event.  We were so close as we found the lions question and it was looking promising until the lioness lay down on her side with a headache.  

We found some cubs sleeping about a kilometre away from the lion pride in their own, and we were assured the mother knew exactly where she left them, however I found it unsettling to have the cubs unprotected so far away from their mother.

Watching the sunset over the Waterhole with all the beautiful colours was a treat in itself and as a bonus a rhino wandered down to complete the perfect sunset.    As my camera broke I am now using the ipad as a camera, however you can still see the reflection of the rhino in the waterhole against the sunset.

After spending two days looking for elephants we almost admitted defeat and on our final game drive we found a herd of elephants and was even lucky enough to see twins baby elephants which is very rare.    A juvenile elephant was showing off when he saw our truck and ran towards it and made a lot of noise.   The guides told us not to worry as he was not charging the bus, but if you see an elephant running at you,  it is a little hard not to feel a sense of panic.   The elephant was such a show off he even got down on is knees in front of the bus.