Saturday, 31 May 2025
This morning, after a fevery, headachy and congested night, I made the very difficult decision at 5.15am, that I was not up to going out on a full day game drive. While Bernie was getting ready to meet the others for their 6.15am departure, I swallowed two Panadol and re-set the alarm for 7.00am, so that I could try to get myself down to the dining room before breakfast finished at 8.00am.
Before the gang departed, Cathy dropped by with some Sudafed for me, bless her. Cathy has been soldiering on with a respiratory thing since about day three of our holiday, so she is made of tougher stuff than me! If we had been going out a little bit later, or for only half the day, I might have tried to tough it out, but the last thing I wanted to do was risk getting worse while we were out and then have the group feel they needed to head back early on my account.
After their early breakfast, the rest of the group were heading off into Etosha National Park West. Characterised by an immense salt desert – the Etosha Pan, so large that it can be seen from space – Etosha is one of Africa’s most diverse and well-known wildlife reserves. It is home to over 110 different animals and over 300 different bird species. The perennial springs along the edges of the Etosha Pan draw large concentrations of wildlife and birds during the dry season each year.
The park is home to four of the famous ‘Big Five’ – elephant, lion, leopard and rhino, with only the buffalo not found in Etosha. Its waterholes support a rich diversity of birds and mammals, including rare species such as the black-faced impala, cheetah and Namibia’s smallest antelope, the Damara dik dik. How many of these amazing animals would they see??
At 7.00am I managed to get myself upright, showered and down to the dining room for breakfast. It was amazing what a difference drugs and a couple more hours of sleep had made. I wasn’t feeling fantastic, but I was much improved on how I was before sunrise! After some restorative Vegemite on toast – thank goodness I packed the Vegemite, my ultimate comfort food! – I headed back to our room.
When housekeeping arrived, I went to sit outside to keep out of her way. The poor thing was coughing and spluttering the whole time she was servicing our room so I do hope that I am not going to get her lurgy on top of the one I already have??! Personally, I blame the buffet-style meals that we have been having. Those ladles, spoons and tongs that you have to use to serve yourself must be harbouring all sorts of bugs.
While I was sitting outside, Wian came by with a tray of breakfast for me which was very kind of him and I felt bad having to say that I had already been down to the dining room for some breakfast. I assured him that I was doing OK and did feel better than I had earlier in the morning. He asked if I wanted him to find out about room service for lunch, but I told him I felt sure I’d be able to walk down to the bar/dining room to get myself some lunch.
With the day stretching ahead of me I decided to set about catching up on the blog after all the difficulties that I have been having. It was Saturday, but I needed to start off by recording what we did on Wednesday. Fortunately, I managed to cobble together something from the notes in our itinerary and some notes I made in Notes on my iPhone.
With Wednesday done, I moved onto Thursday and, once again, managed to jog my memory using our itinerary, the road map we were given on Day 1 and my trusty iPhone Notes … that I keep ON my iPhone, not in the iCloud. At lunchtime I set my iPad aside and walked down to the restaurant area where I enjoyed a toasted sandwich at the bar.
After I finished my sandwich, I signed the chit to have lunch charged to our room and picked up the rest of my one litre bottle of water and started to leave. The bar man called me back. Wrong bill, wrong bill, he told me. I hadn’t even checked it, I just added a tip to the total and signed it. Turns out the right amount was only about N$110.00 (AUS$11.00) and I had signed off on someone else’s lunch that was worth about $N400.00 (AUS$40)!!! Lucky the barman wasn’t fuzzy with a head cold too and was so quick to correct the mistake. Phew!
I spent the rest of the day having a snooze, reading my book AND bringing the travel diary right up-to-date. When Bernie arrived back at about 4.00pm I have to say that I was feeling pretty good despite not being 100 percent because, finally, I had all of our memories recorded for posterity.
Bernie’s Day:
Yes, it was an early start for me. I went to the meeting point where we met Michael, our guide for the day. We were all handed a warmed poncho as it was rather cool. All snuggly, we headed off to Andersson’s Gate to wait for the park to open at 7am. We were second in line and were soon heading to Okaukuejo to pay the park fees. On the way we saw our first elephant and then a black rhino in the distance. Fees paid and a toilet stop completed, we were now off to search for elephants, We did a big loop around Olfantsbad and a couple of other water holes, but no luck for elephants, plenty of Springboks, Blacked faced Impalas and Zebras. So, not a total disappointment.
We headed back to Okaukuejo for lunch, where we had a very limited selection, but my chicken wings and chips were good. Can’t beat chips. After lunch we headed off towards Okonddeeka again searching for elephants and lions. We viewed the Etosha Pan which is a salt pan of some 4,731 square kilometres. There is still some water left in the pan from the rainy season. A passing motorist alerted us to a black rhino just down the road. We quickly sped off and located the rhino. It looked fantastic walking through the long grass. Time to head back via a short detour off the main road where we located a tower of giraffes. We learnt the other day that ‘tower’ is the collective known for a group of standing giraffes. If they are on the move they are referred to as a ‘journey’ of giraffes. After an early start and a full day game drive I was looking forward to freshening up with a shower.
At 7.00pm we walked over to the restaurant area where the rest of the gang was gathered for another night of smorgasbord delights!
Arriving back in our room, I picked up my iPad to record a last few thoughts for the day and was asking Bernie if he wanted to type some words about his experiences today or dictate something to me to type up. I opened my document AND NOT A WORD OF WHAT I HAD TYPED DURING THE DAY WAS THERE!!! How can that be I wailed? I have been in and out of the document all day and all the changes I made throughout the day were there each time I went back into it????????? I don’t know, said the IT Guy. I worked offline all day, just like you recommended, why is not saved on the iPad? Needless to say, both of us were VERY, VERY UPSET. That’s it, I said, I’m done, I’m over it, I’m giving up, I can’t be typing hundreds of words every day to turn around and have to type them again … and again.
The IT guy thought I was blaming him, but to me it’s about the technology and not really understanding HOW it records information. I mean, you put a pen to paper and you can see the words form on the piece of paper. I type on the iPad and I can see the words on the screen, but where are they really?? They are not tangible like words written in a physical notebook that’s for sure.
Too sick to cope with the sheer frustration of it all, I turned off my bedside light, curled up in the foetal position and went to sleep.
Steps: