Khadoum National Park 13th July

Tech probs again, this post got lost and I'm rewriting it grrr, now we are out of order.

We had a slow start in the morning, talking to some of our fellow campers before heading to the north part of the park about 80kms away. Another sunny day and we were rewarded at the first water hole with a herd of roan antelope, only found in this part of Namibia. They look like a cross between a donkey and an oryx with long ears and horns. Heading up a river bed we came across a herd of elephant. The boys and I spent some time travelling on the roof of the car which the boys loved. We met a huge bull elephant coming out of the next waterhole on the road which was a bit scary. We sat very still, and after he wagged his ears at us and studied us a while he passed by. Each waterhole has a wooden tower lookout for viewing the game as they come and go, which is fantastic. They boys loved climbing into each of them and it allows a lot more freedom. The park was particularly beautiful for the lack of people. The only other people we saw during the day were locals where we had lunch who were fixing the pumps which are solar powered as some elephants had destroyed it. When they had driven off the elephants immediately came up to where the water comes out from the pipes which is obviously cleaner. A lot of the waterholes are very muddy from the elephants stomping around in them. It was a lovely afternoon driving through the rest of the park. We saw wildebeest, more elephants, some sort of monkey, dik dik antelope, roan antelope and an amazing series of birds including beautiful kingfishers, large eagles and the scary looking vultures, circling in packs. We drove through some very sandy patches where the elephant footprints were very clear. It was a beautiful sunset as we came up another riverbed to our camp. The Belgians were already there and the south Africans turned up a bit later but were gone by 4:30am. We quickly set up and got a fire going as it was going to be another cold night under a very clear starry night. Again no fences and warning signs around the camp about hyenas, lions and elephants, however we saw heard none that night.