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| Black rhino in the bush |
Erindi is a private wildlife reserve north of Windhoek in Namibia (
https://erindi.com). It is on the road between Okahandja and Otjiwarongo. It is a very large patch of reserve at some 71 000 hectors. This is a true "Big 5" reserve. I say "true", because they have black rhino. White rhino are, strictly speaking, not part of the big 5. I got to see all five of the big 5 in just 3 days in Erindi. In fact I got a mammal count of 32 different species in 3 days! A really great reserve.
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| Giraffe at the waterhole. Always love to watch them drink |
I was joining up with a church group who was doing a missions outreach to the Bushmen in Tsumkwe in the northern part of Namibia. There will be a few separate posts on this at a later date. I planned to fly to Windhoek, rent a car and join up with the group when they pass through the area at Otjiwarongo.
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| Damara dik dik - one of the really small species |
I will probably be going three (or maybe even 4) posts on my time at Erindi because I enjoyed a few unique and wonderful experiences there. This would be way too much for just one post. I also have some good wildlife photos to put into the post. The photos in my post on my Cheetah experience would not be for sensitive viewers, as they will be with a kill.
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| Elephants at the water hole |
Getting to Erindi is pretty easy. I flew into Windhoek and rented a car. Getting to Erindi is about a 3 hour dive from the airport. First go through Windhoek, then head through Okahandja (with some great biltong shops) and then head north on the main road to Otjiwarongo. It is hard to miss the turn off as they have massive boards next to the road! The roads in Namibia are pretty good, even the dirt roads. I rented a small car, and it was good enough on the dirt roads even in Erindi.
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| Room in Erindi |
The accommodation at Erindi was very luxurious. Probably a bit too luxurious for my taste in a bush experience. However, there are great views from the rooms. My room overlooked the main waterhole and the other set of rooms overlooked another waterhole. Pretty much all rooms have a view of a waterhole. The package includes all meals and two game drives with a ranger per day. The dinning area was on the main waterhole with a fantastic deck and view of the waterhole. The food was great with a good variety of dishes in a buffet style.
The time that I was there was very, very dry. In the middle of a very server drought. As there are some very rear and valuable animals on the reserve, they had resorted to feeding the bigger animals, like the hippo, rhino and elephants. This is great for the tourists and the animals are easy to see, but I found it heart rendering to see these magnificent animals just waiting for the feed to arrive. These are big animals and the feed did not go a long way. This was not a feast for the animals. Just enough to keep them alive. You could see the animals were hungry. The hippo were waiting for the feed outside of the water in the hot day. Not normal hippo behaviour. Because of the drought they also had to cull large numbers of many of the smaller species, like gemsbok and zebra. Not a nice story, but the reality of a drought in Africa.
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| Hippo waiting for feed |
Anyway, enough of the sad stuff. Back to the game viewing. They have a few unique game activities at Erindi. These include a cheetah walk and a leopard walk. Yes - a leopard walk. This animal, I think, is the most dangerous animal to be in the bush with. I will go into the cheetah walk in the next post.
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| Young elephant trying to chase away other animals. Uses the truck to wave them away! |
There is also a wild dog colony at Erindi. In fact, the colony was quite close to the waterhole and if you knew what you were looking at, you could see the den from my room and the deck of the main lodge. There were also pups in the den, but you will have to wait for a next post to see some photos.
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| Wild dog and pup |
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