The Elephant and I. A story from Etosha

My elephant at the waterhole
The rest camp at Halali in Etosha in Namibia has a really great waterhole. This is on a small hill and overlooks the waterhole. It appears that this is a very productive waterhole,  meaning that the animals really like it! The nice thing about the waterholes at the camps is that they have a floodlight on all nigh. So, you can sit there and wait for things to happen. During my trip Etosha, I only stayed at Halali for one night. Basically, the park gets full very fast, so you often have to take what you can get and make the most of it. I have got lots and lots of photos from Etosha, so I will have to do a few posts to be able to make use of some of my photos. I will describe the camp as well as how to get there - booking at Etosha in a later post.

Zebra - the first visitors of the day
Perfect light for reflexions

I have called this post, the Elephant and I. Any good photographer will know that there is a "golden hour" for photography. About an hour just after sunrise and about an hour just before sunset. The light is at its best for good photography. So the morning at Halali, I headed up to the hide by the waterhole before first light. There were quite a few other people there as well. Not much in the way of animals at the waterhole. Eventually as the light got better, some zebras came down to drink and I got a few nice photos of them. Slowly the people started moving off. Should I stay or should I go? I was in the "golden hour" and there was nothing to photograph at the waterhole. Should I jump into the car and head out to look for something, or stay put in the hope that something will come to the water hole. So there I was sitting, all alone at the waterhole and nothing to photograph in the golden hour.
My elephant
He was really close

The elephant coming out of the Bush
Then, out of the bush, he arrived. A beautiful bull elephant. Just me and the elephant in the golden hour. His first stop, like so many of the elephants, was to get a drink at the closest spot. This was on the far side of the waterhole. The light was behind me, and the relaxations of the elephant in the water were just wonderful.

After he had his first drink, he was looking for cleaner water. All of the waterholes have a water inlet. Water is always an issue in many of the African wildlife areas and the only way to make sure that hundreds of animals do not die from thirst in the dry winter months is to have waterholes which get filled up with ground water. There is a pipe which keeps the water hole supplied with water. The elephants just love to drink from the water supply. At the waterhole in Halali, the inflow is just below the edge of the rocks which make up the hide. So this great elephant come to the source of the water, which was only a few meters away from me.

The first drink
The finger like truck.
There was just something so special and rewarding about this. I had made the decision to stay at the waterhole when there were no animals. I was greatly rewarded with a magnificent bull elephant who ended up only a few meters away from me. It was just me and the elephant and I really felt at one with nature. This is why people go to the nature reserves, to have special moments with the animals and this was a very special moment. 
I was quite close to the elephant

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