Day 8/9: Etosha Safari Lodge to Mushara Outpost Lodge

Cullinan says: 200 km / 124 mi, didn’t say how long
Google says: 185 km / 115 mi, 3 hr 18 min
Actual: 192 km / 119 mi, 5 hr (gravel roads 143 km / 89 mi)

Today is a “do it yourself safari day”. Etosha Safari Lodge is just outside the western gate to the Etosha National Park, and Mushara Outpost Lodge is just outside the eastern gate. The idea is that there’s a lot of driving all over and stopping/starting while you’re trying to track down the animals there.

There are three camps in the park, which pretty much coincide with the start, middle and end of our journey.

The first is called Okaukejo – once you have driven through here, the gravel roads start and don’t finish until the end of the third camp. But that’s pretty much the worst of the roads over, as it’s mostly tarmac all the way back to Windhoek now. And NO PUNCTURES!

After a couple of hours driving we reached Halali, the second camp, and a couple more brought us to Namutomi, the final one, and then the good roads came back.

We did see a lot of animals today although no rhino or big cats.

Our new accommodation is Mushara Lodge and we’re here for two nights. It’s a “luxury tent” – very big and I think it’s our favourite accommodation so far. It even has an outside shower inside the tent!

It’s a very relaxed place and I won’t forget watching the baby warthogs playing on the front lawn in front of the hotel!

After the intensive few days of driving we’ve had, we decided not to go back to Etosha for our second day here, but to chill out at Mushara Lodge instead.

We did decide to drive to Tsumeb – an hour or 90km to the south of us – as they have a Wimpy there! So we had lunch and I had a Big Cheese, chips and vanilla milkshake for under £4. We also had a drive around the town, and it’s quite pretty but not a great deal to do, apart from visit the museum, which was closed for lunch.