Catching Cats

Our last stop before the journey home began with another puncture. There was no drama, no having to change wheels in 40 degree heat and no worrying about lack of spare tyres. On arriving at our car the morning of our departure one of the rear tyres was quite deflated. So after a quick change we ended up with The Tank having two decent tyres on it for the final journey, and as an added bonus, it was tarmac all the way! Or so we thought.....

We spent the first 30 minutes on suicide watch for warthogs that wanted to run out into the road from the long grass, as we had learned they are want to do, but luckily the only warthogs we saw seemed happy enough with their lives not to want to end them early. When further away from the game reserve we started to relax again.

Okonjima Plains Camp Main Lodge

Our next stop was a place called Okonjima Plains Camp, which was on the way back to Windhoek, and where we were to spend our last night in Namibia. This camp is home to the Africat Foundation - a charity that does a lot of conservation work with cheetahs, leopards, hyenas and wild dogs. They have a very large game reserve where they look after these animals in their natural habitat, but free from their major predator - man. These animals are usually killed on sight whenever they are near to human habitation or farmland, and the Africat Foundation try to encourage farmers to either live alongside them, or to help capture them and rehome them in this game reserve - not an easy sell, when it is so easy just to shoot the animal instead.

This is where our lovely tarmac road once again turned into gravel. And once again, the lodge was over 10km from the road, so it was back to bumpy journeys again. The 'driveway' was in good condition though, or at least it was until I took a wrong turn and ended up doing a bit of off-roading trying to find out where we were supposed to go. What made it more embarrassing was that the people in the car behind us blindly followed us, and we ended up leading them along narrow paths and ditches until we eventually found the main driveway again.

The lodge here is really modern and really nicely set up. I always think it is a difficult line for charities to follow, trying to encourage people/visitors/donations by providing a nice environment, but trying not to come across as if they have plenty of money and have no need for donations. But here the Africat Foundation have decided to ignore this line and go out and out for the luxurious setting.

Our room at Okonjima

Their lodge is a very large building, beautifully kitted out, and with a veranda overlooking a small watering hole and large plains, with lots of warthogs, antelope and birds around. There are (supposed to be) no big cats in this area - they should all be in the fenced off area of the main park, though the guide did admit that they didn't always know where all the leopards are. Very reassuring.

We booked an afternoon trek to go cheetah spotting, and put our stuff in our room - a very large, very clean room with once again a lovely view. We wished we had more than one night here.

The cheetah trek was with a small group of about 8 of us, in a large open top vehicle, and using a radio tracker to locate the cheetah, which all have radio collars on. After about 40 minutes driving around the reserve we stopped and got out to walk the short distance to where the cheetah were on foot. This was a bit of a surprise, as these were, after all, big, meat-eating cats we were looking for, and which could outrun any of us if they wanted to. To be honest, a sloth could give me a good run for my money, so even if we weren't tracking the fastest land mammal in the world I would have been a little concerned. But hey, I didn't need to outrun the cheetah, I only needed to outrun at least one of my tourist colleagues - and I have beaten Emma on a short sprint before, so I relaxed a little.

The guide made cheetahs out to be pretty stupid. They wouldn't go after us, he said, because it wasn't worth their while. They are also not very good at hunting at all, and their speed doesn't last very long. The baboons we passed on the journey in would have ganged up and torn a cheetah to pieces if a cheetah dared challenge them, and the leopards, which also live in the same area fairly regularly dine out on cheetah stew as the cheetah are no match for them either. By the time we actually encountered the cheetah, I was no longer impressed by them at all. I'm not sure that was the guide's intention.

We soon found two cheetah - brothers - lying together under a tree. It was (apparently) safe to approach them within about 10 metres or so, and you could even hear them purring away. Despite their apparently useless ability to hunt, they were very graceful, and you could see the power in their legs. We watched them as they wandered over to another tree and sat down there. A bit like our labrador, Charlie - just moving from one warm, cozy spot to another.

After an interesting 30 minutes or so watching the cheetah, we walked back to our vehicle. On the trip back they picked up a signal of a nearby leopard, so we went looking for that too - this time we couldn't leave the vehicle - leopards are not as cute and cuddly as cheetahs, and could easily kill a baboon, cheetah or a human. I did wonder why we were allowed to walk 300 yards away from our vehicle to look at cheetah, when this leopard was not actually all that far away! We did manage to see it eventually, after much off-road driving trying to track it. Only briefly, but apparently any sighting at all is good for a leopard, so we were very pleased to have seen it, albeit for less than a minute. The guide made these creatures out to be very clever, cunning and vicious, so we all had a lot of respect for these animals by the time we saw one (unlike the cheetah!). We were unable (due to lack of time) to sign up for a specific leopard tracking trek the following morning, so were really happy to have seen one that evening instead.

Back at the lodge, after we had stopped for a beer watching the sunset in leopard and cheetah country (not to mention the black mambas the guide warned us to look out for), we had a lovely meal and a good night's sleep.

A fairly early start the next morning (not until after I had done my holiday ritual of loading up on breakfast as if I wasn't going to eat for another three days) we set off to Windhoek to drop off the bits (phone, cool box, first aid kit) at the ATI offices, before heading to the airport to drop off the car and catch our early evening flight back home, again via Johannesburg. We did stop off on the way at a small wood market in the town of Okahandja. We didn't have much time, and didn't want to search it out, but it (one of two markets in the town, apparently) was pretty obvious as you drive through the town anyway, so we stopped and I walked around the stalls while Emma, who was a bit nervous about leaving the car full of our luggage in an open car park, and who wasn't all that bothered looking at wood carvings, stayed in the car.

The market was small, many stalls sold the same things, and there wasn't much of any great surprise there, but what was there was of pretty good quality, and it was nice to spend 20 minutes looking around the 20 or so stalls. There were few visitors there when I was there, and there was the inevitable hassle to buy from the stall holders, but it was all good natured and not too pushy (or maybe I'm just used to more forceful market sellers!), so I enjoyed the brief wander around the wood sellers, and did end up buying a few things that I was specifically looking out for. The giraffe heads poking out from my small rucksack as we sat having some food in Johannesburg airport did bring some smiles to passing people.

The rest of the journey home was uneventful. Flying over Johannesburg in the early evening and seeing the masses of car lights stuck in traffic jams contrasted heavily with the quietness and small size of Windhoek.

Places stayed: Okonjima Plains Camp
Notable Animals Spotted: Cheetah, Leopard, Jackal, Warthogs