Day 107- Numatoni 18/1/13no

Today's blog starts late yesterday evening. A few of us where looking at a decidedly duff film on Carl 's laptop, with thunder crashing ever closer around us - never mind, all our tents were fully secure. However, the "experienced" Cairo Four were to discover this was not the case for them - something about flaps not being zipped down.

The result was two tents whose insides and contents were, shall I say, somewhat damp - including of course the mattresses - so the four of us slept stretched out in the truck. In fact, we all slept remarkably well, so not in fact a bad introduction to "communal living" when we get to South Africa?

Not sure if the rain slashed down all night, but certainly heard it hard on the metal roof for some time, and by morning the campsite was something of a quagmire - time to move on.

So a drive across country to the Etosha National Park (bigger than Wales) with a grand entrance that certainly puts the Peak District to shame! The Namutoni camp site is based on an old 1890s German fort with excellent facilities, including a proper (hand washing) laundry which was well used by most of us! Also some very seemingly luxurious chalets, which we did not use! We went on a game drive in the afternoon adding oryx, red hartebeest, springboks and a lone black backed jackal to add to our list of "have seens".

Sunset from the beautifully built hide alongside the campsite water hole promised to be quite superb, but ended up by being blocked out by a large cloud. However, after sunset the clouds really put on a spectacular display - many photos taken. Unfortunately, most of us were so tired after dinner that we had an early night and completely forgot to go back to see what was happening at the (by then illuminated) water hole. Yet more crashing thunder, with storms again on both sides of us.