Swakopmund; Saturday, 19 April, 2003

The plan for the morning is to visit the petrified forest, which we do. Trees that were washed onto the plain many thousands of years ago then covered by the desert and perfectly preserved as rocks before being uncovered again when the sands moved away. After the petrified forest we drive to the town of Khorixas for a quick stop before setting off to Outjo.

Then 30 Km from Khorixas disaster strikes and smoke starts pouring from the wheel that has been making funny sounds. The original plan was that a maintenance person from the safari company would meet us at 11 in Outjo. By 11 we were all sitting at the edge of the road 110Km away. After about 3 hours wait the replacement minibus with maintenance man arrives to see what they can do.

The decision is to transfer us to a minibus for the rest of the day and see if the van can be fixed and so at just before 4pm, over 3 hours late we arrived in Outjo to restock on supplies and have a (very) late lunch!

After Outjo we drove to Etosha National Park where we were to spend the next day and a half. We drove from the gate to the camp site and saw a few giraffe in the distance, a wildebeest and lots of springbok!!