It's not every day a rhino crosses the road in front of you!

We decided yesterday morning to take advantage of our close proximity to Etosha National Park. We had enjoyed our six days in the park in November, and we were staying at Etosha Safari Lodge, only 9 kms from the park entrance.

So we went back.

We ended up driving 115 kms (71 miles) inside the park. It took us about four and a half hours.

The first couple of hours were pretty slow with the animal sightings. Now that the rains have started, the animals move much further into sections of the park that are inaccessible. So sightings can be much more rare than they are during dry season when the animals stay close to the water holes.

But then we saw a herd of zebras.

Jostling for position.

And havin' a drink!

One of the benefits at this time of year is that there's hardly anybody around. We ended up catching up to a little white car and they would stop, and we would stop. It worked okay because it almost meant that we had more sets of eyes watching for animals.

Springbok

Springbok is one of the most common animals in the park. There are literally thousands of them. In fact, due to the severe drought this past year, they had actually authorized a hunt in the park to help feed some of Namibia's people. Not sure how many were killed, or whether the hunting continues.

Now you know what a northern black korhaan looks like!

This jackal looks a little worse for wear!

The black faced impala is an impressive creature.

Hey! Get off the road! Like I said, the springbok are everywhere.

Springbok and wildebeest.

We were nearing the end of our safari and we were still sort of following that little white car but they had gotten a bit ahead of us. We saw them parked by the side of the road but they were still pretty far ahead of us. Ruth had the binoculars out and said..."Kevin, it's a rhino!".

We got a little closer, just in time to get a photo of the big guy crossing in front of their car. What a great view they had! 

He was bigger than their car. And probably weighed twice as much!

He wandered a fair bit from the road, but we still got this one good shot.

Amazing. This type of experience makes me not want to visit a zoo again!

Back to the Etosha Safari Lodge and relaxed at the bar for the afternoon getting caught up on some internet. Then, we had made reservations to the Etosha Safari Camp to go for dinner. We're going to tell you more about it tomorrow, but here's our pre-dinner entertainment...

A laid back and fun place...Etosha Safari Camp!