Tag Archives: overlanding

A Walk On The Wild Side

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We weren’t sure if we wanted to go to the Etosha National Park as we’re surrounded in Kenya by lots of different parks. But we’re glad we did.

The drive from Grootfontein was pretty easy and only a couple of hours. We were meant to stop in at the Hobas Meteorite, but we refused to pay $60 to see a large piece of rock. Our trip budget is pretty small so we’re prioritising what we want to spend our dollars on. The night before we met some Kiwis who are taking their two kids on a 12 month trip around the world (flyingkiwis.nz). They gave us some great advice on some activities on our next few legs of Namibia.

Getting into Etosha is straightforward, you can pay everything by card. Kenya has become really complicated to enter the game parks, they need to learn from Namibia. Once in, we went to the Namutoni Campsite to set up. The place was packed and so glad we booked in early.

The campground is super flash. It has a swimming pool, restaurant, a shop, lots of bathrooms and a waterhole to watch the animals.

This is what we did at night time. You have to be totally silent, which some people were terrible at. It was so annoying when people thought that having a loud chat while we were waiting for animals to come and drink – was a good idea. By 9.30pm not a lot was happening so Liz started making her way to bed. Ten minutes later a large elephant came to the waterhole and started drinking and munching on a bush. I (Sharon) was the only one there and it was mesmerising.

The next day we drove through the park to a place called Hallali – and the roads were horrible. They were corrugated, which was really painful. Onwards we went to Okaukuejo, the next campsite we would be staying in.

Pete wasn’t impressed at all as we were given a really small piece of dirt right next to the toilets – and we had no other place to go. It actually ended up being okay and one of the best viewing places at the park. Yes, we saw animals throughout the day but it was what we saw at night that really made us want to come back.

In the park, the campsites are pretty much the same, but we felt the setup of the waterhole was WAY better than at Namutoni. You have to take our word for it and also watch the video below to see the wildlife we saw at night. We had to drag ourselves to bed at 10pm because we had a long drive the next day, and apparently when we left all the lions came to drink.

Enjoy!

Camping in Tanzania

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We are often torn between booking every step of our trip, and winging it for accommodation. We decided that doing long hours and just hoping to find somewhere to sleep wasn’t going to be a happening thing, for the first week anyway.

So, we booked into The Old Farm House in a remote area but on our route. It was way better than we anticipated. It was quiet, plenty of water, and hot showers!

As we drove in, we met some people who were from Namibia – our ultimate destination. They gave us a bottle of sand from one of their sand dunes and told us to come over later. They had some friends who were coming in later too. These two couples traveled in super flash mtoorhomes, so it was an easy setup for them.

For us, it took quite some time. This was the very first time we had done a setup and actually stayed somewhere. Admittedly, it probably took us a couple of hours to get everything where we wanted.

The facilities at The Old Farm House are fantastic. You can choose to stay in a chalet which is very nice and well setup. You can get meals there but have to prebook as they do it all from scratch. We did our own meals.

We had a great night with our friends from Namibia and learnt a lot about their homeland.

The next day – we spent a lot of time packing up (we’ll get better) and headed to our next destination.

Big News!

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When we started BeyondWater in 2007, we established a Board of Directors. Their job is to set up policies, procedures and as much as possible, ensure our future. This is not always easy when we’re based in Kenya and they in Aussie.

All of our boards are hand picked business men and women who have a passion for bringing about positive change through our work. We’re all in this together.

A couple of years ago, our Aussie board asked us to consider taking 6 months off for a sabbatical/long service leave. Can you imagine Pete sitting around for 6 months? Not only is he a sanguine, he has ADD and needs to be doing something practical, otherwise we all suffer. I get what they were saying, it’s time we took time out to refresh our batteries for the next season of the work.

We managed to whittle it down to 3 months. It’s still a long time and also means we can’t do fundraising when we go. We normally travel a few months a year in the US, Australia or New Zealand but if we were to take three months off, this wouldn’t happen.

We looked at doing short courses but nothing came up. Going back to Australia to see the family would’ve cost $10,000 just in flights – and it’s very expensive being there. Would’ve been great to go back and see them but this will have to wait until the end of 2025.

So, we’ve decided to take 12 weeks leave and drive in our landy all the way down to Namibia and back. That means going through Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and maybe even Malawi. We’ve all got things we want to see, the big one being Victoria Falls and the deserts of Namibia.

We were going to leave at the beginning of May but because we got back from New Zealand later than intended, we’ve delayed it. We might go at the beginning of June but we’ve a few things to wrap up in the office – like taxes first.

Check out our announcement here: