Sat Aug 01 2026
Madisa Camp
Ancient rock engravings and our first giraffes.
We woke up to a lovely sunrise and leisurely breakfast, having decided that instead of taking out a mortgage to track elephants we would venture out on our own tracking adventure then head out in the afternoon to look at the ancient rock engravings at Twyfelfontein.
We walked for a mile or so up the dried out river bed looking for elephant footprints and poo unsuccessfully. We concluded there must actually be some captive elephants in a secret location they let out every time tourises pay the fee to ive them an experience!
Then we w went to the pool to cool down, only to discover there was refurbishment work going on, but the girls had a swim anyway, and we got through a good number of pages of our book.
After lunch we headed North West to the engraving site. We toyed with the idea of also visiting “Organ Pipes” and “Burnt Mountain” which the guide book described as an underwhelming and much smaller version of the Giants’ Causeway and a dreary bunch of rocks that come to life in the golden hour rerspectively. They were both there in reserve but first we visited Twyfelfontein.
Twyfelfontein is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - mainly because it is one of the few places that you could once see both rock paintings and engravings, but the paintings have mostly disappeared now. The engravings, however, were very cool. Dating back several thousand years apparantly, depicting different animals, maps of water. holes, and thought to have been a means of communication for hunters as the location housed a small spring and therefore would have attracted many animals before they all got hunted to extinction!
After the tour with our fantastic tour guide Raymond (who had been doing this since 1998) we all felt quite tired so decided to head back without going to the organ pipes or burnt mountain.
On the way home we saw a family of giraffes feeding by the side of the road - the first giraffes we had seen on this trip, so there was great excitement!
We got back to Madisa and went to the pool to wind down. That evening, after getting the hot water donkey nice and hot, I grabbed my towel from the tree it was drying on to go and have a shower, unknowingly bringing a scorpian along for the ride, which then proceeded to sting me on the arm. It was very painful - like a bad bee sting that doesn’t go away! I had pins and needles down my arm all night! Needless to say the scorpian got the worst end of the deal though!