Actually, Otjiambi Farm is only about 30 kilometers NE as the crow flies from Jan's. What makes it seem so far when you drive to it is you have to go 45 kilometers W to Kamanjab on the gravel road in front of Jan's (C35) and then back E for 60 or so kilometers on C40 to get to Juergen's. When "farms" are in 20-40 thousand US acres in size, Jan's and Juergens aren't that far apart. I met Juergen once at Jan's and had a few "sundowners". He is a character for sure, but I haven't hunted Juergen's farm. That is one of the two places that have had waterbuck in the area that escaped due to elephants breaking down the the high fences.
There are about 250 or so, elephant in the region, broken up into small family groups of 6-10, a few solitary bulls that may have an "askari" (younger guard bulls) or two with him, that free roam over about a million hectors in that region. While they are fun to see, they are the bane of the farmers/ranchers. They breakdown both low and high fences, tear out waterlines from the bore holes to the water points (one bore hole/well can feed more than one waterpoint), tip over windmills, rip out pump heads, breakdown concrete water holding tanks and sometimes chase/harass workers.
I have hunted on the farms that run from near Juergen's (one farm W) all the way back to Kamanjab on both sides of C40. One farm, Beulah, is about 1/2 way between Jan's and Kamanjab, goes all the was W to Kamanjab and N all the way to C40 and has extends N of C40 for another 20k acres or so. There is actually a Namibian National Heritage Park on that northern part of Beulah called "Peet Albert's Koppie". There are hundreds of petroglyphs on top that again date back nearly 20k years. They chronical all the native game that used to inhabit the area. The land up there are a bit more open/less mountains but still enough kopje's to climb up and glass large areas to save a LOT of walking.
On a positive note, they have gotten a bit of rain in the past couple of days, around 40mm so far. Has been slow and that is good as it gives it time to soak in instead of so much running off. That brings Jan's area total up to around 100mm so far for the season. Still well short of a "normal" year but every drop helps and there are still 6-8 weeks of rainy season left.
