16 September 2014
This morning
we left a bit later than the previous days as the breakfast at Nkambeni Safari
Camp was quite busy and we like the quiet. So we hang around till the other
guests were all gone on game drives, had a quiet cup of coffee and left
ourselves. On camp road we saw some horns sticking out of the grass, which
counted for our daily buffalo
sighting. Against the glare of the sun we could make out the shape of some
heads, but as they were still asleep and not about to get up anytime soon, we
continued on our way. A duiker, already being bright eyed and bushy tailed,
noticed us before we saw him and ran away. So we actually only saw it's back
end disappear.
A drive around
Fayi loop turned out to be a trip down memory lane. Not that we have been here
before on this tour, but the animal sightings: elephants ("remember our
first elephant sighting?"), kudus (yeah we haven't seen those the last
couple of days but lots in the beginning"), 4 reedbuck ("we did see
one before, but not this obvious and not four!"), a little bee eater
("it's the little bird we saw when we were watching the mega herd of
buffalo"), a juvenile bateleur ("we know now how pretty he'll be when
he's older") and zebras ("they are quite hidden here, we have seen
them much better"). So yeah, we were actually getting quite spoiled on
this safari when it comes to sightings!
In the meantime
Robbie had driven down Napi and told us about some nice sightings he had, so we
decided to see if we could get lucky to. First of all we did find the nice herd
of sable he told us about. Unfortunately the sables were more silhouetted
against the horizon and through the bush, but nonetheless, we saw a herd of
sable! We had seen sable before, but not as many as these, or little ones.
Robbie had also told us about lions and when we arrived at the seen these were easy to spot
on one of the flat rocks. We noticed 4 lions at first, one of them getting up
and moving to a different spot, when suddenly two others set up and looked in
the same direction. We were wondering what they saw and suddenly a fifth lion
turned up on the rock. This one was a young male. And a minute or so later a
sixth one walked to the other five, but without a greeting to us or any of the
other lions went off on
the other side of the rock again. When two of the other lionesses followed her,
and predicting the others would too, and having very full bladders we turned
around to make our way to Pretoriuskop.
However,
before we actually got to Pretoriuskop we still saw a nice white rhino walking
away into the bush and had an amazing sighting of an elephant herd. They were
first in the bush about 50m away, standing in the shade with flapping ears. But
as it was recently burned, we had a very good view. Then slowly they started
moving towards us. As there was plenty of room, and there were no other cars
around, we waited for the elephants to come close and pass us. However, when
they did want to start to cross, cars showed up from both sides, putting us in
the middle of a herd with babies, that then got a little bit stressed. We waited
with baited breath, as some young mothers showed us their predicament with the
situation, but the matriarch had been in this situation before and let the herd
safely across the road in between us and 4 other cars. Nonetheless a great
sighting! But now it was really time for a toilet break, otherwise we would
have wet car seats!
After a piece
of chocolate cake and some nice iced coffee at Pretoriuskop, we set of back to
Nkambeni Safari Camp as the day was already hot again. Down Numbi tar we saw
another reedbuck family, two adults and a little one, before on camp road we
noticed the buffalos had finally gotten up to start their day.
A small drive
in the afternoon took us up Albassini and had a stop at Mestel dam. An elephant
had just come down the hill and we were hoping it would go swimming. We even
told it that it was bloody hot and a little swim would cool it down nicely. But
no such luck. He had a drink and then walked off again. We did also see a
darter drying himself in the sun, a grey heron and a pied kingfisher fishing.
Then on the overflow crossing, my guests suddenly said "stop".
Something had run away from the little leftover pool of water on the bottom that
looked like an otter. Assuming we don't have otters, she thought it was
something else, but her description was exactly as if they had just seen a cape
clawless otter run away. So we stopped and stared in the reeds and
sat in silence for 10 minutes to see if it would come out... but no such thing.
I was very disappointed as so far I have never seen a cape clawless otter. And
now I STILL haven't seen one :(.
We then
bumbled down Shabeni link, seeing zebras and kudus, to Shabeni loop. Here we
had two different sightings of klipspringers, before returning to the lodge. It
had been another great day! Tomorrow is the last day of our holiday, but
somehow we just want to extend it!
17 September 2014
This morning
was the last game drive of our 9-day safari tour and we were sad it already was
day 9. Once again on camp road, the first animals we saw were buffalos and so
we already had our daily buffalo fix before 6:10am. On our last drive down
Numbi tar we found zebras as well as a nice kudu bull hanging out with some
impalas. We then drove down Napi where just before Shitlhave Dam a nice herd of
buffalo was crossing the road. We caught the tail end of the herd crossing in front
of us, which probably was a good thing, as the rest of the herd on the opposite
side of the drainage line looked massive, so we would have been there a while
if they had just started crossing. An elephant bull was hanging out with the
herd and so we also had seen elephant every day on this safaris as well.
We also saw
some waterbucks, two male giraffes showing why they have no more hair on their
oscicles, a small group of wildebeests and two white rhinos grazing.
We turned into
Watergat where we found a lot of leopard tracks around the first drainage line,
but the people on the way had said it disappeared into the bush. Nonetheless we
scouted around with binoculars in nice shady spots, but no spots of a leopard
were found. Then at the waterhole we found a nice elephant herd drinking and playing
with water. Two very young elephants kept us entertained by running back and
forth from one group of elephants to the other, with their trunks dangling in
front and their ears flapping wildly. Here there was another leopard, we heard
from some other guides, but as he got scared he had hid away in a drainage pipe
under the road. Westopped on top of the pipe and waited. No movement heard or
seen while waiting there, but nobody wanting to get out and stick their head in the pipe to
check if he was really there... Yeah I know, strange!!
As we didn't have
all day today, unfortunately, we had to move off and wished the other cars
waiting on the spot good luck. We found an elephant bull in must on the road
and had to move forward according to his pace for a while. He didn't mind us
being there, but to be truthful, we weren't that impressed with the smell of
him and we were downwind! So when he moved off the road and we could pass, we
were actually quite
happy. The rest of our journey up Watergat road we encountered some more
giraffes and many more impalas. At one sighting a male was chasing a female and
when she ran back into the herd to try and hide another male took over the
chase. Poor thing had to sprint around in this heat! After three laps though,
this male gave up the chase and no one took over so they all settled in quietly
again and resumed their grazing.
Our last hour
we spend driving down Doispane towards Phabeni Gate. We got some more nice
sightings of zebras and kudus before some of us spotted a leopard. While
stopping she looked back over her shoulder and decided not to hang around and
walked on. It is her right of course, to not to show herself nicely, however it
would have been nice if the grass wasn't so long that she could disappear so
quickly as not all of us saw her. Still, for most of us it was third time
lucky, as we already missed two leopards, but got the third! Just before
Phabeni Gate we could add a new animal to our immense sightings list, as a black-shouldered
kite sat on a nearby tree. The last photos, one last box ticked and then it was
really time to go!
I spend a
great holiday with Irene, Corine, Renske and Gerrit and hope that they enjoyed
it just as much as I did! Thanks you very much for joining us on this safari
and I hope we will see you again in the future. I promise you, even though you
have more than 3000 pictures of this tour, we can always do better and see some
more animals :)! Thanks again!!
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