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Published: June 17th 2017
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01 Sunrise
The view at sunrise from Sekushwe Pan. Geo: -23.4078, 24.0601
Paul woke me up quite early this morning. In a zombie like mode I got up and dressed. We left the camp site at about 6am for a morning game drive. We drove towards Sekushwe Pan and into the rising sun. It was a beautiful sunrise, full of various shades of orange and worth getting out of bed so early for. The animals were already up and grazing on the pans.
At Mahurushele Pan there was a large herd of springbok that stopped eating as we approached them. In the distance there many gemsbok, unique with their long, straight horns. It was quite fresh this early in the morning, but I knew that it would soon warm up.
We continued to drive in a northerly direction and stopped at Khankhe camp site number 4. This camp site was vacant. The game reserve seemed very quiet and we had not seen any other cars driving around or campers at the other camp sites we drove past. Here we had a great view of Khankhe Pan. There were gemsbok watching us have our coffee and brownie. The day before I made a batch of sweet potato brownies for this trip and
02 Springbok
A herd of springbok at Mahurushele Pan. they were perfect with our coffee.
After our little leg stretch at the camp site we continued our morning drive. From this camp site we drove in an anti-clockwise loop back to our camp site at Mahurushele Pan. On the rest of the drive we saw a small shy, quick steenbok. The tracks seemed like they had not been driven on for a while. There was lots of long, dry grass in the middle of the track, so Paul thought it was best to put on the seed net.
Soon after we arrived back at our camp site, it was about 10:30am. The weather was warming up and was a comfortable temperature. We spent some time photographing the little creatures around our camp site, a large bug on the tent, various coloured butterflies drinking water on the ground and our friendly, resident Ground Squirrel.
I set my chair up in the shade of the large tree. We were lucky to have a large shaded tree in our camp site, as I noticed that there were many sites that did not have much shade. I was happy with a cider in one hand and a trashy magazine in the other. My chair was
03 Springbok
A few minutes after our arrival, they went back to eating. set up to face the two tracks that lead to our camp site. I did not want to have my back to them, just in case a lion or something walked along. Quite frequently I would look up and around, in case any animals appeared.
After lunch we had a little nap and relax. It was 2:30pm when we headed out for our afternoon game drive. We drove towards where the lions were yesterday afternoon. Along the way we saw a large group of various vulture species, gemsboks, a large herd of springbok and lots of cute animated Ground Squirrels.
We finally arrived to where we saw the pride of lions yesterday afternoon. There were no lions here this afternoon. The red hartebeest carcass had been dragged to the other side of the track. There was hardly anything left of it. A crow was sitting on the carcass picking out flesh.
Nearby was a pan - Motailane Pan and we sat here for about 50 minutes. Water was pumped into this pan and therefore our chances of seeing animals coming to drink were increased. In the distance there was a large herd of Red Hartebeest and some Gemsbok. The only thing
04 Gemsbok
A gemsbok about to cross the track. that came close to us was many birds, mainly pigeons and doves.
The sky was slowly getting darker and large clouds had formed. I wondered if it was going to rain. It's not fun being in a tent during a storm, especially if it is before bedtime! We slowly drove back towards our camp site at Mahurushele number 3. Again we saw Ground Squirrels and couldn't resist stopping to watch them for a little bit.
That evening we sat around the fire, drinking sherry as we waited for coals to cook our food. In the end it did not rain and the sky cleared up, allowing us to see many stars. We ate mushrooms, corn, eggplant and garlic bread, as well as boerwors for Paul.
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