Soldiers on the Sand on Timbavati Road!

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Geo: -23.9561, 31.4416

Up and out the gate...a little different when there are only fourteen or so campsites. We were trying to decide exactly where to go when we spotted a jackal on the side of the road ahead off us. Tried to catch up with it and see if it was the black backed jackal or not. Could not catch up with the guy!

Decided to stop because we were afraid we might cause him harm by wearing him out.
Had decided to go down Timbavati road from the other direction than we had when we were here last year. Saw a kori bustard on the side of the road that was quite nice and then we started pulling into some of the pull arounds that let you look down on the river. We saw something we had never seen before........soldiers down on the sand looking like they were tracking something. One of them had knelt in the sand and was looking at something and then they wheeled and headed off. We assume they were soldiers because evidently there is a lot of military action because of rhino poaching. Who knows but we didn't holler down at them, that's for sure!

We pulled into another pull out and we entertained for several minutes by six young hippos and one adult playing fighting. The young ones didn't really have teeth and they would come up and bite the adult on the tail, side, face and then she(we assume) would turn her head and open her mouth wide and kind of fake bite back at them. They also were mock fighting with each other. It was very hilarous to watch. We watched them for quite a while and then headed to the Timbavati picnic area.

Got there and decided to fix ourselves some cereal in the back of the car. Of course all the braii's were going and it did smell so good! Saw the farmer and his family drive in and we said hello and then were ready to go again.

We had driven out to the intersection where we would have to decide which way to go and saw some giraffe and then saw that there were three of them that were necking! Stopped to watch this amazing event and while we were doing that a game driver came up and told us there were two lions on the side of the road heading back down Timbavati Road.

Check out the rest of the story under Lions in Love?

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