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Published: June 17th 2017
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01 Sunning Itself
An African Darter sunning itself by the waterhole. Geo: -24.7805, 26.3137
This morning Paul, Tony, Francois and Mukesh went on a walk through the bush. Lotta, Nicola and I choose to have a sleep in. Mid morning I went for a walk to find Lotta. She was in the hide at Tree Lodge. Unfortunately she didn't see much at the waterhole. As we looked for approaching animals we saw the boys come back from their walk. They didn't have any close dangerous encounters but enjoyed their walk. Although we did have an encounter with a large bird that often visits- the Ground Hornbill. He followed us for a while around the lodge. The six of us had a delicious brunch at Tree Lodge. It was so nice to be a guest!
After brunch Paul and Mukesh went to shoot rounds at the shooting range. Nicola and Tony rested at Tree Lodge. I took Lotta to Safari Lodge to show her where I work. Paul and Mukesh then returned from their shooting. We had lunch at Johan and Judy's place then got ready for our afternoon game drive by packing a large cooler box with plenty of drinks and snacks.
We set off for our game drive in the middle of the
02 In the Hide
Lotta sitting in the hide in the hope of seeing animals. afternoon. We were also joined by Brett this afternoon- so we had two field guides! The drive started off quite quiet with just a dazzle of zebra. Paul then stopped to pick up a piece of poo with a stick to show us what the animal had been eating. It was from a leopard and it contained fur and small porcupine quills.
Paul and Brett then stopped to look closer at some lion tracks. We followed the tracks but had no luck. By the side of the track there was a rhino midden which was surrounded by broken balls of dung. Brett explained that a honey badger had broken the balls to eat the baby dung beetles. We saw more lion tracks but only came across another dazzle of zebra.
The message then came over the radio – there was a leopard nearby! I have only seen a leopard a few times, as they were skittish in our reserve. After a short drive we were there. Hiding amongst the bushes we could see the beautiful cat. It wasn't very relaxed and was not too happy with our presence. It wasn't a very long sighting, but a special and exciting one.
03 Walking
We spotted the guys returning from their bush walk. Paul then drove us to a small waterhole. Here we were very lucky to have the sighting to ourselves. A pride of lions - females and cute little cubs. The cubs were not very active but fantastic to watch. We were only a few metres away from them and they were not bothered by our presence at all.
On the drive back to the lodge after sunset we saw a pair of African wildcats, a pair of genets, a crash of 15 white rhinos at the dam where the lion cubs were and 2 black rhino towards the end. I had never seen so many rhinos together. The hi-light of the evening's drive was following a pride of 5 lions – 2 adults and 3 sub-adults. They were walking through the bush, which meant we had to drive off road. We were hoping that we would see them make a kill. After a while we gave up and went back to the lodge.
Back at the lodge we enjoyed a barbecue dinner as we chatted about the day's amazing sightings.
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