We got a 5:30 wake up call and were on the terrace at 6 for coffee and muffins. The morning drive started at 6:30. Bill Branch, our National Geographic guide and naturalist, traded trucks most drives. He was very good at giving everyone attention. However, as a group, we really did bond immediately. I was impressed that as varied as we were, we all got along extremely well. By the second day, good-natured jibes were being tossed about, and there usually was much hilarity! We were very fortunate in that respect.
Soon after we got started, we followed a male leopard from near the runway quite a ways to a large sausage tree where a female leopard had left a kill. The male climbed the tree and proceeded to gnaw away at the impala. The female stood a bit away watching her kill being eaten. In a tree, I got a perfect photo of a lilac-breasted roller (one of my favorites) and a grey lourie together.
The sausage tree was in bloom with bright red flowers. The impala love these blooms and clean them up almost as soon as they hit the ground. So the predators know to look for dinner near the sausage trees.
We continued on the drive and saw giraffe and baboons in a jackalberry tree. We watched the chacma baboons play in the tree for a while. There were some neat cloud formations. The weather was cool and not awfully sunny which was great for our drive. We saw a yellow-billed hornbill and followed 3 hyenas walking down the road to a small water hole. Some giraffes were watching the hyena carefully. We saw more yellow-billed hornbill and Burchell’s starlings. We watched a rhino for some time. He seemed to have an eye wound which the red-billed ox-peckers tried to clean out. Continuing on we saw elephants, thornbush, zebra, wildebeest, long-tailed shrike, a family of lions with two sickly looking cubs, rainbow skink, Nile monitor, white-fronted bee-eater, and an acacia tree with a termite mound. All of this in one morning’s drive!
We were back at camp at 10:30 for a full breakfast buffet: fruit, cereal, ham, croissants, muffins. We were seated and then we could order the hot breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomatoes, mushrooms, coffee. This was served all out on the terrace. Bill went to the gift shop and bought a hat and a shirt. I went to the Monkey Room – communal lecture room with a computer with internet connectivity. Then we met in the room. Bill took a nap, and I went back to the gift shop and bought a t-shirt and some wonderful books for the kids. Back on the patio of our room I could see nyala, blue eared glossy starling, hadada ibis, and a wonderfully green-barked fever tree.
Most of us skipped the 1:30 lunch since we were still full from breakfast. At 2:30 Bill Branch gave a talk on the culture of South Africa. In addition to playing den mother to 13 American tourists, Dr. Branch is also a wildlife biologist and naturalist.
At 3:30 there was more food at an afternoon tea with coffee and various breads. At 4 we headed out for the afternoon game drive. Down in the reeds by the river were a group of older male cape buffalo commonly referred to as ‘dugga boys’. We passed a hammerkop fishing for dinner in a stream. The most magical moment was watching a mother leopard and her approx 8 month old male cub. She was the leopard we had watched the night before trying to make a kill. She eventually did get an impala and brought it back to her cub in a rocky area. She had two male cubs, but the other cub has not been seen for a couple of weeks, so the outlook for him is not good. We saw the impala kill which the mama leopard tried to cover for later. Mom and son came down by the truck and mom groomed her son. The cub came close to the truck and growled. Anthony pounded on the truck and told it to get back. All of the animals that we came across were habituated to the trucks and totally ignored us. They would walk right by the truck and not even give us a glance. They do not want the cubs to respond in any way to the truck because then they might have to be removed.
At 5:30 we stopped for ‘sun downers’. Our orders for drinks had been taken earlier and were in the truck along with various snacks – popcorn, chips, nuts, dried fruit. We drank and watched a beautiful sunset.
Continuing the drive in the dusk and dark, we saw a white-tailed mongoose, the same lion family group walking down the road. The male lion took a dump in front of us which emitted a very strong odor. Coming back into camp we crossed a small bridge where a crocodile was fishing for dinner.
After a short rest we met in the bar again for drinks and snacks – nuts, chips, olives, fried mushrooms with dip. Our dinner was in the boma tonight. Butternut squash soup was served as were chicken livers. The buffet consisted of beef, Yorkshire pudding, turkey, stuffing, vegetable quiche, vegetables, pod peas and baby corn, and tossed salad. Dessert was raspberries with balsamic vinaigrette and mascarpone cheese. Then came coffee and the staff entertainment.
At 10:15 we were back in the room to shower and write in my journal. What a day!!!
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