Woke up this morning to find that Neills battery was flat as can be. A push start to get the blood circulating and we were off. We decided that we were going to do the Timbavati road this morning and were hoping that the surface had been smoothed out a bit. This was not to be and still proved to be a T.W. - I leave that for you to work out. You can call it a Teeth Wobbler if you so feel.
Anyway our first sighting was this old guy on the H7 casually munching away without a care in the world.
Please excuse the branch sticking out his back.
A little further on H7 we came across this ostrich.
Our first sighting on the S39 Timbavati Road was the lovely Batleur.
Next we saw a whole bunch of vultures scattered all over the show but this bunch having a branch meeting attracted the photographers eye.
Leeubron produced nothing. The sightings had suddenly gone, not even impala to be seen. My teeth were begiining to feel like all the fillings were falling out when we stopped at a shady spot to look down into the river. Joan suddenly said "Look up there in this big tree". My immediate thought was that she had seen a leopard up in the tree but it was not. However, our excitement was just as great as there were two Verreaux's eagle-owls looking down on us with that ever so haughty expression that they always seem to have. We could not see a nest so maybe they were still on honeymoon.
Number 1.
Number 2.
We sat in the cool watching them for a while and then moved on. Not 5 minutes later at the Timbavati Water Hole yours truly spotted this guy walking in the distance and all my fillings were suddenly back where they belong.
Behind him were 5 females and another male. We watched them as they circled around the water hole. We did a u-turn as they were now heading to cross the road and go down to the river. Here follows a series of pics that Joan took and the last one is one that Neill took with his iphone - I think that is what it is called. Sorry about there being so many pics but we had this group to ourselves for 20 minutes with Joans camera going off like a machine gun, as they sauntered across the road right between our two cars. Not another car in sight.
Neill and Liza had never seen lion this close before. Neills photo.
With our hearts still in our mouths we moved on to Timbavati Picnic Spot which was just around the corner. It was here we found a crowd looking at the same lions way in the distance among the reeds. We tried to tell a game drive driver that we had seen them right next to our car not 10 minutes ago but all we got was that " Yeah, tell me another one" look.
After a very nice breakfast we wanted to move on but Neills car refused to start. Of all the folk at the picnic spot only one guy offered to help us push it. It was not easy as the parking here is a bit of a downhill and against the wooden barrier. Of course we did not think of parking somewhere we we could roll start it in need.
Neill got the car started and we moved on heading back to Satara via the S127.
To be continued.
