Now what?

Moggiedog
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Re: Now what?

Post by Moggiedog »

With the setting sun a few creatures of the wild were catching the last rays of warmth and moving towards their resting place.
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Once the little creatures had scuttled underground for the night the larger creatures moved in. Appearing like ghost over the dunes to make their way across the plains,

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although some did decide that the valley was a safe haven from other animals with big teeth.
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Soon their was a merry mix - after all said and done - the more eyes the better when you need some shut eye and you are lower down the food chain than roaring cats.
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Finally the sun had totally disappeared - but the moon, even though it was not full moon yet, lit up the area as bright as day. Jax and I both believe that just before a full moon and during a full moon the animals are scarce and few sounds are heard from predators. Once gain this theory appeared to be fact. No sounds during the night except for some distant jackals breaking the silence with their haunting call. A distant owl echoed through the night sky - but very little else disturbed the silence of night except for the leaves rustling in the wind.

Time for us both to clean up and get to bed. After all the stress and drama both of us slept like the dead and I doubt anything other than an exploding bomb under our stretches would have disturbed us.

As expected it was not very warm and in the morning it was no exception. Time for some chores before heading out to see what we could see.
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Sightings were few and far between, but the KTP is one place one can never say "we saw nothing" - although we did hear it more than once - as many people believe unless you see a big cat you have seen nothing!

There were plenty of general game and the kori bustard are always a pleasure to see - something like impala in Kruger. The fist day its "Oh wow" and then after that it is - "oh just a kori bustard" . Jackal were almost as common as the kori bustard. Love the little critters so it was no hardship to stop and watch them with their ding ding bouncing motion as they go about their daily business. As usual there were plenty of "lion grass", 'pangolin trees" and 'leopard rocks" never mind some other amazing imaginative leaves and caves!

One jackal we noticed was behaving strangely. There was definitely something that had attracted his attention. We watched for a tad, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary in the long grass nor hidden behind the broken down tree.
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I am not sure how long we sat there watching him. He was darting around, running off in the opposite direction, only to return and tip-toe through the grass. Then I let out a yell. Sometimes we are so busy looking into the near or far distance we forget to look down next to the car.
Fortunately my shriek of excitement only scared the living daylights out of Jax, but in no way disturbed the eyes that were staring at us through the grass.

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Lisbeth
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Re: Now what?

Post by Lisbeth »

What was it? O-/

I had not seen the eyes 0*\ lol


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nan
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Re: Now what?

Post by nan »

AWC :-?


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Re: Now what?

Post by Flutterby »

Whatever it was, it was close!! :shock:


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Re: Now what?

Post by Richprins »

Nice, Moggie! \O

What are the gumboots for again? :-?

Ja, the moonlight is sometimes very quiet here too, except for normal drinking? -O-


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Re: Now what?

Post by Moggiedog »

Lisbeth, Nan I'm sure you recognized the eyes.
Flutterby it was close - but cropping to get the eyes makes it look even closer :-0
RP - glad you asked about the gumboots! They are very handy to slip on very quickly instead of having to do up laces on boots - help to keep the feet sand free. These were particularly handy as they were fur lined and nice and warm for the freezing weather we were having. In a different season it can get very wet and soggy so a must have item in sandy parks:-0


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Re: Now what?

Post by Moggiedog »

We all know ( or I hope you do - if not take the next statements as fact) cats are snotty disdainful creatures who tolerate us humans only for as long as we concede to their every whim, behind our backs they kill themselves laughing at how they have humans catering to their every need - and this cat was no exception.
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Deciding it had had totally enough of these humans, it gave us one last arrogant stare then sauntered off behind the tree and under a log. He had had enough of humoring our needs.
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Not matter how much too and froing we did we could not see him, even though we knew exactly where he was. At this stage of the game the jackal had enough of playing cat and dog and was way more interested in smaller more edible creatures of the wild.
We made a note of the mileage so on our next excursion into the dust we could have a good look to see if the cat was still in the area.
Once again the day was comparatively quiet with the exception of birds, both big and small and the inevitable gemsbok, ostrich and springbok.
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Then there are the smaller creatures which are so much fun to watch.
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when one is having fun time passes so much faster than it does in a normal 24 hr day. We had spent the day hunting and had, hopefully, got some amazing shots.
The sun was sinking and we were heading back for camp. Many cars were heading in the opposite direction and flagging us down asking where the lion kill was. All we could tell them it must be a good distance up the road and we had not seen any sign of it. I should imagine there were plenty late arrivals back at camp!
We arrived at our home and were just settling down to sun downers when we were approached by a barefoot traveler with beer in hand.
After a pleasant greeting things started going pear shaped. I will not go into details but at one stage of the game I though he was dead man walking as he raised his fist to Jax.
This altercation had gone from pleasant to dangerous in seconds - all because he maintained he was booked into our camp site and we had "stolen" it as it was the best camp at Rooiputs. Booking papers changed hands (or should I say ours were) On closer inspection we realised we were in the wrong. Due to the mix up of of our "lost bookings" we had two separate bookings for Rooiputs. The site number 1 had been crossed out and replaced with campsite no 4. For some unknown reason we had been booked three nights in camp site no 1 and one in camp site no 4. Even at reception we had been told to go to number 4!
To cut a long story short we offered to pack up camp and do a swop immediately. Then the stories started - he had six vehicles with him and they had already unpacked and set up camp, in the next breath he repudiated this. We re-iterated we were very happy to move and sets things to rights - again (using language not fit for a family forum) he told us we must try and get him out as he was not prepared to move. By this stage Jax was giving as good as she got! Finally he turned and after being extremely aggressive and confrontational he stormed off back to his camp site.
Jax and I were totally bemused at his attitude. Once Jax calmed down I said I would go down and have a calm talk with him.
I walked down to his camp site - the group was all sitting drinking - all had roof top tents - the only ones who would have had packing up to do was Jax and myself! He walked to meet me and I apologised and once again said we were prepared to move (he was in the camp site we wanted in the first place). He thanked me for coming down to speak to him and then there was a total attitude change once again. Needless to say I turned and headed back as I was not prepared to get into another fight. We had done our best and he was totally belligerent.
The sad thing was he was wearing the 4 x 4 clubs T-shirt - not a very good advertisement for the 4x4 club.
When I got back we double checked our booking sheets and the following night we were in a different camp site and the night after that we had to move back to the campsite we were in. Even when we had booked in we had been told to pitch tent in our existing camp site.
Enough is enough and what is what is - we decided no drunken fool was going to ruin our evening - hadn't we been through enough?
Fortunately the KTP has a way of sending spectacular sunsets so that one can forget all the ugliness of the human race.

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The fire was lit and we were soon laughing and having a good time having put the ugliness behind us. Then we did something that was going to become a nightly ritual for the rest of our trip


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nan
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Re: Now what?

Post by nan »

Yes an AWC O/\

and what a beautiful cat ^Q^ ^Q^ ^Q^


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Re: Now what?

Post by Pumbaa »

Love the wild cat, the squirrels and the sunset shots, moggiedog \O :ty:


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Re: Now what?

Post by Flutterby »

Lovely kitty cat! :-0

Pity about that fool and glad you didn't let it spoil your evening! \O


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