9th Biyamiti to Satara continued
The lioness just parked off so we soon got bored and Albert was nagging to see the Baobab tree, therefore we moved on to photograph the very green tree.
The only other exciting thing the rest of the way to Satara were a few GHB’s and the one seemed to be trying to check it’s butt out which cracked me up.
We arrived at Satara just on book in time so the Cow went to sort that out while I went to the shop for wood, but ended up getting a big skrik as a massive armour plated spider type thing jumped out the wood bag. It looked like a park town prawn crossed with a giant cricket, then a little spider mixed in. Even the shop teller seemed itchy, so I gingerly grabbed another bag of wood and ducked out the shop.
The unpacking was fairly sharp as it has been practised enough in Kruger and the rats charged off for a swim, while the Cow and I relaxed.
The swim didn’t last long though and soon the nagging started to do some exploring around the Satara area.
We didn’t have long and PJL had told me that there had been some action north of Satara while he was in the area, so the plan was to travel up that way and turn at the S127/H1-4 intersection.
Just outside Satara camp the Cow casually stated “I think I spotted something that looked like a leopard, but it could have been a log”
I started huffing now “We are just outside camp and there are cars driving past every couple of seconds”, but I slowly reversed anyway.
“Tell me when to stop!”
“There, what’s that?”
I blinked and then shouted “LEOPARD!”
We then realised that this chap was on the hunt as there was a baby waterbuck in the bush around 20m in front of him. Other cars kept on coming past and turning into Satara, some slowed but nobody else stopped so they must have assumed we were looking at the junior waterbuck.
The leopard then checked us out for a while and disappeared in the grass, but then suddenly popped up again a little further on, however after checking the position of the baby waterbuck, he disappeared in the grass again.
We hung around with the baby waterbuck hoping for the leopard to reappear, but the mother waterbuck had pulled in so we assumed the leopard would wait for another opportunity, therefore we continued on.
The Cow was hanging her teeth out big time as she had spotted the leopard, but I have to give credit as I still don’t know how she found him through all the grass.
The rest of the drive to the S127 turnoff didn’t produce much except for a few boons and the one junior gave us a laugh with its pose.
Around halfway back towards Satara we found 2 cars stopped and lions had popped up in a ditch next to the road, but the light was fading fast as it was around 5:30pm, so pics were a mission and getting a view through the grass also proved challenging.
Shortly after supper the Miss Satara beggar pulled in and gave Bushpig a stare. Eventually the AWC realised it wasn’t going to score at our unit, so moved off.
I then shared a few messages with PJL to determine what Mel and SO looked like so we would recognise them the following day and then I decided to empty our bin just in case the badger came cruising around (I later found out that they had supposedly been removed from camp), but Albert got in the way and I brushed the bin bag against her leg which resulted in shrieking “Dustbin juice! I got dustbin juice on my leg” and she roared off inside.
I thought nothing of it, but was horrified to find the Cow laughing and Albert cleaning her foot and leg in our basin.
To be continued
Lisbeth
Well done to the Cow on spotting it!