The Straw that broke the Mountain Zebra's Back

[Alf]

What was itching

[Richprins]

Wonderful sightings and pics, Mello!

The monkeys are brilliant!

[Pumbaa]

Great variety of birds, Mel,

some of them would still be lifers for me

and then love the hartbeests, the zebra foal, the meerkat and those cute vervets

A wonderful drive for sure

[Mel]

I'm really lazy here PJL is already finished with his JULY trip and I'm still labouring on my April one

Well, thanks guys and gals for still being with me though

Which do you prefer, Addo or Mtn. Zebra?

Difficult to answer that one... For the scenery and the tranquility I'd go to Mountain Zebra, for the animal action to Addo. That's why we usually do both in one trip.

What was itching

Looks like the belly to me Not sure what you were thinking

[Mel]

So onto Umgeni 4x4 we went... only never to return again. The rocky "stairs" were so bad in places that the SO even managed to bottom out our 4x4 once
And there are no aarwolves on that loop. But the scenery was great

[Mel]

Seeing it was only around 10 am when we had finally escaped the loop , we decided it was still cheetah o'clock and we would therefore head from Rooiplats via the Link Road down to Ubejane and the main road where the cheetah mum supposedly was.

Arriving on Rooiplat I managed to tick off another bird - a greywinged francolin



Trying another nice zebra shot... but still not satisfied with the result... You're not going to make calendar stuff, my dear

[Mel]

Down at the dam on Ubejane there was some bird activity, but the heron ...



... and the ibis stood out

[Mel]

Back on the main road a kestrel was watching the surroundings from one of the poles:



And a cormorant was watching over Doornhoek Dam



Just before the turn off to the guesthouse something in the air caught my eye... A horrible photo but another lifer for me, a black stork

[Mel]

The next day (now Tuesday 29th) we came back from our morning drive smack in the middle of the workers lunchtime, so we didn't find out anything about the progress. As it is, during our break I saw a fish eagle flying into a tree at the dam that I couldn't see from our porch. So the SO offered to drive me down to look for it.

When we came back the work was in full swing again and we were told that the fault had been located but it couldn't be fixed without extra parts. However those parts would come from Bloemfontein and with a bit of luck they would arrive the next day since they had already been ordered.

Seems we had to do with the noise for another evening then...

[Mel]

For the evening drive we had opted to go up to Krankop Loop and park off at one of the viewing points with a sundowner and the intention to capture the beautiful evening light. Going up we first admired the view towards Doornhoek Dam and the guesthouse.