Having the Time of my Life revisited (October 2016)

[Lisbeth]

[nan]

good night "les nanas"

[Pumbaa]

Once again you know where to find action, Mel,

arriving just in time for a wildebeest kill with again brilliant shots - Love also the secretary shots as it always amazes me how large this bird is compared to the springboks

[Mel]

Pumbaa ... It was definitely an extremely lucky shot with the kill. Still cannot believe it. But that's why I'm so happy with this trip. We got all the stuff that we have often missed out upon at other times... and then some

[Mel]

[Mel]

The last full day broke But with some major excitement A male lion in the twilight. I never bothered to take photos as it was way too dark for anything nice,
but I never could resist taking a video of him roarin into the moring

(You'll need to turned up the volume to listen )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOFi7yWpACM

[Mel]

Even if this day was not filled filled with the big cats, we once again were really happy to have seen what we saw. It was decided to go down south again. After all it was time for Hanri to show up and hunt again, as she would every other day But since nothing stopped us after having seen and heard the lion in camp way before our personal ( ) gate time, we made our way all the way down to Houmoed. And only between Monro and Houmoed we would get our next exhilarating sighting... Meerkats playing pretty close to the road:

[Mel]

And their neighbours were out as well. With them youngsters, although I'm still waiting to "catch" an even young one

[Mel]

Among the meerkats and the squirrels there was also a yellow mongoose roaming. But it was too far off to attempt a photo. However, while we were sitting there, the grader moved in from the south and startled the mongoose which in turn came darting towards us.



Oi! I had never seen a mongoose with a kill before And this one was coming right at us and stopped just next to the car

[Mel]

We then moved up again to the leopard spot around Batulama towards Montrose to once again have our breakfast. And while were sitting in the car, not thinking of much the Leopard Lady pulled up next to us. After a few minutes of small talk, she told us that she had come to see if we were around and to collect us to see Hanri again. She also told us that she had had the best of times with the family, basically the same that we had experienced two day before. No matter what, I didn't and couldn't feel any jealousy because A) we had had a wonderful morning with the small critters and B) she sooo deserved something real good after having sat with the so not accommodating Dakotah leopard for basically two days.

Anyways... Hanri and her back then two cubs were moving on top of the western ridge.



And eventually the settled down in the shade because there was not much in the riverbed that mum could chase



We left them shortly afterwards.

Don't get me wrong... we were really happy that Amanda fetched us to see the cheetahs... but the shuffling was getting quite frantic again (for KTP standards ),
so we left for the camp and never went out again seeing it was our final night which the both of us love to spend with the least hassle.

Good decision at the end of the day, even if we didn't know it that day