Africa Wild

... or how to fry human brain.

So I am obviously back and as usual enjoyed my time in the KTP tremendously. Even the for October rather extreme temperatures and the constant strong wind turning wild every now and then and the strict diet of desert dust couldn't do anything to spoil our awesome holiday. We had mornings when the temps had risen to 38°C by 8 am and Friday before we left, we measured 49°C in some places while driving along the Auob riverbed.

Although the KTP is very dry and in dire need of rain, I'm hopeful since springbok nurseries have already been established all over the place.

Sightings were a bit of a draw of luck since neither cheetah nor leopard were inclined to hang out for long in the places they were seen.
Even the lions sometimes disappeared throughout the hot day. Or appeared.

Talking about lions: We had a few sighting of lions that were in a rather bad shape. You obviously do some bush gossip with people you meet at sightings and we were wondering if there is a disease going on or if it's just a natural cycle helping to thin out the lion population in the park since the numbers had increased quite significantly over the last years. The dryness can actually not be a problem because there was plenty of lion fodder around... I think, I'll have to speak to the lion project people to see what they say. Especially since we had a very strange encounter of a coalition of 4 male lions from which I know that one of them used to be the leader of the pack in the Houmoed / Kij Kij area. Will post photos of him when I get to that day.

Saw lots of owls on this trip But even though Cape fox dens along the Auob are active, I never saw any apart from Charlie Fax and her puppies at Urikaruus and another one on our very last day drive.

Raptor sightings were generally okay but the booted eagle, jackal buzzard and the kestrels were missing.

But I wouldn't have been able to take that many photos anyway since our only power source - the cigarette lighter in the car - blew up on the third full day in the park when I tried to charge my then first fully used battery. Luckily for me, we were at Grootkolk at that time and Grootkolk being so remote, Franco has provision for almost everything, even a equipment to charge with 12 V outlets. That was it then though... No fuse was available anywhere and even if we had found it, it would have blown again anyway because we since found out that our car rental dealer had had the cigarette lighter repaired just before we took the car over.

Made some new friends over the sandy roads, but that's a story for later.

Info for those who are going soon will go up on the according threads.

Will get to the pictures eventually.

17 Oct - Twee Rivieren

We had arrived at Upington at 12.30 pm and after picking up our Hilux and getting all the grocery and booze shopping done, we got on the road to the KTP around 2 pm and arrived at Twee 3 hours later. Check in went smoothly as always and we were allocated to unit no. 24 which is even behind the restaurant. Unfortunately, I was too knackered to remember the photos of the accommodation But I actually liked that spot because you were able to drive the bakkie right up to the patio which made the unloading process so much easier. We basically just dumped everything into the bungalow while enjoying our first cold one before heading out into the game area as we couldn't wait to see what was going on. Rather than taking the dune road to the Auob riverbed we opted to take the route to Nossob and see how far we would get before having to turn around to make gate closing time. We managed to get to Leeuwdril but it was pretty quiet everywhere. However, on our way back we met two gentleman who were into birding and who pointed out the giant eagle owls in that one well-known tree just a few kays outside Twee. Not sure why I didn't check that tree out myself, but like I said before, I was pretty tired after travelling more than 24 hours and my brain had deserted me for some reason.

Either way, here are two shots of that night - but there'll be more of those two to come as we stopped at that tree every time we went by from then on.





With still some time to spare we returned to the camp to sort out our stuff a little, getting a shower and settling down for a braai and some cold drinks.
We were very happy to be back and even more enthralled by the thought of being able to go to Grootkolk the next day and spending a whopping 5 nights there.

18 October - Twee Rivieren to Grootkolk

We had a bit of a sleep in that morning to compensate the long travel behind us and the long journey lying ahead of us. After all it's about 260 km from Twee to Grootkolk.
While the SO was still in the shower I noticed a mousebird in the shrubs and went hunting it down with my camera.



We left the camp around 8 am. On our way out we checked the owl tree again, but the chick was well hidden behind a weaver nest and mama owl had decided to take a break from parenting and was obviously roosting somewhere else for the day.

The next sightings were an omen of what the day would offer:


Pygmy Falcons


Tawny Eagle


Black-Chested Snake-Eagle

It would become a proper raptor day.

At Cheleka there was also the first sign of what was to come over the next two weeks and a first photo that relates back to the title of this travel tale...



More raptors at Kaspersdraai:


Another tawny eagle - looking rather hung over somehow

And a pair of red-necked falcons:

Interlude - The condition of the roads and Nossob

A common occurrence were vehicles of all kinds being stuck in sand stretches.


I suppose with the building activity at Nossob just beginning this will get a lot worse in the next months as more trucks will be going up and down the road to and from Twee.

Where the old road to Nossob gate used to be there is now a no-entry sign.


The south gate looks still the same, just with the difference that there is fence on the right instead of the gate to the north.

Driving on, you'll have the petrol station to your right side.

The former north gate is now a fence.


And apart from 2 sun shelters for 2 cars each like that the rest is gone (or at least not in one row anymore as it used to be.


For the way out you'll have to drive along at the back of the reception building and the shop and you'll pass the laundry to your right.


This beautiful setting is opposite the number 9 units and there was more of that green fence with a caravan for workers or such behind
it.


But basically, that's all there is at Nossob at the moment regarding building activities.

Moving on from Nossob, we found a family of bateleurs in their favourite tree opposite Cubitjie Quap:

At Polentswa more big birds:



This is my favourite - those two heads sticking out on each side of the lappet faced vulture gave me quite some giggles


And the theme of this trip: Animals congregating in the shade!

Arriving at Grootkolk I had expected to find Franco there, but instead we were greeted by a young man unknown to us.
He introduced himself as David and to our question what had happened to Franco, we learned that he was off.
However, Franco returned on duty for the last of our 5 nights and told us the doctor had grounded him for a week.
Nothing too serious though. Luckily. Franco also told us that his new substitute is now Isac instead of Andries. The latter
has taken on a job at Mata Mata and won't be at Grootkolk or Gharagab anymore. Shame, because he was a good guy
as well. David is around when Erik at Gharagab or Franco at Grootkolk are off either on their holidays or like with Franco
when one of them is off sick. Anyway... We unpacked the car and settled in to enjoy the peace and silence at Grootkolk.

A kudu visited us later in the afternoon.


And the brown hyenas visited almost each night. One around 9pm, the other about half an hour later. Like clockwork.



The resident barn owls were also out and about almost each night.

19 October - Grootkolk

Around 2 am that night we were rudely awoken by the roar of a lion. But since it sounded too far off and we were very sleepy, we couldn't be bothered to get out of bed.
That process repeated itself about an hour later and again at 4 am. Spots was still tired but I decided I needed to take a look and at least try to find out if the lion was somewhere to be seen. The roaring wasn't as earth shaking as we had experienced it before at Grootkolk, so I never counted on finding him right next to the waterhole:



I made Spots get out of bed and take a look at him as well. It didn't take long for the lion to scamper off. Whereas I returned to the cosiness of my sheets, Spots decided that he wasn't tired anymore and he'd stay up and have coffee. I had hard fallen asleep again 10 minutes, when Spots whisper shouted: "Honey badger!" Alas, that one didn't linger around long enough for me to set up the camera again. Back to bed again for me... Spots saw a brownie arriving at 5 am.

In the morning "trouble" made its way out of the dunes.



We call them trouble because the have the habit of emptying any waterhole.

Neither Spots nor I were inclined to go on a drive this morning and stayed in camp instead watching what happened there.

The lizards visited regularly and because I fed them any dead insect I'd find around the unit, they seemed to enjoy our company.


The bird bath was busy...


The "Feed me, feed me, feed me" was also around...


A pair of black-faced waxbills visited, too.


And later in the day a secretary landed "elegantly" ( ) at the waterhole.