I think the weirdest thing of this trip was the amount of lions we saw that seriously let us into saying “Oh no, not another lion again.” at some point throughout our trip. And that coming from somebody who loves her lions dearly…
Obviously the fact that the elands – a first of many for us – were still around on the SA side made the lions have field day with them. We counted as much as 10 carcasses visibly lying in the Aoub riverbed just between Auchterlonie and Houmoed – a stretch of about 30 k’s. The hyenas, jackals and vultures were obviously so spoilt for choices that they didn’t bother cleaning up after the lions.
The next thing that was strange (in a positive sense!) was the amount of martial eagles we saw. Usually, I’d be lucky to see about one or two throughout our entire trip. This time it was in the region of 15 sightings. Then the amount of brown hyenas we saw: While staying at Grootkolk we had regular sightings each morning and each night. There were at least 2 different ones around as one was very skittish and would run off if there was too much movement or too much noise coming from the camp and the other couldn’t be bothered with that at all. We also saw one on the southern dune road legging it into the dunes. One at Nossob hide and one at Urikaruus at 4.15 am in the morning which we thought was special as I hadn’t read much about brownies in the sighting books there.
Talking about dune roads: The view onto the vast burned area there was also very strange. It almost looked like a red moon landscape with all those burned stumps sticking out of the red sand and no other vegetation being left after the fire.
The roads throughout the park were much better than we had experienced on our last trip. Still badly corrugated in stretches but overall much more comfortable to drive than before.
Next thing are the waterholes that were reported to be empty. By the time we got into the park there were still quite a few left, but quite a few had been repaired as well. When we arrived on the Nossob side Jan se draai, Kwang, Langklaas, Kannaguass and Geinab didn’t have water. Kwang was fixed and with Geinab I suspect that it is purposely kept empty as didn’t carry water for quite some time now.
On the Aoub side it was Rooibrak that even had a sign (as did Langklaas and I think Geinab) telling visitors that the waterhole was empty and at some stage Craig Lockhardt, Houmoed and Gemsbokplein seemed to be void of water. But it could be just the eland having emptied them throughout the night and the water not filling back up quickly again as we had seen animals drinking there at other occasions.
Another weird thing was that you wouldn’t see anything (and I mean anything, not even springbok) for a long period of time and all of a sudden there was something special coming up for us.
That's the most pressing weird stuff that comes to my mind right now, but there might be more coming while I'm proceeding with my TT...
I decided to return to the gas station to relate the bad news to Spots. He almost dropped the air thingy and he immediately put on one of Bushcraft’s famous pelican faces. On our way up Spots rhetorically asked every car that approached us: “Any cold beer that we could buy off you?” Rhetorically because he didn’t really stop anyone to ask but just said it out loud in our car. 
Then a car stopped us to tell us that there were 4 lions on a kill at Auchterlonie. And sure they were: two females in the riverbed, with the older, very sturdy one being flat out underneath a tree right next to the road and a younger one snacking on an eland. Two younger males with big tummies were playing lions at their best in the shade of a bush just below the dune ridge. One eventually got up to feed some more.
Just before Tierkop we found another vehicle parked at the side of the road. It was parked next to a jackal den with the cute pups playing in the early morning sun. 
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