Friday, 13. February 2016 – Berg en Dal
Explored roads: S110 – S120 – H3 – S113 – S23 – S114 – S118 – HS – S110
Nothing better than the first full day and even the whole holidays lying ahead of you and you are standing with your brewing hot coffee in hand on the veranda noticing the bush is coming to life – Sigh! Unfortunately I could only sleep until 2.30 o’clock in the morning and was since then wide awake but did not feel tired – Obviously the excitement of what this first day will bring woke us already up that early as Timon also could not sleep any longer. When it was about time we left camp with opening time not to forget to switch the refrigerator completely off as same drove us also crazy that night with those strange noise – If same could not be switched on again when we came back from our drive later that day we had to report it to reception at least same still cooled the food over night.
Anyway we were excited to be back on the road and first animal we noticed today was a hyaena which for sure could be seen clearly as the normal high grass in that area was missing – Another one was a bit farer away and both were on a mission.
All the small water bridges which you had to cross on the way to Matjulu were empty (we in fact did not expect anything else) and at least the marabou storks were sitting on their usual sleeping places.
Besides a group of four still sleepy buffaloes the waterhole was deserted
at least the waterhole was still operational and also a relatively large mud puddle was left.
That area was already trampled down with no grass even sprouting and on top the ground was littered by poo piles the animals most likely elephants had “lost” so needless to say that the helmeted guinea fowls could be found there in a great number and all of them were extreme busy in digging those piles apart.
We waited a bit but as nothing more appeared we carried on to take the Steilberg road and where ever we watched the current drought could not be overlooked and was obvious everywhere.
At least it looked as if rain clouds were about to build up but the higher the sun came the less the clouds got.
A group of kudu ladies crossed the street and one late comer had to keep up with the others
due to the fact of the few vegetation on the bushes I cannot remember having ever seen that many kudus, steenboks and duikers as during this trip. At least now I know where the animals do hide when the park is green and lush they are there but very well hidden. Same appeared as well for the many warthogs which came across.
