Done and Dusted

[Pumbaa]

Those runrises in the bush are always something very special

Thanks moggiedog

[Moggiedog]

Pumbaa - I am lucky - we often get stunning sunrises and sunsets where I stay. But agreed - nothing beats a bush sunrise/sunset.

Lisbeth - boys will be boys and men will be men. I don't have a problem - I find it rather amusing the expressions and comments when they realize it is women alone. That road has got so bad - I am not sure it was a wise move just the two of us being alone

Thanks Flutterby - always good to see them in the wide open rather than in camps

RP - the road was fun even if a bit hair raising at times - but luckily once you over the dunes it is a doddle through thick sand. Each to theeir own - I have plenty of friends who will not consider camping let alone stay in unfenced camps.

[Moggiedog]

We slowly followed the road to various waterholes. I believe all the buck had scattered to the four winds as the plains were bare of animals. We did see plenty of 'grass lions" , stone thingies and other bits and pieces that had us stopped trying to establish whether or not it was moving. The border markers can be an absolute curse at times - then again so can the dead trees!
We stopped at Rooikop for a long time. By the behavior of the birds and the stillness, we knew the lion were in the vicinity. The number and patterns of the car tracks on the road told a story as well.




One little guy did sit around long enough for us to have a quick chat.


We had stayed out longer than intended and had to get back to camp to move from the chalet we were in to the one next door. It was also getting a tad warm and we needed to change into more respectable attire.
Once all our goods were moved - which only took a few minutes -time to sort out the car. Sorting out the car took a bit longer - by the time we were finished it looked like we were setting out with no luggage. Amazing the difference it makes to space when things are neat and tidy. Then it was off to the shop to buy a couple of things we didn't need - but wanted.

Then it was time to transfer our photo's to a tablet - big mistake. I managed to lose about 800 odd photo's. How I managed that I have no idea. No use crying or berating myself over my own stupidity - it could have been worse. At least I still had my pictures of the lion cub, Fred, Tripod and I could go on ad nauseam.

After lunch we went down to the hide. We had it to ourselves - and that included animals. Not a creature to be seen for as far as the binoculars could focus.


a few odd birds


After a couple of hours some bachelors came down - but they were very nervous and didn't stick around for long. Drink and run - very rude of them.


This one must have been the big boss as he had two lookouts. Once he was finished his two lookouts drank and were gone as quickly as they had arrived.


We headed back to the chalet, but soon became restless and decided to walk around the camp.


As usual, with out laughing and playing silly bugger, we once again under estimated how quickly darkness falls. Shortcut time. Then I felt it - my ankle had been grabbed and I was being savagely attacked by a tiny, tiny wag-n-bietjie tree. (Or for the more educated -Ziziphus mucronata - and I am not one of them). I eventually extracted myself from it's vicious thorns and when I checked, my ankle had a bloody tattoo of Africa perfectly tattooed into my delicate flesh. A few rats and squirrels scuttled into there holes as we came too close for comfort.

We stopped at the shop, once again, to be cheekily greeted by the shop assistant with a cheery "The two crazy ladies again" which set all the employees in the shop into gales of laughter. We chatted for a bit before heading back to the chalet. Both of us looking forward to leaving 'town" early the next morning.

In the very early hours of the following morning - there was no doubt the lion were at the water hole. We both got up - Jax went out one door - I went out another - neither of us realizing the other had got up. There was so much human noise coming from the hide and you would have thought it was some celebrity by the amount of flash lights going off. I was not in the mood for that - so went back to our room. Jax had obviously decided the same. Naturally we managed to bump into each other - almost giving ourselves heart attacks - as we walked into the bedroom. We climbed back into bed giggling like teenagers.

When we got up a short time later the masses were leaving the hide. Knowing the lion had moved off we quickly packed the car and headed in the opposite direction of where we should have been heading. Up ahead was our first traffic jam of the trip - there were at least five cars. Most of them were doing a U-turn and stopped us and said the lion were gone.

We carried on a little further and off to the right we could see one straggler from the pride.


She did not lie around for very long before she was back on her feet and followed the direction (we presume) the rest of the pride had take.




but we were not the only ones watching.


We turned back and headed down to our next destination, obviously a lot later than our initial plans.

[Lisbeth]

Bokkies, a few birds and a lion At least you made somebody laugh You also managed to hurt yourself..... or was the plant the culprit? What a day

[Richprins]

Ja, two crazy teenagers..well done!

I've done my fair share of camping round the subcontinent, Moggie, battling the elements and animals!

A flat pic!

And rude bachelors drinking, how unusual?

[H. erectus]

Ai but the Kalahari has character all of its own,.

Also a wonderful place to visit,...

[H. erectus]

Image

So very beautiful and serene,.. oi,..
daar's weer 'n gogga in ma gat!!!!!

[Flutterby]

Glad it was just a wag 'n bietjie that attacked you and nothing more sinister! I've also lost photos while trying to download in Kruger..it's so frustrating...you want to kick yourself!

[Moggiedog]

Flutterby - I was upset with myself - and I didn't have my software to re-instate deleted pics with me. I can remember some I lost but not all

H. erectus - Far better than Kruger can ever be (debatable) - then after that you confused me

RP - Glad to hear you have braved the elements - until one has done the rough and ready style - one hasn't lived

Lisbeth - even if you see nothing you see plenty. Always amused me when people say they saw nothing - what about the vegetation, dunes and so on and so on - there is always something to see

[Moggiedog]

We had not gone very far when Jax had an expression on her face that I regretted not having a camera pointed at her. Once she got her breath back she exclaimed "My ... that blew my brain into orbit and cleared my snot box permanently". I then realised what had happened. She had bought some shockwaves and not having had them before she was not expecting the explosion when she popped one in her mouth. No mistaking were they get the name from.

It took us a while to stop laughing - but laughter is always good medicine. We were back to our slow drive watching out for anything that could be of interest. Having wasted some time hunting for the lion we were not staying long if we did stop unless there was something of interest.

It was strange to be on "decent" (if we can call them that) roads again but we were to land up in thick sand once again.


Approaching from the front was a huge grader. The side of the road had very thick sand piled up and we had a choice of two evils - hit the grader or have two wheels in thick sand. The driver of the grader had nowhere to go - and nor did we. We squeezed past each other but we could feel our car digging down into the sand and then the rear end started to slip out. We were really worried we were going to bang into the grader and do damage to the car. Fortunately we scraped past with millimeters to spare. How embarrassing to have driven the dune road without mishap and now there was a possibility we would get stuck on the rutted roads or kiss a grader! Fortunately we managed to pull back onto the road - even if it was a bit of a battle at first.

As we traveled away from Nossob we started seeing a lot more springbok, gnu, gemsbok and ostriches. It seems like they felt they were far enough away from the marauding lions at Nossob.

We stopped for lunch at Dikbaardskolk. I always enjoy the picnic spots as the bird life as well as the ground squirrel keep me amused. There were no lion lying around so we could stretch our legs and stay out of the car for a bit.

Time was not going to stop because we had stopped and we were soon on our way again.
We came across some gemsbok - who obviously had dropped out of school or could not read or did not care about road signs.




Once again we were on the move and had traveled some distance chatting and looking around when Jax exclaimed "CHEETAH" . Not for love or money could I see a cheetah. I did blush when she pointed it out to me and I eventually saw it. Admittedly I had been looking out to the top of the dunes - which was a role reversal as I normally looked close and Jax looked far. He was lying with his back to us and there was one other vehicle stopped. As we pulled up the other vehicle continued on his way so we had the cheetah to ourselves. Once again we were grinning from ear to ear - finally our cheetah.


He was very aware we were there and he was keeping a close watch on us as well as the around him. He did not want his hard work wasted by something stealing his lunch.


it didn't take very long before he was back and tucking in to his meal.




With the shadows moving he decided to display his strength and dragged his food to the other side of the tree.


Puffing and panting after all the exertion of dragging his meal through the dirt, he lay down to take a bit of a breather.



before long he had his breath back and went back to eat some more.


At this stage of the game, his belly was almost dragging in the dust, but he was determined to eat as much as he could stuff down his throat before he lost his kill.
Time to move on, once again, as we had spent a long time with the cheetah watching him watch us in between eating and resting.

Afternoon was drawing to a close and we still had some distance to drive before we could set up camp for the night.