Paradise under stress: KTP October 2019

[Lisbeth]

I call them Mephistopheles They have a devilish look on their faces

[GavinW]

Friday 4 October 2019

I know I am chortling through the days, but during this period of lock down, it gives me something to do to keep me sane.


Our last day (for now) at Rooiputs saw us, as usual, heading north just after 6.00 in the morning.
Just north of Rooiputs some spotted hyenas were up on the ridge.

They carried on over the top possibly back to their den.


This collection of elend and wildebeest were soaking up the early morning sun a bit further on

[GavinW]

Before we got to Kij Kij, we came upon two male lions and a lioness walking along the road on the Botswana side in the park.
They were walking south, and stopped and roared every now and again.

At one point, the one male and the female met up and showed their affection of one another

Before they crossed over the dunes and out of sight


We drove north as far as Gnong before returning to camp

In-between Kij Kij and Rooiputs this African Wild cat was parking off in a tree next to the road

[GavinW]

We returned to camp and did some housekeeping as we were leaving for Mata Mata in the morning

Our trip in the afternoon down to Twee Rivieren to get petrol was uneventful, but we did get a picture of
THAT tree

Our last evening with our friends at Rooiputs was really enjoyable
(Would love to be there right now!)

[Lisbeth]

You saw a lot of elands

Nice lion sighting and I love the kitty

[Klipspringer]

I like the hyena against the morning sky and the wild cat in the camel thorn - cool photos.

[GavinW]

Thanks everyone and wishing all the Christian forumites a blessed Easter


Saturday 5 October 2019



The sunrise on our last morning at Rooiputs was as stunning as ever, but we had little time to stop and admire it as we were in a hurry to get packed up and onto the road to Mata Mata

We were also too busy to notice that we had a visitor in camp, until Jono pointed it out to us.
An African Wild cat was sleeping on a branch in the tree directly above our tent.

Wow

Chris and Jono left us to carry on packing and went off for a morning drive. They were moving to Twee Rivieren later, so had decided to come back a bit later to break up camp. We had further to travel.

We were a bit hesitant about taking down our tent and possibly disturbing him, but as things turned out the cat just calmly watched the proceedings from it’s lofty vantage point.

[GavinW]

What with the cat distracting us and the amount of sorting we still needed to do, we only got away from Rooiputs at about 7.30am



We got to Kij Kij without seeing anything out of the ordinary, to find Chris and Jon there. We had just missed some cheetah in the road a bit further back, and some lions at the waterhole. We spotted one of them on top of the dune to the south, but that was it

The price you pay for not being at the right place at the right time.

The Dune Road was in a shocking condition and we were please to get to the other side.
The Auob River was even drier than the Nossob, as can be seen in this picture taken on the way up to Mata Mata.

Travelling along the loop roads to the boreholes, we saw pretty much nothing bar

This Gemsbok

And some ostriches

[GavinW]

We got to Mata Mata just after lunch time and set about pitching our tent.

We did so just in time, well almost, before we were hit by a big rain storm.
The wind pitching the tent was pretty hectic, so we did what we could until the storm was over.

Once the storm had passed and family relations were cordial once more, we fine tuned our campsite and stayed in for the evening

Debbie went birding and found this African Cuckoo in the trees above the camp, calling it’s distinctive call. A lifer for both of us.

The bird was busy eating worms which were in the trees.

We would learn a whole lot more about those worms in the next few hours.

After the storm, the Mata Mata sunset was spectacular

[Alf]

Just in time for the storm to arrive