A kinda, uhm, weird trip to KTP (Oct 2012) *

[Mel]

Day 5
25/10/2012 Grootkolk

The brownie was back at 6.15 am and the lions started roaring at 6.30 am. Something I wouldn’t mind starting my day with much more often… Now the omnipresent question when staying at GK arose: To stay or not to stay? We compromised and left the camp only at 8.15 am… Only to find the lions from the previous day in the very same spot again. This time however it was one of the two males we discovered first. He was dragging a wildebeest kill along the riverbed underneath a tree.



Through the binocs we could also make out the rest of the gang under said tree: the two lionesses, the cub and the other male. We sat with them for a while even so we didn’t expect much more to happen for the time being. Well, glad we did! The cub soon decided that he had enough of that particular tree and was headed towards the road all by himself! He crossed right behind us, went up the dune a bit and laid down always watching what his family would do. It didn’t take long for his concerned mum to follow him. Le petit prince certainly knows to push the buttons! Not long after and aunty also got up to move towards the cub (and us of course). In the meantime the little cutie pie crossed the road once more



and laid down underneath a tree right next to the road. Mum and aunty followed suit,



whereas mum got fed up with our presence at some point and decided to put some space between her and us.

[Mel]

During all the action I was completely challenged as I didn’t know where to point my camera first… Once they had all settled however, I decided that the little one would be the one to focus on.

[Mel]

By now it was 10.00 am and hot and the lions certainly wouldn’t go far for the next hours, so we turned around and headed back to the camp. We had just settled down when our neighbour from no. 2 who had also been there informed us that one of the males had made his way to the road as well. Darn! Now we would have to go out again to see our first proper Kalahari lion.
I’m sure no. 2 had come to tell us because before we had moved for him to see the lions. Kinda payback time. How nice! Little did I know back then that we were talking to another forumite. It had been enrico and his mate Larry! Two very entertaining guys and it was an absolute pleasure to get to know the two of them!

When we arrived at the scene, Mr Grootkolk graced us with his back… But just look at his belly!!!



Eventually he turned around and I took another belly shot from the front:

[Mel]

We decided to wait a bit longer for him to change position again in order to get to see more of him than what we had got so far. This was sorted within 20 minutes:





And I couldn’t resist zooming into his nostrils:


After that we went back to the camp again.

[Mel]

For the afternoon we had planned to go up to UE’s waterhole. We never made it. The shade of the tree where the lions were fast asleep had moved into the road and that’s where dad and son were sleeping now.



Even if we had tried, we wouldn’t have gotten through without disturbing the animals, so we decided to sit with them for a while.







Our neighbour from no. 4 was also there and had occupied the prime location. But when neighbour no. 1 also arrived he could see sod all, so we made space for him. He looked for some minutes then reversed and even if he and us couldn’t take photos anymore because of looking through the windscreen we all could at least watch the little one who was not too sleepy anymore. No. 4 was still hogging the sighting from the prime location…

[Mel]

Back at the camp, we started a fire and settle down with a frostie. We had offered Franco dinner and were trying to have it ready a bit earlier that our usual 8.30 to 9.00 pm. Well, we managed and it was around 8.00 pm when we gave Franco signs that dinner would be ready for collection. But as we were standing there at the braai, this came to the waterhole and postponed the whole dinner idea for a few minutes



The leopard was followed by an AWC which in turn was followed by the brownie which in turn was followed by one of the males that we had seen earlier up the road.



It had been a busy half an hour!!! The lion had walked 3.8 k’s within less than 2 hours we concluded. Once he had finished his business at the waterhole he started calling for his family. The calls between the 5 of them proceeded throughout the night and left us with sleepy eyes the next morning...

[Mel]

Other sightings of the day:

Not much, but seeing that we only travelled 5k’s up the road and back again three times that day it’s not really surprising.

We did get to see 6 kudus on the GK access road though. Here is one of them:


And the usual GK bird gallery:

red-headed finch

great sparrow

Mr and Mrs yellow canary along with a sociable weaver

scaly-feathered finch


Dinner: Boerwors and Greek salad (see day 1 and 2)

[Mel]

Day 6
26/10/2012 Grootkolk

After having kept awake half of the night we had to watch the lions (all of the family had arrived by the time we got up) disappear into the dunes northwards. We should not see them again... Still we decided not to go out yet and were rewarded with the brownie finally coming back to the waterhole in daylight



Our wonderful daytime brownie sighting was put to an abrupt end by one of the neighbours who dropped a box lid very loudly during the process of packing up… (Said neighbour however came to apologize for the mishap before leaving the camp. )

Ready to run off:



I was still marveling at the sightings of the last 24 hours when a slender mongoose appeared in our fenced area and tried to catch a plated lizard. WOW an attempted kill and I didn’t even have to leave the camp! It all went so fast that I couldn’t even consider getting the camera, let alone taking a photo of the incident.

[Mel]

We had another brownie at night. Actually we trailed it back to the camp when we returned from our afternoon drive.



This one must be the older brownie and it’s way more relaxed compared to the young one in the morning. It certainly wasn’t fussed by the noises in the camp and there were quite some as everybody was preparing dinner and plates and cutlery could be heard clashing all over the place.

[Mel]

Other sightings of the day

Far off lions, but lions again…


A martial eagle and a sizable herd of wildebeest (these are only a few)



One of the wildebeests has a collar