Day 10… exploring new roads
20 December
I forgot to share some fire conversation of the previous night: we were talking about white lions and was told by Scips that there have been seen on the S90 near Bangu waterhole. We also spoke about the prides near Satara and how many prides there is and the sightings in the surrounds as they have been there since beginning December. So we all decided to visit Bangu the next morning hoping for some white lions…
We woke up and early and was very early at the gate but still not first… Whilst waiting for the gate to open I took the time to take some kiekies and they had some MMC’s. I know you see a lot of yellow but remember my mates are from the YF and I had green ribbon on my driver side although no greenies were seen except Leachyness…
Sparrow and co drove the H1-4 to Olifants and would do the S90 back but Wendy and I decided to drive the S90 first, dirt roads are much quieter. Now a great thing that morning is that we had 9 BBJ sightings on the S90 in the first 13km.
And then as the sun started showing itself, some general game shone around us
Then I got this raptor… Guys I’m struggling with the ID, It has white feathers on the legs so it should be an eagle? But I see none with the same colouring on the feathers so is it a juvenile?
And then the sighting of the morning… Wendy stopped abruptly in front of me and just pointed to the front, from the long grass came some ostrich chicks… and then came more and more and more. They didn’t stay in the road long and this is the only pic I could take to show how many they were together. We counted 26 chicks with the 2 female and 1 male.
The road was mostly quiet but we did see kudu in the distance, an ellie with huge tusks and some loving giraffes just before Sparrow came from the front. We shared some sightings and were off again. We also had this horribly rude people that sped past us twice with the black sharks stickered bakkie! We saw them again on the Oifants bridge but just drove past them. I saw this little beauty just before we turned towards Olifants camp.
And then they were there again, speeding past us because there were buffalo in the road…
We sat with them for a while and carried on towards the camp as my bladder was almost bursting but I did get time to stop for a wartie family and a rockjumpertjie.
We got to the camp and bought something to eat, sommer sarmies and cold meat. We also sat and looked over the river having a cold drink, it started getting warmer and we had a long way to camp. It was time to head back to camp and the river-dirtroad-detour was taken aka S92/S91. It is a beautiful road with some great treasures. I’ve had a special sighting almost every time I’ve driven this road and the view is spectacular.
African Hawk eagle
I also saw my first bee eaters for the trip. A white-fronted bee eater
I did every single loop on this road whilst Wendy drove straight and as I rounded a corner I saw her excitedly gesturing for me to come forward. Right next to her was this…
Again, the bliss of driving dirt roads, we were only 3 cars and then came one more, we sat and chilled and enjoyed them for 20 minutes. The one lioness next to me saw impala on the other side of the road, stood up and started stalking them. Just as she crossed the road the stupidus shark car came speeding past us and stopped right in the view of Wendy. She called through her window that he should move forward as he is in her view, he looked at her and then winded up his window! Eish if I knew voodoo that day then someone would’ve been in trouble. Another lioness decided it was time to cross the road so Wendy moved forward to get a better view. I moved and parked in front of her so we both had great visual. They crossed the road right beside us…
We sat with them over an hour and left them with the 4 cars. Great not being in a roadblock, and not feeling fussed at a sighting. The road back was very quiet with some ellies, a rhino, general game and a steenbokkie
That afternoon I had a snooze as there was a slight breeze going through the camp. Then it was 15:30 and time to hit the road again. As I was searching for serval and Sparrow had seen cheetah near Gudzani this afternoon, I planned on doing the S100 ->S41->S90 home…
The S100 was very quiet but I drove it slowly as it is such a beautiful road and then I saw that time was against me so I had to drive a bit faster. Then as you know it always happens when you are in a hurry then all the animals show themselves. There were ellies and general game everywhere. I saw on one of the causeways some saddle-billed storks
And then babies in the playpen
I was on the S90 and started to stress as I could maybe not make the gate in time so I pushed on… and then I heard howling on my right, I got a moerse skrik but got to take this pic
And the reason the BBJ was howling was that a badger crossed paths with him, the badger waddled so quickly so I only got bad kiekies… but proof
And then to end off a brilliant sunset
Not to worry I did make it with only seconds to spare and that night we made some homemade Wendy-goulash with cous-cous. Then sharing some stories and sightings around the fire with ice cold KPA’s with Sparrow and co. Another great day came to an end.
To be continued…
Wendy, Scipio and Petra
Ask him to post his TT here 
Amazing, that BBJ looks naughty 
and the tiny one
