Our plan this morning was simple and we headed for the rocks where the mother leopard had been with her cubs the previous evening, but we weren’t with the early gang so we knew others would be in that area before us, however we hoped the cubs would still be out in the morning sun.
We stopped for the odd usual suspect on the way to the S65 rocks, but not for long and when we arrived at the rocks I was upset to see a few cars parked off there already but we couldn’t see anything.
Seconds later we spotted the same toss OSV driver off the road and in the bush and then our “brown Discovery mates” so we pulled up next to them and to my surprise they were wild with anger.
Supposedly this same OSV driver had forced them half off the road a few km back in his rush to get here, he had flashed his lights at them a few times and then he had pushed past them while swearing at them.
We both vowed to report him to his company, which come to think of it, I still need to do.
The leopard cubs weren’t around, but our mates decided they were going to wait all morning if they had to, but I couldn’t handle sitting still after 15 minutes, so we decided to turn and head back to the S1/H11 before going down the H1-1 to Mathekenyane lookout which the rats love. (I later found out that the cubs never reappeared).
We stopped on the S1 section for an ellie in the bush and a monitor sun tanning.
A few km up the H11 from the S1 is a small ditch next to the road so we slowed to check it out and someone in the car, I can’t remember who, shouted “leopard”, then someone else shouted
“cheetah…………. no leopard”
I instantly started squealing “Where!”
When I spotted the curled up ball I also had to blink to confirm what it was even though it was close to us.
Seconds later the curled up ball moved and it was clearly a leopard
The leopard checked us out for a few minutes, but the crowd grew very quickly and plenty OSV’s also pulled in, so the leopard cruised off deeper into the bush and we continued on towards Mathekenyane.
Just before the rock a Korhaan pair cruised across the road which got the Cow rather excited
The rats roared off to take their pics while on the rock, the Cow went chasing after another bird and I wobbled around aimlessly as “relaxing on the rock” isn’t in my nature unless I have a case of beers with me.
It was a stinking hot day so we didn’t hang around too long on the rock, but as driving out a chap informed us of a mating lion couple that were a few km on the S21, so after a negotiation we ducked down the S112 and then a few km down the S21, but found a massive roadblock of about 20 OSV’s, so my beak shot straight out.
My car was already registering 37 degrees, but after 10 minutes of waiting for a view, we eventually got a gap, however to my disappointment the lions weren’t clearly visible even though they were right next to the road. The grass sucks.
We were instantly getting squeezed for space so we weren’t going to hang around for the mating “deed” and took some quick pics before pulling out of the crowd and heading back to camp for breakfast.
To be continued
KNP storms 
but shoes, even open ones, don't feel right to me 
For locals it was probably normal 
As I'm limited to school holidays at the moment options are less because it's such a mission to get in for the July holidays. The storm was the prelude to bad weather 