23 May: Excitement on the Lower Dune road and then home
As we had done most the packing the previous evening and, bearing in mind the long road ahead of us , we bid our farewells to Willem and Kieliekrankie with promises of returning in December, at sparrows on our last morning in the park.
We had decided to take the Dune road to Kij Kij and then to work our way to Twee Rivieren before heading to Cape Town
First up was the sun, giving me a wonderful desktop picture
We passed the spot where we had seen the two lions the day before last, and not much further on we spotted lion spoor on the road.
Was the Kgalagadi going to give us a farewell present this morning?
We hoped so, and I even said to Debbie, that it would be nice to see some lions close up for a change
As we approached Kij Gamies, we heard roaring, and the Debbie spotted them on a dune next to the road.
The grass was quite long, so we needed to manoeuvre the car in order to get a view of the couple
They were walking through the grass, roaring as they went and appeared to be mating, but we weren’t sure.
They were moving in the direction of the road to the lookout behind the waterhole, so we followed
What was really spooky about this sighting, was that both the male and the female were blind in one eye. The male was blind in his left eye and his partner in her right eye
The lions moved onto the road and started investigating our vehicle
We had asked for a close up sighting, but I hadn’t expected to be given one quite this close
The lady started to get a bit too interested in our tyres, so we moved off up the hill and turned around
A view of them from the top of the rise,
And of daddy as we passed them on our way out of the sighting
As we passed them by, they moved off into dunes to the west
Excited about our encounter and chatting about the fact that both were blind, the rest of the dune road seemed to pass by in a flash
About 5 kilometres before Kij Kij, I spotted something on a distant due.
Three more lions parked off in the morning light
They were quite far away, so we didn’t hang around too long
We arrived at Kij Kij to see a queue of cars parked on the side of the road just south of the waterhole.
I wondered if we were ever going to get home today?
Three cheetah, a mother with two cubs were high up on the top of the nearby dune
They seemed pretty settled, and I was starting to get edgy about leaving, so we watched them for a moment or two, before doing a quick detour to the natural waterhole just to the north of Kij Kij
The hamerkop was in residence
Back to cheetahs, no movement, so with heavy hearts at the thought of leaving a cheetah sighting, off we went
These gemsbok were on a dune just near Rooiputs
Our last sighting of the trip was of this wildebeest just at the Twee Rivieren gates
We checked out and reinflated our tyres before leaving the park at 10.45. Twelve hours later we drove into our complex back in a rainy Cape Town
That’s it folks, till December when we return for another two weeks.
Thanks for following this trip report and for all your wonderful comments. They do make reliving our holiday more special
but I especially like the tawny w/ the snake, AWCs, lions posing in the grasses/wildflowers, adorable steenbok baby, BEFs, lions in the wind, springbok w/ camouflage headwear, energetic baby springbok, and of course, CHEETAH! The squirrels with the home in the middle of the road was both funny and worrisome. 
