Browns in Kruger April 2013*

[Bushcraft]

1st April Biyamiti to Talamati continued

I was getting concerned as it was already after 8am and we hadn’t even got to Croc Bridge yet due to the lion delays, but things thereafter were fairly quiet with only a few locals and the odd ellie making an appearance until just before Nkuhlu where we met the “under pants required” boon gang.



A few Ground Horn Bills and a Klippie were the only things we stopped to take pics of on the way up the H1-2 to Tshokwane.





We stopped at Tshokwane for a late breakfast and loo break, but I think that something went wrong with me at birth, because I had finished my chow, gone to the loo and was waiting at the car before the clan was halfway through their breakfast, so the pacing around the car park and to and from the sighting board continued until all were ready.

We only left Tshokwane at around midday, so we didn’t expect much to be cruising around in the heat, therefore we weren’t actively searching the bush, but something caught my eye in a tree across the riverbed, so I stopped and asked the Cow to lean back so that I could check something with the binoculars, but the Cow, who had a small pelican because of my impatience at Tshokwane, just snapped “What!!”

As I focused the binoculars I shouted “Leopard”, this got the Cow more social “Where, where!!”

The leopard was a long way off, but still a leopard and again, nobody else had spotted him yet, so for now we were the only car.

The 1st pic below was taken at around 500mm, so the rats were fighting over the binoculars in the back seat while the Cow and I squabbled over pictures or video, therefore we didn’t notice that a couple of cars had stopped around us and were watching us, so “Wat sien jy!” caught me by surprise.



I did the whole “tree, bush to the left” explanation to help others spot him while the Cow fiddled with digital zoom on her camera.



The gang was building and the leopard was a long way off, so we decided to continue on. It may not have been walking in the road, but it was still a leopard so all had a cheesy for the next few km.

We decided to take the little S86 loop and found a kingfisher parking off in the road.



A few km later I started to feel rather suspect and the sweat beads returned, so I quietly checked out the Garmin, 20km to Satara for the nearest loo and gradually pushed it up to 50km/h. A few minutes later the Cow started “I can’t see anything, slow down, why the rush” I was already in serious trouble and just blurted out “No stopping for anything, Tshokwane’s breakfast is coming back to bite” and the Cow realized that I wasn’t joking.

It was a very long 20km, but I have never been so happy to see Satara in my life and bailed for the bog before the car had even stopped.

Unfortunately Satara had a power failure and a staff member was trying to make a plan in the doorway of the bog for more light, but I didn’t care and just pushed past him into the darkish loo.

As I sat down in the dark I felt something pinch my bum, so jumped up again and fondled around the area in question only to feel something strange, so fired up my lighter to see what was happening.

I had sat on a fat spider and if there’s one thing that I can’t handle its spiders, but the brain took a few seconds to cope and then I must have sounded like a fire engine as I charged out the loo clutching my pants and into the one next to it.

I waited in the loo until I couldn’t hear any other occupants and then made a break for the car park with the hope of escaping detection.


To be continued

[The Cow]

Hello BC , I know the spider bite wasn't funny cause I saw how you suffered, but seeing your face when you came tearing out the loo was classic.

Shame poor spider, can just imagine the fright it got

[Bushcraft]

1st April Biyamiti to Talamati continued

The Cow returned from the shop with the rats and I relayed my spider horror story expecting sympathy, but they all just packed up laughing. I will never use the loo in KNP again without a light.

The original plan was to turn down the S126 and head towards Talamati, although my “emergency” loo requirements had changed that, but we eventually decided to still drive back down to the S126 even though it was already nearly 2pm.

First up was a Tawny for the Cow.



A few km later, which was just past Sweni waterhole, I noticed a herd of impala that were in the road suddenly blot in all directions, but 1 was running straight at us and had a cheetah on its tail.

I was battling to get the words out “Cheeeeetah, CAMERA!!!!!!!!” The Cow got a bigger fright “Whooo, whooo” and the normal hand flapping started, which got me shrieking louder.

It all happened so fast and by the time we had cameras ready, the cheetah and impala had veered off the road and disappeared into the long grass, which caused me to have a tantrum, which I won’t elaborate on.

We spent another 20 minutes driving slowly up and down trying to find the cheetah and eventually spotted him for a couple of seconds in the long grass before he disappeared from sight again. I’m not sure if it had been a successful hunt or not.



The rest of the drive to Talamati produced a few buffalo next to the road, a Brown Snake Eagle and a rather stroppy ellie just outside camp.







I developed a small pelican at Talamati as I had written to them months ago requesting any unit between 1 and 5, but I think that they assumed I meant 15 as that’s the unit we were allocated. I hate 15 because it’s a long way from the main hide and next to the staff quarters, but as we were only there for 1 night, I assume others staying longer were given preference.

It was already after 4pm when we finished booking in, so after a relatively quick unpack we all decided to take a walk around camp.

The 2nd hide is close to 15 and although it has no waterhole view we stopped to check it out anyway and found an occupant hiding out.



We then continued along the fence line towards the main hide, but stopped at the boma as I was confused and concerned at the number of chairs and braai’s that were setup, which could only mean that someone was pulling in for a social.



We stopped in at the main hide to check out the view for later that night.



We only got back to our unit from our walkabout at around 5:20pm, so decided to take a short drive to Fairfield just so that we didn’t break tradition, but we only found the same stroppy elephant from earlier in the area, so turned and went back to camp.

I was now keen to enjoy Talamati at night and we had big plans for cruising around camp in the dark, but as I pulled into our unit 15 parking spot and got out, a large male baboon came cruising past us which set the rats off “What’s he doing here!!” “I told you boons cruise around this camp! Relax”

I excitedly wobbled off to start the fire and moved a chair to that location to enjoy the peace while the Cow chased the rats into the shower.

A few minutes later there was a shriek from in the house, so I was obligated to investigate. The shower door hadn’t been fitted properly and it had fallen on the rats. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but I now had to do some maintenance and refit the door properly so that the shower was usable.

10 minutes later I was back at the fire with my teeth hanging out, but that didn’t last long as the Cow shouted “There’s no towels in the unit and I didn’t pack any”, so I was now obligated to do another walkabout in the dark to reception to see if I could organise some towels.

Fortunately there was someone at reception and I managed to get some towels, but no apology for the fact that they should have been in the unit.

I walked back along the fence line and spotted the boma jol starting, which increased my pelican in size, but did walk past a hare and checked him out for 5 minutes, which was cool.

When I arrived back at our unit I noticed a few cars parked at unit 14 and a concerned expression on the Cow’s face. Our neighbours had decided to use their spot as communal hang out for others and there were 3 different families with a stack of undisciplined kids charging around, so this sent me into overdrive “This is a damn “bush camp”, stuff this rubbish”

2 hours later I had finished braaing and the commotion was still going on next to us, so we all took a walk to the main hide with the hope finding peace, but the other jol happening at the boma didn’t add to the feel, so we didn’t hang around long and ducked back to our unit.



Fortunately our neighbours crashed at around 10pm, but at 11pm I could still hear the people in the boma and I really can’t understand why some don’t give a hoot about others, but all I wanted to do by that stage was pack and get out of there.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

2nd April Talamati to Satara

I woke up keen to move along, so the car was packed and ready before 6am and I told the rats “Don’t worry about being quiet, help me wake the neighbours”, which resulted in a greasing from the Cow, so the car got packed in silence.

We left camp just after 6am and headed down the S145 and up the S36 towards a H7, but it was all relatively quiet until Nsemani Dam where we found a pride hanging out.



It was just after 8am and we didn’t have any massive plans, so I switched off and we just sat back and relaxed. The Cow took pics of some of the dam locals while we watched the lions sleeping.





15 minutes later a junior lion pulled in, so I shrieked for the camera again.



About 10 minutes later another chap pulled up behind us and mentioned to somebody else that they had been following a male lion who was deep in the bush, so my ears started flapping big time.

Apparently they had left Satara and found the male about a 1km before Nsemani Dam and he was heading this direction, but they had lost sight of him in the dense bush.

My brain started plotting “Cow, this lion has to cross the S40 to get to the dam, so let’s go and wait for him” “What! You are going to lose our spot here” “Who cares, they are sleeping and the S40 is 200m up the road, so let’s go and check it out”

The Cow issued more warnings, but the car was already on its way to the S40.

We stopped about 100m up the dirt switched off and waited. About 5 minutes later the Cow spotted him approaching “There, he’s coming, sorry you were right”, which gave me a silent cheesy. The lion was definitely on a mission as he smelt every bush that he went past and seemed excited about something.





He crossed the road right in front of our car, but he was moving at pace, so he caught us by surprise as I still had my 500mm lens on; therefore I nearly knocked myself out trying to zoom out and ended up only getting blurred pics of his head resulting in a pelican because the Cow had taken video instead of pics with the spare camera.

I quickly started the car and charged off back to the dam expecting him to already be there, but the others were still cooling off and there was no sign of the male, so I switched off and waited.

A few minutes past and still nothing, so the Cow started taking pics of the dam locals again.









I had given up on the sleeping lions and was getting in on the dam locals when something caught my eye in the bush and all the sleeping lions jumped up.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

2nd April Talamati to Satara continued

The lions jumping up suddenly had caught us by surprise and I got over excited again.

“The lions are up, forget the birds, I need the camera, the male lion must be arriving, hurry up!!”

I expected a greasing but the Cow was also flapping as the video camera wouldn’t switch on, so I escaped detection again.



The lions sat there for about a minute intently watching something and then some started to move towards whatever it was, but it was out of sight, which was frustrating me big time. A few seconds later all hell broke loose and it sounded like a full on fight was on the go. The small juniors took off in the opposite direction, which was all too much for me as I was already excited

“Film, film, he’s not the pride male and is going to kill the cubs!!!!”

This roaring and snarling went on for a few minutes, but all the commotion was happening deep in the bush, so we couldn’t see much.

Suddenly the fighting stopped and the lionesses took off in the opposite direction with the cubs.

We hadn’t realized how big the pride was and counted 17 lions in total, so I suspect that the stranger got given carrots by so many lionesses.

About a minute later the male lion emerged from the bush and followed the same direction.

The lionesses stopped again and a standoff took place for a few minutes before the male turned and ducked in another direction.
Below you can see them checking each other out.





Eventually the male had cruised out of sight and the rest of the gang found a spot to snooze, so we checked the time and we still had about 4 hours to kill before we could book in so decided to head down the S100 to N’wanetsi for a picnic.

The S100 produced all the normal locals, but not much else other than a few ellie cruising from a bath.



A few km before N’wanetsi on the S41 I had to stop as we came around a corner as a large ellie was approaching. The ellie stopped to sniff some putty and then looked up at us which got the Cow going “He’s checking us out!!”



Suddenly the ellie broke into a run straight for us, which resulted in me flapping big time to start the car and find reverse, which caused the Cow to let rip “PLEASE, he’s chasing us, move, move, move”.

The rats had eyes like saucers, but we had achieved a safe distance and were steadily reversing, although the ellie was still in a mood and he kept coming. As we were safe I started to joke around “Cow this is your mate from April last year”, “I don’t care just keep reversing!!”

We eventually decided to turn and head back down the S100 to Satara for an ice cream and to try and wangle an early book in.

The S100 at the second attempt only produced a few zebra in a group.



We got to Satara just after 1pm and tried our luck for an early book in. The keys were refused, but we now knew the unit number, so we decided to cruise to the unit and at least try and plug the freezer in as all the meat was defrosting.

I tried to con the cleaning staff to just let me walk in and power the freezer, but I was given “short shift”, so I handed things over to the Cow who is more diplomatic and a few minutes later we were permitted entry to plug our freezer in, but then had to sit in the car park, so I opened a beer and lay on the road while the rats and Cow explored around to pass the time.

Once we gained entry to our unit, I was shocked at the state of it, but won’t elaborate on that here as it’s already all posted here viewtopic.php?f=76&t=596&start=120

It had been a long hot day in the car for the rats, so we decided to park off in camp most of the afternoon so that they could swim and run around, but eventually at about 4:30pm I decided to load up and head down to Nsemani Dam.

Only the locals were hanging out at the dam, so we ducked up the S40 for a few km until we found a herd of buffalo.



Another guy coming down the S40 stopped next to us and said “This is the highlight sighting on this road”, so we turned to head back to camp and only stopped for a giraffe and mongoose on the way.





I got the fire going and the rats made tents in the lounge which kept them out of our hair.



The Cow and I settled in with a dop, but my relaxation didn’t last long as I could suddenly hear music pumping, so grabbed the torch and went on patrol.

The staff quarters were behind us and obviously a jol was on, so my lip dropped, but after shining my high powered torch into the offending unit, the music stopped and I returned to my peaceful braai.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

3rd April Satara

The weather had changed big time over night and we woke to howling winds and it was freezing cold, so I wasn’t highly motivated to get moving, but eventually after a few hairy looks from the Cow we were on our way.


We decided to cruise the H6, which isn’t one of my favourite roads, but we decided to give it a shot anyway.

I apologize for some of the pics taken this day as it was dark, cloudy and rainy, so we were battling with the camera.

The morning started with a tank, some ostriches and a martial with a monitor kill.







The next couple of km didn’t even produce the normal locals, so I started moaning about the useless H6, but a few km later I had to shut my mouth as lions appeared on one side of the road and there were wildebeest on the other.





There were 13 or 14 lion scattered in the grass hiding from the wildebeest who couldn’t see them because of the elevated road and the lioness closest to us was using our car to shield herself, so I was highly excited “Quiet, no noise, only breathing permitted!!”

About a minute later one of the teenage males lost the plot and wondered into the open, which immediately scattered the wildebeest and I found myself telling the lion what an idiot he was.

Some of the lionesses realized that it was over and started to cruise off, but the idiot teenager still thought that the game was on, but soon stopped when he realized that the others were ducking in a different direction.







There were 3 young males and an older female who didn’t cross the road as they were strangely very nervous of the vehicles that had gathered. The one young chap was desperate to get across and was eventually named “floppy” by the rats as his one ear wouldn’t stand up. The older aunty and the other teenagers sat together watching.





I eventually told another driver “Shame they are nervous to cross”, so we backed off about 30m and left a large space for them to cruise through, which is what they did after 5 minutes.

To be continued

[Hawkeyes]

That lion sighting was awesome

[Bushcraft]

3rd April Satara continued

We were still jabbering about our lion luck on the H6 when about 2km later the Cow squawked “Stop, hyena!!”

We hadn’t seen a hyena yet, so I again got over excited “Snap a pic, move it!!”, but that wasn’t necessary as the hyena was in no rush to go anywhere.



There were 2 of them sleeping, but only the one aunty was in the open, so the Cow and I had another scrap as she kept taking video of the one deep in the grass “Don’t waste your time I will just cut it out”, “You cut out everything, why should I bother with the video”, etc, etc, but eventually there was nothing more to chirp about and we just sat in silence watching the hyena.

Sitting there inspecting the area we thought that it looked like a den site as there was a drain going under the road and it looked as if there had been plenty of activity in the grass around the entrance, so I marked our location on the Garmin for reference.

The aunty in the open eventually lifted her head when another car arrived, so we snapped one more pic.



Nobody needed the loo, which was a change, so we decided to turn and do a little of the S126 because I was more interested in finding another leopard and we have had leopard success on the Sweni road.

Just before the end of the H6 we found a Secretary Bird cruising around. If anyone is keen on these chaps, I have lost count how many times we have spotted them halfway down the H6 or on the H1-3 a few km either side of the H6 turnoff.



We did about half of the Sweni road before we found something worth taking a pic of. The Cow loves these little chaps and was snapping away like crazy. A kingfisher was also cooling off watching his surroundings





I was developing a pelican as my leopard theory was failing and to make it worse an OSV approached from the opposite direction and stopped next to us “We haven’t seen anything all morning”, which caused an extension of my lip, so we decided to head back to Satara for an “early” breakfast and some “camp time”.

We stopped a few times on the way back to camp for an ellie, a chameleon and an unknown bird, which excited the Cow (Dewi, Toko, others, help out with an ID please, because I will make my name if I try an ID it)







About an hour after returning to camp the weather went moggie and it was pouring down, so after breakfast I decided that the day was going to be a write off and as the first “aeroplane” had gone over it was time for a G&T.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

3rd April Satara continued

After lunch it was still pouring, but I was on my second G&T, so the teeth were starting to hang out again.

The Cow was watching this and was giving me the hairy eyeball, so I came up with a distraction plan and suggested that she dumps all the camera pics.

I set that laptop up and the external drive for backup so that the Cow was in place and then sneaked off to the kitchen to pour another G&T.

After my third G&T the bicycle had no brakes and I was busy pouring the 4th when suddenly the Cow, who I thought was distracted, chirped “What do you think you are doing” “I’m having a dop!!” “Its lunch time and we still have an afternoon drive to do!!” “In the pouring rain, are you crazy??”, “We are going!!”, so my teeth shot back in and I went to sulk on the veranda for 2 hours.

We left camp at around 3pm in the pouring rain and I didn’t really care where we went so let the rats choose and they wanted to go and check out the potential hyena den on the H6, so I headed in that direction.

Just outside camp we stopped for another tortoise, but this time it was at least doing something. I had to turn the car and the Cow timed the pic quickly before the camera got drenched.



There were hundreds of insects on the road and many looked like spiders, which got the Cow excited for pics, but I’m not interested in the creepy things, so ignored all attempts. It was now raining so hard I could hardly see the road, so hinted that it would be better in camp as my throat was dry, but I got ignored.

I decided to watch the Garmin count down to the hyena spot and I was shocked to see the gang in the road.

We had a major mission now to take pics in the rain and stop the cameras from getting wet, so I was busy trying to work out a plan when I felt water pouring down my neck, so looked around to see what the heck was going on.

In the hyena excitement Bushpig had grabbed our spare FZ38 Panasonic and was hanging it out the window taking pics in the rain.

Well, this caused an almighty cylinder head explosion from me and I won’t elaborate further on it as I was embarrassed listening to the video later and had to cut the video big time, but to sum it up the camera ended up in a dustbin in KNP.

After my explosion, things were more controlled and I positioned the car in a way that the Cow could snap some pics quickly through a gap in the window.





A few minutes later mother scallywag settled down to feed her spoilt overgrown babies.



The rain just seemed to get stronger, so we turned and headed from Nsemani Dam, stopping for some buffalo, hippo at the dam and a sleeping giant hiding from the rain.







It was getting crazy, so we decided to duck for camp and guess what, another darn tortoise.



We were back in camp at about 5:20pm and it was immediately apparent that the Cow would be cooking today as our braai area was completely flooded and it was still pouring with rain.



We all got something to drink and decided to sit on the veranda for 10 minutes and relax.

A few minutes later Hawkeyes shrieked “Honey Badger!!” I first thought that she had lost her marbles, but then also spotted him and started shouting for the cameras.

The Cow grabbed the wrong camera, one of these super slow super zoom jobs, but still managed to snap a blurred shot as proof.



I completely lost the plot, grabbed the camera from the Cow, stuck it under my shirt and decided to chase after the badger for a better pic, but the darn badger ducked towards our neighbours unit and around the corner, so I thought that the shortest route would be to charge across our neighbours veranda and bail over their wall, but never considered that the neighbours may be home.

I skidded across the neighbour’s veranda as I was bare foot and nearly did the splits under their table, but recovered quickly as in the corner of my eye I spotted 4 shocked and surprised adults standing in their lounge looking at me, so decided that to take flight rather than to explain would be the wiser option and bailed over their veranda wall.

I hit the ground on the badger’s tail, so frantically pulled the camera out and pushed the button, but nothing happened, so turned it to look at what was happening and blinded myself with the flash as it went off.

I was now wild, “@#$” camera and tried again, but the badger was to sharp and all I got was bush.

The camera was now getting wet, so I had to pull my shirt halfway over my head to shelter the camera, but it was about then that I heard a noise behind me.

The neighbours were looking around the corner of their veranda at me with big eyes as I stood there half undressed in the rain, so I decided to act as if I hadn’t seen them and high tail it around the back of our unit.

I casually wobbled onto our veranda as if nothing had happened, because our neighbours were now all looking that direction with confused expressions, but the Cow laughing at me didn’t help the temper “This camera is useless”.

“You don’t know how to use it, its fine” “Rubbish, give me the proper camera!!” “What for, it’s gone?”

I ignored the Cow who was laughing again as I had spotted where the badger had entered the camping section, so grabbed my car keys and roared off in that direction, but hadn’t realized that that camping section was flooded and nearly ended up stuck, so decided to head for home before I embarrassed myself further.

To be continued

[Bushcraft]

4th April Satara

We woke to drizzle, but it had poured all night, so I wasn’t confident about it being a productive day, therefore we didn’t get over excited about leaving camp to early.

We eventually hit the road just before 7am, but with no particular plan in mind, which is against my nature, so stress was building.

“Let’s do the S100”, which resulted in a faulty look from the Cow “After all this rain, you don’t have a 4x4, are you mad”, which caused the normal stubbornness from me “We are doing it!!”

The Cow was watching the road like a hawk for the first few km of the S100, because she was nervous, but it looked ok, so soon all relaxed and very few people had ventured out this morning, so it was also very quiet on the road, which was a nice change for the S100, so after a few minutes I could feel the wind in my teeth.

The normal water buck gang were the first on the scene and then some barking impala, which caused some excitement, but after half an hour we gave up on it.





Next up was a junior scallywag cruising around and mom was watching.





The rest of the S100 was fairly quiet and it had started raining again, so our enthusiasm was taking strain, therefore we decided to continue down the S41 until the Shishangani River and then turn and head back down the S100 to camp.

The causeway produced a vulture cooling off in a tree, a Giant Kingfisher with his catch and a croc relaxing in the rain.







We hung around for about 15 minutes watching the locals, but the rain started to intensify, so we turned and headed back for the S100, which had been very quiet for us on this trip and had moved rapidly down my road rating ranks, so this was our final throw of the dice for the S100 on this trip.

About 5km down the S100 from the S41 we were stopped by a chap that we had met at Lower Sabie and he said “A cheetah was lying under that tree over there a few minutes ago, but has moved into the bush”

This immediately got things going in the car again, so the plot started on how to find this cheetah.

We slowly moved forward down the road for about 100m where we found a herd of impala and switched off to wait.

Every second car stopped which was driving me crazy as it was still drizzling and I had to wind down the window each time and give the same story, but I suppose that we have done it to plenty people also. This was causing the crowd to grow though and there were about 5 cars all looking at impala.

After about 15 minutes the impala looked edgy and I noticed an approaching zebra in the distance suddenly stop and stare so blurted out “Wake up everyone, watch the bush line”, but the rats were already bored and continued to do their own noisy thing in the back, so blood pressure was rising and I was about to explode when the Cow shrieked “The impala are running”

The cheetah burst from the bush about 30m from us and was charging after the impala who were heading straight for us, but it all happened so fast again and all I got pics of was bush, impala bums, etc.

In seconds it was over and we had lost sight of the cheetah, so frantic reversing started, but amazingly nobody amongst all the cars had managed to follow the cheetah who had sprinted parallel to us at a distance of about 15m and we were all looking at each other with blank faces, so I started chirping everyone “Where did she go!!” and nobody knew, but all still waited.

After 10 minutes I started moving away from the crowd back towards the S41, which set the Cow off “You have moved to far, turn and go back, why aren’t you turning, we will miss the cheetah”, but I ignored her as I just had a feeling that the cheetah had run parallel to us and crossed the road a couple hundred meters further up.

After about 300m I was about to admit failure and return when I spotted her and we were all alone



The cheetah seemed to be looking at something intently, so I looked up the road and spotted a potential drama heading our way, but decided to keep quiet about it for now as I knew that the Cow would lose it.

2 minutes later the chap we met earlier pulled up right next to us which caused the Cow to look forward “ELEPHANT!!” and then some strange sounds followed, but the elephant had a large gang of cars about 100m behind him, so I knew that if we moved we would potentially lose our spot and the cheetah, so said “I’m not moving!!”



The darn elephant just keep on coming and the cheetah continued to watch the elephant and didn’t seem to want to move either.



The car next to us suddenly spotted the elephant and started to frantically reverse, but seemed to battle with steering backwards and ended up halfway across the road behind us, which I hadn’t seen at the time.

The Cow was now in begging mode “Please, please” and then ostrich mode as she suddenly refused to look at the elephant or the cheetah, but as I looked back at the ellie I realized that he was about to walk over us, so banged the car in reverse and took off backwards, which caused massive shrieking from the Cow as I nearly reversed over the small car behind us.

Fortunately I changed direction as the Cow shrieked and the driver of the small car managed to straighten his car, but was making “Whoooo, whoooo” noises as we pulled up next to him.

This faulty driving had confused the elephant and he decided to move off towards the cheetah, which caused me to roar forward again to make sure I got our spot back.

The cheetah became nervous on the log and bailed diagonally towards us, which caused shrieking from me as I had my 500mm lens on and the cheetah was already too close.



The cheetah seemed nervous of the ellie, but even more nervous of the cars, so she sprinted across the road in front of us and only stopped deep in the bush.

We followed the cheetah for another 10 minutes as she walked along, but eventually we lost sight of her and continued on.

To be continued