Done and Dusted

[Alf]

Stunning experience

Enjoying every moment of it

[Lisbeth]

Cheetah and not only ....cheetah with a kill He looks very young, but I am not an expert and the springbok looks big enough

Lovely pics of the gemsboks

[Bushveld Jock]

Stunning sighting of the cheetah. I've never seen much between Dikbaardskolk and Melkvlei as if its no-mans or shall I so no-animal land. How far from Melkvlei did you spot the cheetah? Also love those stunning sunrise pics from Nossob with red, orange to pinkish-purple colours.

Now I wonder if we going to see Rooiputs campsite later on.

[nan]

exactly the roads I love
plus a Cheetah

[Flutterby]

Awesome cheetah sighting!!

[Moggiedog]

Flutterby, Nan, Bushveld Jock, lisbeth - We were very excited to see him as we had not seen any but everyone else was seeing them - you can imagine how many were taken

Bushveld Jock - you got it in one we were heading for Rooiputs which was rather sad as we only had three nights left It was about 3 kilometers after Melkvlei (if memory serves me right)

Alf - we couldn't have asked for more - but we were hoping for wild cat - but we can't be greedy after what we had seen

[Moggiedog]

We reluctantly left the spotted cat to enjoy his kill away from prying eyes. I have no idea where the time had gone but the shadows were getting longer and longer.

but we still had enough daylight to set up camp. We were very happy to have the camp we did as we had an uninterrupted view of the plains. The one thing we had to get used to was sharing the songololo. We were so used to Botswana and having one all to ourselves it seemed odd to not be able to walk in but instead finding a chain across the entrance.
I may have mention before that neither Jax nor I are one for cold showers - both of us had forgotten our solar showers at home so we were bathing in the front of our tent with our baths we had taken with us. With other people in camp we were going to have to be careful, as we did not want to scare the heck out of other campers. Then again if anyone had seen me they would just have wondered how my clothes got so creased!
Back to camp time.
Once again we were treated to a special sunset.


Once total darkness settled over the Kgalagadi we enjoyed the dancing flames of our faithful fire - lets not forget our trusty kettle!


It was getting late and we had decided we could safely have our bath when something caught our eye. Naturally we stopped what we were doing to see if we could see what was moving in the bushes in front of the tent. I, for one, did not want to be dragged naked and screaming into the bushes in the buff. Although I doubt anyone would notice once what left of me was found! Movement once again - but even with our spotlight we could not pick up any eyes. So we waited. By now we realized it was not lion but something smaller.

We could hear lion in the distance and we could also see car headlights moving around behind us. We heard laughter and saw a few torches bouncing off the bushes on the far side of the entrance road. This intrigued us. We can only assume it was people from the lodge hunting for lion in their vehicles - which is strictly forbidden. We knew it wasn't the night drive vehicle as they were driving off road. As for the torch light bouncing around the bush it was soon revealed they belonged to some people camping in Rooiputs. Did they not understand they could become some creatures dinner. But to each their own.

Fortunately they did not come close to our tent but kept to the far side of the road.
We turned back to our bushes and patiently waited to see who the peeping tom could possibly be. Finally - eyes - then all was revealed.


He was very wary so we sat motionless until he seemed to relax and accept us as non threatening.


he had found some munchies under the bushes and once his mouth was full he scuttled off down the embankment only to reappear and repeat the performance a good many times.


Mr Fox became a nightly visitor and every night he was finding something under the bush to take home with him.

Time to get clean and get into bed.

I am not sure what time it was when I heard a noise. I sat up and asked Jax if she had heard anything. Then the tent moved as if something was pushing against it. We both poked our noses as close to the mosquito net as we could to see if we could see anything. In one voice we both said “LION”. Next moment Jax let out an expletive. I asked her what was wrong and she said “I have just kissed a lion”. A young teenager had his nosed pressed to the mosquito net on the outside as she pressed her nose into the net from the inside. No need to guess this got us giggling. We both crawled down to the end of our stretches to look through the front mosquito net and see if there would be the smallest chance of getting photos. It was not too be.
We could see two teenagers at the front of our tent on the far side of the tables.

Something I would like to mention at this point. Every night we packed everything out of reach of any creature of the night, then we would pull our tables across the tent entrance. We slept with our windows and doors open and we felt the tables would act as a bit of a barrier between the night and out mosquito net. False sense of security - but hey - it made us feel as if we were being sensible.

As we watched one of the youngsters went down and crawled under the tables and started pushing against the mosquito net. We sat quietly and watched her antics for a bit hoping that she wouldn't decide to pull the tent apart. Both of us sat hearts pounding waiting to see what she would do next. Finally her curiosity was satisfied and she ducked down and backed peddled out from under the table.
We both breathed a huge sigh of relief. We took the chance to open the door to see if we could shoot off a quick picture or two – but no joy.
The two youngster bumped around our tent for a short time longer before they disappeared into the darkness.


The following morning we were up with the birds and close to the songololo we found this:


(Apologies for the quality of the pic This was the medium track and I have no idea where my pics of the big paw prints have vanished to.) Although in the picture the track looks old - it was from the previous night. We started following the track and picked up it was a small pride of two youngsters, two big adults and one medium size adult. The tracks crossed over our tire tracks from the previous afternoon and there was a mish-mash of track all round the vehicle and the A frame.
We walked together with our tazers in hand in case the family of lion were still in the immediate area. Once we established the tracks did not come to an abrupt end but were marking the way for as far as we could see, we decided they were no longer in the immediate area (we hoped).

We then went to examine around the bush to see if we could find what Mr Fox found every night to take back to his den. There was nothing we could see that we believed would interest a fox that much. We decided to have another look when we got home on the off chance someone was throwing food out in the area.

For once we had a plan in mind. We were going to drive across to Auchterlone as we had not spent much time in that area on this trip. We headed for Twee Rivieren as we had decided we would do the cross road on our way back.

On top of the dune we noticed a head was bobbing higher and higher. He was was moving quickly and was finally revealed in all his splendor.


A little bit further along another head appeared at the top of the dune.


This time there were children in the group.



Once again time was passing by way to fast as we carried on on our merry way to Auchterlonie.

[nan]

“I have just kissed a lion”

must be impossible to sleep... with all these busy nights

once again, love the tracks in the road...

[Richprins]

Ai, wonderful story once again, Moggie! You must do more!

Great cheetah, and I agree, it looks like a small one! Why do you think it is a male?

So were you sitting nude watching the fox? I love the wrinkled clothing comment, classic!

What a great trip!

[Lisbeth]

Great cheetah, and I agree, it looks like a small one! Why do you think it is a male?

Maybe you should have another look at the photos If you still have doubts, I'll explain you the difference