Africa Wild

Wonderful to read your stories about Rooiputs. Sounds very familiar except that I was fast a sleep when the lions moved pass our tent and not kissing any lions.

What campsite number did you stay at? Our first visit was #4 but that was too far from the showers and toilet and second time we booked #3 that is very convenient, except for the campers from #4 that drove through our campsite and shouting that there are lions and we must stay inside.

The next morning we saw lion's spoor over their car tracks in the direction of their camp site. As you said it safer to stay in your camp instead over returning and not knowing where the lions walked.

You saw quite a lot of young gemsbok. Usually they well hidden in the dune area, but with so little they came out closer to the riverbeds to get water.

A lion kisser

Must have been a rather hair raising experience I don't know how strong the material of the tent is, but a lion is still a lion, even if a youngster


What a nice fire.....with kettle

Great pics of the ostrich and the gemsboks

Scary night time stories........ but loving it

Stunning shots of the cheetah with his kill

moggiedog

You'd better put the cheetah pics up on Mel's identification thread, Moggie?

RP - perhaps he has already been identified on her thread and may not want him
Luckily it had got warmer than the first week - but I managed to keep my clothes on a bit longer than planned.

Pumbaa - Once again we were very lucky

Lisbeth - I would have been more worried if it had been hyena as in my limited knowledge i would imagine they would be more likely to try and take a piece out of the tent. the lion were just curious and they had no interest in breaking the "barrier" in front of them

Alf - the one thing about being there, excitement is more the word I would used - in retrospect you realize perhaps you should have been frightened

Bushveld Jock I gather you are a Rooiputs fan. We were in campsite number 1. A bit of a walk to the songololo but at least you far away from other campers and have open space in front of you. It was unusual to see so many young gemsbok but they were herded them away from the road back up the dune.

Nan - it was funny - I am not sure if Jax would like to kiss a lion again - but I don't think many people have kissed a lion goodnight.

Wow, must have been amazing to have lions outside your tent!!

Lovely fox sighting too.

Flutterby - was great - especially as we had them so close - just a pity we could get out to take pictures. This is the time you a rooftop tent would have been handy

Once again the drive was scarce of game but as usual the scenery is worth the drive. This part of the world there are no shortages of these strange fellows


Up ahead our destination was in sight and we were very happy to see the turn off. We were both in desperate need of a pit stop and a bit of a leg stretch.


A quick snack eaten time to do a bit of exploring.


This did put a bit of a short rein on me.


I definitely did not want another run in. I had killed one bee this trip already and did not want to become a serial killer, so I gave the area a wide birth. Having been here on more than one occasion in the past we did not spend too much time in the museum.

On our way back to the car, I managed a quick pic of this guy who was determined he was no going to have his picture taken.

Perhaps he had committed some crime and was trying to fly below the radar.


Then it was back on the road again.


By now it was not the best time to spot creatures in the dunes as the sun was high overhead. We did have fleeting sightings of jackal and various buck but we did not stop. At this stage we had so many photos of the creatures we were seeing we decided to keep a steady pace for home.
Back in more sandy area we found this little guy - but he was not going to sit around very long.


He had plenty of space all to himself - although there were probably plenty of them who had gone underground.


We had got back to camp comparatively early. We had expected to have been out a full day but for a change instead of being out longer than expected - the opposite had happened. After a couple of hours we were back in the car and out for an afternoon drive.
I am not sure whether these secretaries were on there way to work or going home from work. There were three of them striding out with some clear destination in mind. They crossed the road without looking left or right - very bad example they were setting.



We were deciding on our route home when we spotted a jackal on a mission. We followed him for a long time, until he turned into the dunes and disappeared from sight.


Then it was decision time and we debated whether to stick on the main road or take the Rooiputs road home. We had not got very far down the Rooiputs road when we noticed a car had stopped on the main road - then a second car stopped. We were way to nosy not to go back and see what they were watching. We carried on driving until we found a place to cut back onto the main road. By now there was only one vehicle so we thought whatever was there could no be too exciting.

Then we saw a family of lion pretending to be dead!


We immediately recognized the youngster as the scally-wags from the previous night,after all you cannot kiss a lion and then not recognize it the next day! This gave us the opportunity to see the parents for the first time. We had called the little ones PeeWee and Herman, the parents we had called Big Momma and Big Daddy - what we didn't know there was Big brother as well. Big brother was on top of the dune - keeping his distance. Unfortunately the sun was directly behind him and we were unable to get decent pictures of him. he was magnificent!



Herman was very happy to imitate dad and PeeWee was imitating mom.


Mom and Peewee were a little bit more alert than the male members of the family.


I am not sure how long we sat watching lion do nothing but the car in front of us decided they had had enough and headed for home.
There was the odd movement every now and again - then right back to sleep.





We checked the time and realized we could stay there a lot longer as we were only about 10 fifteen minutes from camp. As evening was approaching we were sure we would have the chance to see some movement from the family before we had to head home. A couple of other cars stopped but did not stay very long. After all - sleeping lions are not that exciting to watch especially if you have young children in the car.

We were laughing and joking around and every now and again glanced over to the sleeping lion.

"Dead lions" are always a great sighting

Your whistling rat is tops

and beautiful scenery pics, very KTP