The H10 started with some ellies, a BSK (I think), but not much else until just before the climb up towards Nkumbe where some cheetah appeared in the distance.
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The mother cheetah and 4 cubs soon all curled up into balls and went to sleep so we continued on and only stopped again for some klippies just before the H10 starts to head back down towards the H1-2.
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Tshokwane was fairly busy for around 9am however much to my horror the clan ventured into the shop, so I spent an extended time staring blankly at the sighting board which didn’t give me much hope as it seemed like nobody had seen anything from Satara and it turned out to be correct with only the odd member of the usual gang showing up all the way to Satara so we didn’t take any pics.
The rats were nagging for chow at Satara so we decided to try the bush kitchen thing; however after checking the crowd in the bush kitchen I had doubts and then another couple came out of the tent and said “Good luck, we waited for more than an hour!”
I looked at the Cow and said “No chance” turned and headed back towards the carpark while the flock of hungry spoonbills followed so I ended up buying biltong, chips and rolls in the shop for peace to return.
The H1-4 was no better than the H1-3 sighting wise with only a monitor raising a pic, but at least we had the new road, the S147, to try, which was the one of the reasons I changed a night to Olifants. We have driven every road south of Olifants many, many times, so the novelty draw of a new road was too much for me. It’s a tight little one-way road with plenty potential in my opinion but today it only produced a SBS, however he/she was virtually in the road and very calm so we could get very close.
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We only stopped again for pics just before Olifants as a Bateleur caused interest and the views are always worth a second look.
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We arrived at Olifants at around 3:30pm and the plan was to simply book in, start a fire and most importantly spend time enjoying the view.
When we arrived at reception I was shocked as the queue was out the door. A tour party had arrived just before us and they were all trying to change their accommodation options and to make it worse there was only 1 staff member actually paying attention, so my patience went in 10 minutes which brought on the “OUTSIDE” look from the Cow, so I went on a walk in the carpark, then went to full up with diesel, then took the rats on a tour around camp and the pool area, then went to the shop and purchased fire wood, cool drinks, etc, but I was shocked to find the Cow still in the queue.
We eventually got the keys for our unit at 5:20pm, but surprisingly I kept relatively calm because I could see everybody was now taking strain and Hawkeyes was still producing a fever every 4 hours, which made the situation tenser.
We had 2 x 2 sleeper units as that’s all that was available, so I had brought a blow up mattress from home, because even though we always pay for the additional bed, Sanparks never pay attention as the paid for mattress never appears.
I soon realised that I had packed the wrong blow up mattress as it was a queen size so I had a mission to blow it up and then a bigger mission to get it from the car pump into the unit as the 2 sleepers at Olifants are rather small, but I finally squeezed the mattress in; however it suddenly blew a large hole in the side and went flat which brought on my faulty mood in a big way.
“Stuff this, we paid for a mattress, phone reception and demand one!”
I was sulking big time because the 2nd reason for booking these units was to spend the afternoon relaxing and enjoying the view and now it was nearly dark, so we had missed out on the view also.
The Cow managed to organise a mattress, so peace returned and I went to start the fire, which is when the gang of mice/rats pulled in which caused shrieking, so I ended up braaiing amongst the rodents by myself.
To be continued 
Nice sighting
A giraffe, even a few impala, etc cause a traffic jam on the H4-1 in holiday season 
I get bored quickly 
We always pay for the additional mattress and only once in 26 trips with the kids has the mattress appeared, Lower Sabie 4 years ago, but no bedding 
