Wednesday 23rd August - Satara to Olifants
Roads driven - most of them!!
This day we were moving to Olifants for one night, and also planned a brief visit to Letaba to experience the Elephant Museum. Our discussion had centred around what route to take for the first few hours of the day before hitting the H1-4 and pressing north. While I actually wasn't expecting much from it sightings-wise, I was loathe to leave the area without having driven the famous S100 at least once so suggested doing this road. We could then continue north on the S41 to again check for the white male Lion. This was accepted by Lyca so was locked in.
While we were packing our bags pre-dawn we heard Lions roaring in the distance. It was hard to pinpoint the direction from inside the bungalow but they seemed to be somewhere south of camp. Again I took the early shift behind the wheel and found myself in a queue of about 20 cars at the gate.
Worse still only two of them turned left onto the H1-4 as we departed.
I was quite jealous of these two cars because they would have relative peace at any good sightings early on in their drives, while I felt like I was driving in city traffic! Surprisingly more than half of the cars continued south when we peeled off onto the S100. Perhaps they were looking for the Lions we had heard? Whatever their reasons, I wasn't complaining.
The initial stretch of the S100 didn't produce anything of note until about 6km along when Lyca called "Jackals". Indeed their were two Jackals in the grass to the left of the road moving towards us with purpose, so I stopped the car so she could examine the beasts in binoculars. Nothing was said for a few seconds as they passed us by, then I was suddenly questioned regarding my lack of response. Apparently they were likely Side-striped Jackals, a species we were very keen to see! Finally understanding the situation I executed a swift u-turn and proceeded back past the now oncoming cars, none of whom apparently had seen or cared about the Jackals because they just continued on. I managed to also get binoculars on the beasts and confirm their identity before they ducked down a rough vehicle track and disappeared.
This is the best pic I managed. Not a great ID shot sadly...
How exhilarating! We had found one of our target species for the trip and the sun wasn't even up. It was surely going to be a good day!
As the sun rose I carefully positioned the car for a nice shot with a stately tree in silhouette. The car behind me went to overtake, then suddenly saw the beautiful scene and decided to pull up next to me and get his own photo - completely blocking my view!
I paused and waited for him to turn his brain on but he was oblivious, so in a moment of very poor patience I accelerated away in a huff and hoped the resulting dust cloud communicated my sentiment.
A little further on I found an acceptable substitute viewpoint.
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The middle stretch of the S100 produced a variety of sightings such as Slender Mongoose, Ground Hornbills, Waterbuck, a fleeting glimpse of Brown-headed Parrots in flight, Burchell's Coucal, and a Vulture tree.
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At one of the river viewpoints a Common Duiker gave us a cheeky wave! What a day we were having.
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After watching the Duiker for a couple of minutes we re-joined the road. We were now only about 3km from the S41. Rounding a bend we saw two vehicles stopped up ahead on the left side of the road. They were spaced apart a little, and many other cars had presumably already passed this point without stopping, so this was unlikely anything special but we still approached carefully to make sure we didn't spoil their sighting. I politely parked behind the second vehicle while we tried to locate what it was they were looking at. They were clearly looking left, but a cluster of bushes was obscuring our view. Suddenly an arm emerged from the driver's window and waved us up. I pulled to the right and slowly drove up beside the vehicle so we could speak with the driver. As we stopped alongside he gestured at a still-obscured point immediately opposite his car and at the same time said one word that immediately explained the situation to us and got our hearts absolutely racing! That word was...
To be continued.
On the plus side, if an owl had flown over he certainly would have seen it!! 
