As we hit the northern junction of the S86/H1-3 we decided to travel a little further north as the few km before the start of the S86 often produces leopard and 2km later we spotted 2 cars stopped and a leopard was relaxing in the grass close to the road.
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This had the potential to develop into a fantastic sighting as the leopard seemed relaxed, but 5 minutes later an OSV arrived and the guests were completely overexcited and half were standing up in the OSV and the other half talking so loudly that you could have heard them a 100m away. At the same time another car arrived and the driver was leaning frantically forward with his camera and set his hooter off. The leopard got up instantly, walked off into the bush and disappeared.
The Cow was wilder than I was for a change.
“They caused this. Stupid people!”
I have stuffed up a few trips getting involved with doff people at sightings like this and it ruins your day, so I just started up, turned and headed back towards Tshokwane for a chow and we only stopped once more for some kudu hanging nervously around the riverbed.
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This time the Cow, Hawkeyes and I had wors rolls, but the 2 junior rats were still suspicious of the kudu wors and shared hot chips instead. At R45 for a wors roll it certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s good quality wors in my opinion, besides I refused to follow our initial pre trip plan of the Skukuza Golf Club because the aunty there had pissed me off with the shoe policy and I wasn’t putting my safety boots on again which were the only shoes in my luggage.
At the H10/H1-2 junction we had seen a baby giraffe carcass on the way up but there were no predators in sight so we had just continued on, however now there were some vultures around so we decided to park off a little before heading back down the H10 to camp.
I find vultures rather ugly and scally but the clan seems to enjoy them and after 5 minutes it seemed safe to leave so I started up and pulled off, but as I drove down the road Albert, who was still staring at the vultures through the back window, started squealing
“LION, LION!”
I hit the brakes, turned and went back, arriving just as a lioness chased all the vultures away.
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The lioness checked us out for a while, chased another vulture and then decided it was time to show her strength and she started to move her kill deeper into the bush.
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And it would have been even greater if the leopard had dropped on the bushbuck.
