
We kicked off the school summer holidays with a short camping trip to Mountain Zebra. I've been itching to get back there for a while... partly because it's such a relaxing place with magnificent views, but also because this year their lion population suddenly went up significantly due to a number of new cubs. In such a comparatively small park I would imagine they will have to move some out in due course, but we had high hopes of seeing some of the big cats on the trip.
We arrived late morning to a fairly overcast scene
On our way along to the camp the only sighting of note was a rock monitor walking away from us

The previous week had been very hot, but thankfully the cloud cover made pitching the tent just about bearable

At some point D was sure he had seen a cat in the bushes next to our tent, but H wasn't convinced he had seen anything except twigs

Even so, he still maintained that it was a reddish coloured cat, but not a caracal.

A little while later, S also saw something in the bushes by a drain, so the kids decided to investigate at one end of the drainage tunnel whilst I watched the other end. Shining a torch down obviously spooked it and sure enough out popped a ginger cat


We had absolutely no idea where it could have come from, but it was definitely some kind of feral cat rather than AWC or caracal

After the heat of tent-pitching we enjoyed a dip in the cool pool along with some ice creams

