The following morning began with the alarm going off at 5AM, just as it is starting to get light. The drive was due to start a 6 so after a quick shower it was down to the main area for coffee and rusks to await the start. Once all were assembled we headed off in the game vehicle as Chris informed us we were heading for the lion enclosure. This is a separate section of the game park which contains the lions (obviously!) and various game animal for them to hunt. We didn’t see everything in there but most importantly we did get our first glimpse of lions! Initially they were spotted in long grass, which was scary because it made you realise just how hard a lion can be to spot in the wild, despite their size. It wasn’t the best of views but hey, it counted for the ‘Lions’ tickbox. We then cut around the grass area and got a much better view as they crossed a roadway within the park and finally saw a lone female walking one of the tracks and calling for the rest of the pride. We were also lucky enough to get a closer view of Rhino while we were in here, which was another bonus for the trip.
The main part of the day was spent between breakfast, lunch and generally lazing around, with plenty of floating in the pool with a cold drink thrown in for good measure, after which it was time for our second game drive of the day. This time we were hunting (not literally!) leopard. There had been a sighting earlier in the day and, although the chances of the beast being in the same spot were remote, we took off in that direction on the off chance that we may get lucky. Sadly we didn’t get to see any leopard but the drive involved visiting some of the more spectacular scenery within the park and an awful lot of up and down hills. We stopped mid-way for a wee spot of refreshment at the top of one hill and the view was quite simply stunning. You could see for miles in all directions with very little signs of civilisation to impair the view.
Even though we found no leopard the drive did give us a lot of other game en-route which was duly appreciated, including more sightings of Rhino, the usual bevy of antelope and some quite exciting hits in the bird department. Top of the list was a Secretary Bird which we sighted shortly after leaving camp. These guys are awesome, like an eagle on stilts that basically kicks it’s prey to death. Prey being anything from snakes to mongoose and other small mammals, insects and even tortoises. Other notable sightings included a blacksmith lapwing and the incredible kamikaze Red-crested Korhaan. This crazy little chap has an amazing, I assume, mating display in which he launches himself high into the air and then plummets to the ground in what looks like an uncontrolled fal right up until just before he hits the ground. Apparently the chap who gets closest to the ground on his fall before regaining control is most likely to impress the ladies and walk away with the prize. We were fortunate enough to see one of these guys perform his death defying trick as we came by. To say it took us by surprise would be a bit of an understatement and we only really appreciated what we saw once Chris has explained to us exactly what we had seen!
At this point the schedule turned a tad hectic. Two of the chaps stopping at the camp, Adam and Brad who were from America, had been on a quad-bike safari which meant they were not back in time for the evening game drive, so they had requested a night time drive which we all had the option to go on. The expectation was that if we were lucky we may see some creatures of the night but more likely we would see very little. We set off therefore with hopes high but expectations not so. As it turned out we did better than expected seeing several of our more familiar daytime sightings in the light of Chris’ s spotlight and also a couple of new additions to our list which we had not come across so far. The new additions were a common duiker and the scrub hare, both of which a pretty small but it was great to spot them. Chris did an excellent job as a night time drive involved him not only driving the vehicle but also operating the hand held spotlight which would light up the eyes of anything which looked towards it and enable them to be spotted. Despite the fact we were all keeping our eyes peeled I think Chris also had the highest spot rate for the drive of any of us – who says men can’t multi-task?! We covered a lot of familiar ground on the night drive but also some more rugged areas that we hadn’t been in during the day and the entire experience was something not to be missed even if we’d not seen any game at all.
Our final sighting of the day was back at the camp where a quite large scorpion was found, just off the edge of the decking near the bar area. He didn’t really do much but was a timely reminder, if any were needed, that we were out in the bush as it were and not in the safer comforts of the lodge proper. I took the opportunity at this point for a quick night-cap, I’m becoming quite fond of Amarula, and then it was off to bed prior to yet another early start in the morning.
