Our welcoming committee.
As much as we would have loved to have spent the rest of the day sitting on that balconey and watching the waterhole….there were lions out there and we had go back and see them. We left again at 3h15……the plan being to drive to Houmoed and back We got to the spot where we had last seen the cheetah…..GONE !! We carried on to where we had last seen the lions and of course they were still there….passed out without a care in the world. We continued to Houmoed …we planned to stop off at the lions on the way back to camp..maybe they would get up and go walkabout. The next minute I saw another cobra moving through the bushes. He was not as obliging as the previous one that we had seen and soon disappeared. I don’t think it was the same one….we were quite far away from the spot where we had seen the other one in the morning. Two cobras in one day. On the way back from Houmoed we saw the giant eagle owl in the same tree. This time there was two of them !!!. Not long after that we came across some meerkats. They were very too busy looking for their supper ….. but as usual one was always on guard
We continued and all of a sudden I saw a PCG pounce on a dove….he had caught his supper ! We had seen another kill!!!
We arrived back at the lions …..got comfortable with a beer and a sherry and waited …..and waited and yes we waited until we could wait no more …..but the lions continued sleeping blissfully unaware of the frustrations they were causing us. We headed back to camp and I pointed out a jackal to SO . It just looked so funny so see a jackal curled up in a little ball fast asleep in this wide open space. When SO looked he suddenly stopped( well as suddenly as one can in Monty ) and yelled “ Cheetah “ ! And there they were walking towards a tree. There was a lot of cavorting and squirting and spraying going on in the tree.
They then left the tree and walked back in the direction they had come from. We followed them and we tried our best to get some photos for the research team. The light was low and the time was low…we had to leave these cheetahs to their ambling and get back to camp.
What an exciting day we had had….we were down to our second last night and eventually the Kgalagadi was pulling out all the stops……….I knew in my heart that this magical place would not let us down. Yet again the fire was lit and we kept our eye on the waterhole. Soon we noticed some bat eared foxes coming for a drink, then a scrub hare ran across the dunes. The final bit of excitement was when a porcupine put in an appearance at the waterhole. This was a first for us ..we had not ever seen a porcupine in Kgalagadi. We tried to video it but the waterhole is quite far away and it was dark. My video camera was just unable to focus on the porcupine….even with the spotlight. ! What a day it had been.!!
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