8 June

This was our last full day in the park. Where had the time gone? . We had a mishap or two when we woke up. The pump that pumps all the water to the chalets had tripped but SO knew how to solve this problem because it had happened the day before. So he jumped on the roof and sorted that out. Then when I wanted to put the kettle on there was no gas….I might add that I do not have much of a sense of humour before I have had my first cup of tea. SO to the rescue..it was just a matter of changing over the gas bottles! A quick look at the waterhole revealed a wild cat . We left Kielie Krankie at 8h20 and decided there and then that Kielie Krankie would always be on our itinerary when visiting the park We were taking the dune road to Kij Kij and then on to Twee Rivieren where we would be spending our last night. First up on the list was a scrubhare..but he did a quick disappearing act. We went on to see steenbok, gemsbok, ostriches, jackals and many PCGs Then we spotted a red necked falcon. ..


Just before we arrived at Kij Kij we saw two tawny eagles in a tree. There were many animals around the t –junction. There was a group of young ostriches but they were all different sizes…we had not seen that before. We had a coffee break at Kij Kij. I was scanning the trees with my bins in the hopes of finding a leopard…but no such luck. I was rewarded however with a woodpecker and a female dusky sunbird. I did not see the woodpecker well enough to say which type it was….but it was definitely a woodpecker. We then continued in the direction of Rooiputs. It was very quiet along this stretch. We did not even see a springbok. We got to Rooiputs…quiet. We drove to the camping area and there were lion tracks everywhere…..but no lions. We had a really good look around because I needed to make a quick ladies stop. I made SO park Monty as close to the ablutions as possible......okay so I was chicken...so would you all be if you had seen the lion tracks that I had just seen. Well we left Rooiputs without seeing a lion and drove onto Leeudril. We then picked up more tracks in the road and about half way to Leeudril we found them…..2 male lions.



Yet again they were sprawled out on the dunes. Looking through the bins we were able to see that they had eaten and that the one had a few scratches on his face as well as a nick in his ear. We wondered whether they were the same two that we had seen along the Aub riverbed the previous day. What made us think that was that the GPS reading was pretty similar. I thought that when I got back to camp I would check the photos of the lions the day before and see whether either of them had a nick in the ear. We could see that the lions weren’t going anywhere so we moved on .
We stopped under the famous weaver’s bird nest that hangs over the road and saw this little fellow.



Am I correct in assuming that it is a baby rednecked falcon ?

Just before Twee Rivieren we started seeing some antelope again. We also noticed a young kudu bull hiding behind a bush. We had only ever seen Kudu near Mata Mata and Marie se Gat. He then walked over the dune…..too far away to photograph . A brief sighting of a few meerkats was next and then we arrived at Twee Rivieren......