8th October – stay at Rest Camp

8^th October – stay at Rest Camp

We left Tamboti at 5.30am and drove along the H7 towards Satara. It was still very cloudy and windy and much cooler. We did see a hyena again at a similar location to yesterday so their den must be close by. Along the road we also saw zebra, waterbuck, wildebeest, baboons, giraffe, impala and kudu. When we arrived at Nsemani Dam there were no animals around, so we had a bowl of coco pops before setting off down the H1-3.

We stopped off at the Nkaya Pan but there was nothing there, although there was a herd of zebras, impala and wildebeest nearby. Not long after this we saw a leopard lying in the road. It was heart breaking; she was still breathing but had clearly been severely hurt, presumably by a car, and so was unable to move. We did not have any phone signal to call and advise the rangers and the road was completely blocked by cars so we could not get out to drive along to get signal. Eventually we managed to drive past but after an hour we still didn’t have any signal.

We arrived at Tshokwane Picnic Spot to go to the loo. We debated trying to find someone to report the leopard to, but guessed someone would have already done it by now. We headed further along the H1-2 towards Leeupan. Here we sat for a while watching the animals come and go. At first there was just a large herd of impalas, many males were practise fighting, and then a large herd of around 30+ elephants arrived with lots of young. They stopped briefly for a drink. 

Once they had left a giraffe arrived, checked all the surrounding trees, presumably for lions etc before heading back the way she came. She shortly returned with her calf and they came to drink. A male giraffe also arrived and drank from the opposite side. Once they left it was pretty quiet for a while.

After around 20 minutes we decided to leave and head back up to Satara. We soon got stopped by a herd of 30+ elephants – I assume the same herd as at Leeupan – as they were all crossing the road. We waited patiently for them to cross but did burst into hysterics as one juvenile stepped on his own trunk whilst crossing the road and nearly fell face down! Very funny!

After passing Tshokwane Picnic Spot we came across a large herd of wildebeest as well as zebra, impala and kudu.

Further along the road we came across a group of 4 ground hornbills, they stayed by the road, clearly hoping to be fed. Unfortunately for them we didn’t offer any food.

At Kumana Dam there was a lone large hippo bull flinging dung around in an act of dominance – we’re not sure who he was trying in impress as the only other animals present (except us humans) were waterbuck and a large family (of around 10) warthogs.

Not much further along the road we came across a tortoise, we stopped in the road preventing anyone else from crossing before it had moved safely onto the verge as we didn’t want it to be run over. We’d seen enough road kill for one day after seeing the leopard and then a dead ground squirrel. 

We turned off the H1-3 onto the H6. Along this road we saw 3 giraffes before coming across 2 lions. There were so many cars and we were unable to see the lions very well so we decided to move on. We then came across another tortoise in the road. This one was so small that I thought it was some elephant dung. Luckily Wayne told me to stop and again we waited until it was safely on the verge and off the road.

The S41 was the next road we took. This was fairly quiet except for kudu, waterbuck and impala. Similarly the S100 was also quiet, just spotting the same; waterbuck, impala and kudu.

We decided to head to Satara now as it was past 2pm so we could check in. Once we’d checked in and unpacked our car we headed straight back out for our afternoon game drive. We decided to go along the H6 to have another look at the lion sighting and see if we could see them. Luckily, as we arrived someone was leaving so we parked in their spot – what we think was the ‘prime position’! We were parked directly in front of a male lion with a beautiful dark mane. Unfortunately, except for waking up to clean himself occasionally he was fast asleep. We watched him for around 2hours and 20 minutes with him just rolling over once as the only movement. During this time we did notice another lion next to him. He was a juvenile male and he sat up, yawned before falling back to sleep. After the 2 hours and 20 minutes we decided it was time to leave and head back to camp. We pulled out of our spot, turned around and then looked back at the lions to see them all up and greeting each other and walking about. We couldn’t believe it! We stopped to take some photos and actually decided it was a good thing that we moved as now that we were on the other side of the road and not stuck between other cars it meant we could move forward or reverse as necessary to keep the lions in view. Whilst we were photographing them it became apparent that there were actually 4 male lions in this group – they were so well hidden all sleeping in the grass that we didn’t see them. It was only a minute or two later that the lions had turned their backs to us and were moving off so we headed off too towards camp.

We had to keep up our speed to ensure we weren’t late back. We drove swiftly past a small herd of giraffes before turning off the H6 and onto the H1-3 towards Satara. After a minute or so we were stopped by two large bull elephants in the middle of the road clearly having a moment to decide who was more dominant.  We took photos to show as evidence to camp in case we were late back and they wanted to fine us.

We managed to pass them and swiftly headed back to camp. We made it with minutes to spare. Once back at camp the sun quickly went down and we got ourselves a drink and sat on a bench by the perimeter fence. After only around 5 minutes a spotted hyena walked past. It walked along the fence line and then went and smelt a nearby bush. Something jumped out and I said to Wayne that it was steenbok or hare. He shone our torch onto it to find out it was a wild cat. Blimey, how exciting! We couldn’t believe it. The hyena and wild cat did not seem to mind each other as the hyena carried on walking along the fence line whilst the wild cat just sat near to the bush it was originally hiding in. I ran back to our room to grab the camera – our room was only 50m away – so we could take some photos.