Our first full day in the Kalahari and OH MY what an eventful day it was!!! When we arrived my expectations were quite low. I thought we would be lucky to see some lions once or twice and maybe the odd cheetah. I didn’t think you really saw leopard here (like Kgalagadi) but I was hopeful for bat-eared foxes and maybe even a honey badger. WELL. But let’s start at the beginning… (technically the beginning was day 1 and 2 so if you haven’t already maybe start there)
Or of course you can also watch this short video which mostly consists of my annoying voice narrating everything:
The night had been relatively uneventful outside Van cooking a mean braii (wors, chicken and braai broodjies, which are essentially toasted sandwiches with cheese, tomato, onion and chutney) and us retiring to bed relatively early (well, the fire wasn’t ready for cooking until after 8pm, so it wasn’t THAT early). I also experimented a bit with some night-time photography, which didn’t turn out too badly considering we had no tripod! Anyway after loving our roof top tent the first night, I got all snug in there only to wake up at 1:30am BOILING. I guess it was quite a bit warmer than the previous night! I was definitely ready to get up at 5:30am to get ourselves ready for a 6:30am departure.
We managed to get the tent packed up, sort ourselves out and make coffee/hot chocolate so we left our campsite at exactly 6:31am – not bad! We drove straight to deception valley (5km away) and as soon as we get there, we spot something on the road? It looked like a leopard but we didn’t dare believe it. So we decided maybe hyena? Maybe cheetah? BUT NO IT WAS A MOTHER %&(T%$ LEOPARD! ON THE ROAD! WITHIN LIKE 10 MINUTES OF OUR TRIP! There was another car visible but they had already hightailed it towards the pan, so we had the leopard all to ourselves, just the way we like it. And what a beautiful little female she was, although she was getting quite badly harassed by a jackal, running along behind her. Who understands the antics of animals? Not me.
We probably spent a good half hour with her as she meandered up the road scent-marking, and a couple of times we even managed to get a bit ahead so she walked right past us. Eventually though she headed off the road so it was time for us to carry on. Springbok, wildebeest and Oryx abounded and when we reached Deception pan there was a lovely journey of giraffe. So far, so good! As we carried on Van spotted some very fresh lion tracks on the road, with no tyre marks on top of them. It looked like maybe three lions, including at least two males. Exciting! We followed the tracks but before long Van yelled the very word I had been waiting and waiting to hear…. CARACAL!! I am not sure if I had mentioned previously but I have been on a major mission to get a photo of a caracal over the past few months. To the point where at every game reserve we visit I request it (much to each guide’s delight) and even when we entered the Kalahari I asked the guy at the gate to mark where on the map I could find caracal. Despite him not obliging it turned it we didn’t need his help after all!!! We found our own!
Unfortunately the bloody thing ran straight off the road and into the thick grass (so much rain so far this year has made for ridiculously thick/long grass around most of the place). But we were not defeated… yet. We drove down studiously looking for it, but to no avail. UNTIL… I noticed it was back on the road, behind our vehicle. It wasn’t an ideal position for photography but I was so scared if we reversed or even turned around it would disappear once again. Plus it was WALKING TOWARDS US. So I sat there, literally shaking I was so excited, trying to get my coveted caracal shot. Well sadly it stopped behind a bush and I was shooting into the light so definitely NOT IDEAL, but I was still pretty happy that I managed to get some shots of it’s beautiful face before it bounded back into the bush, never to be seen again!
We did stick around trying to spot it and clearly it was upsetting some northern black korhaans as well as some Oryx but we were not to see it again. What a morning though – a leopard and a caracal, both on the road… when does that ever happen? Kalahari! Naturally we were loving our trip already.
We continued following the lion tracks, hoping for an amazing cat trifecta for the day but unfortunately they disappeared off the road with no sign of the actual lions. We did find a few of my favourite bat-eared foxes though! They looked so much bigger than the guys in the Kgalagadi. We drove down to Letiahu waterhole but there was only a lonely jackal. We then decided to cook some delicious bacon and egg rolls for breakfast at the nearby campsite, where Van picked up some leopard tracks. How could would it be to have a leopard walk through your campsite when you were there? I can only dream.
After breakfast we decided we probably didn’t have enough time to go to the next waterhole and get back, so
instead we turned around and headed back. On the way we passed three vehicles, all of whom wanted to know what we had seen. Van was reluctant to tell them but I was keen to boast! Guess that shows you who the better person is (as if you didn’t already know). Only one car had seen anything of excitement – a cheetah at Sunday Pan. The rest appeared suitably jealous of our eventful morning! Perhaps it was karma for my boasting but we realised we had a flat tyre! A flat on day one with only one spare – not ideal! But this is where I was probably the happiest EVER with Van and for once impressed with his organisation skills. On the way here he had stopped into a 4×4 place to get a tyre repair kit. This came in very handy as he was able to deftly patch the tyre! No change required!
What a lifesaver as not only did it mean we (Van) didn’t have to go through the whole rigmarole of changing the tyre in the middle of the bush, but it also meant we didn’t have to do an emergency town trip to replace the damaged tyre, as I wouldn’t have fancied driving around with no spare in this place given we already had a puncture on the first day!
The day continued to surprise us! After all that excitement nothing much happened for our afternoon, except for a grasshopper flying into our car as we were driving and smashing me full on in the face. Like I’m talking full frontal grasshopper punch. It was brutal. We checked out Sunday Pan waterhole and Leopard Pan (we are camping there on our last night), and only really saw a huge journey of giraffe for our troubles. It was a lovely sighting though of about 20 of them, which may even be the most giraffes I have seen yet. We got back to our little campsite by about 5:20pm and decided we would have a shower first up because our solar shower wasn’t all that effective, and you DO NOT want to be having a shower at night here with coldish water! Here was my next highlight… when we had rolled up our friendly neighbourhood natals spurfowl was sitting up on our shower.
Obviously she was trying to tell us something, because the second the water started flowing, her and her whole family of babies were in that shower like a shot! They were lapping up the water with absolutely zero shits given
about me trying to shower!! I guess when you are in the Kalahari you have to find water wherever and however you can! It was seriously just so cute because the little babies were just running around everywhere. Makes having an outdoor bucket shower in winter just that little bit more worthwhile 🙂
Tonight one of my favourite dishes is on the menu – chicken burgers! As we got our act into gear we should be able to eat before 8pm as well. Hooray!
Kalahari, we are enjoying you so far!