Thanks for tuning in. Hopefully by now you have already read about our Kgalagadi trip days 1-3, Days 4-6 and Days 7-9. If not, do that bit of homework first! If you have, then feel free to read on and hear about how our amazing adventures continue in the magic of the Kgalagadi!
Day 10: Hartebeest for breakfast, delivered for free?
Today was the day we were leaving our beloved lion-crazy nossob to head up north to Grootkolk, an unfenced ‘wilderness’ camp with only four little cottages facing a waterhole. We had heard mixed things – some saying it was their favourite camp and others saying game viewing was quiet. If nothing else we were looking forward to a bit more peace and quiet as Nossob was a very busy and large camp, and it also meant that there were always typically a few cars around at sightings (though not quite the shit fight of Twee Riverien).
I was still holding out hope that we would spot our family of four cheetah that literally everyone else in the entire park (and possibly world) had seen except us. Foolish? Probably. I was expecting we would see lions since we knew they were all north, but alas all we saw were thousands upon thousands of tracks. No lions to be seen anywhere near Nossob! Cubitje Quap was quiet, as was the famed drive between it and Kwang (notorious for good sightings of cheetah and lion). What was going on?! We carried on making good time (despite the road being quite poor in the north) until we finally spotted a stationary car. It was the only car ahead of us, and had been our chalet neighbours who were also heading to Grootkolk that day. They had found a mating pair of lions. Finally a sighting for our morning! Even better, they were right by the road in a lovely open patch with beautiful grass behind them. Employing some newfound metering photographic skills I started taking my new national geographic photos (look out for a cover feature in upcoming months). I told Van that if we stayed with them for a while I was bound to get some good shots, particularly when they bothered to do the deed next.
But it wasn’t to be, because all of a sudden shit went down on an epic scale. The lions started looking very excited, shocked and stalk-like. Then Van got all excited. A small herd of hartebeest were coming hurtling towards the lions, totally oblivious to their presence. The lions were just as shocked as we were. Two hartebeest and a young one started slowing down, right opposite the lions (on the opposite side of the road). At this stage there were three cars at the sighting, and we were possibly blocking their view of the lions – though it was pretty clear that the lions could see them. Then things got even crazier. A hartebeest had crossed over to the side of the lions, and came to a halt maybe about two metres away from them!! Perhaps bulging eyes are not just the stuff of cartoons, because I could swear that hartebeest’s eyes popped right out of its head.
Time stood still. Nobody could believe what was happening. The hartebeest looked at the lions, the lions looked at the hartebeest. We looked at the lions and the hartebeest. The moment seemed to last a lifetime. Then all of a sudden, everyone sprang into action. I reached for my camera. The lioness launched herself at the hartebeest. The hartebeest ran for its life. Unfortunately everyone was too slow, except for the hartebeest. I didn’t get any photos or video, the lions didn’t get their breakfast, and the hartebeest didn’t get killed.
Hard to know if it was a good or a bad ending, but regardless it was quite an exciting encounter. I cursed myself for being too slow and stupid to get any decent photography. Truth be told, I had my camera in my hand, but the zoom is way too long and from the angle I was sitting I couldn’t get the hartebeest and the lion into one frame. I needed my Canon 50-500mm or the Sony for video, but I was way too stunned to do anything useful but watch what was unfolding. It was as if my brain wasn’t functioning… it was almost as if I was trying to just enjoy the moment. What a fool!
The lions immediately got up and walked onto the road, looking out both sides perhaps trying to determine what on earth just happened. Why were the hartebeest running? Why didn’t they react faster? Where did the hartebeest disappear to so quickly? I swear that hartebeest seemed to disappear off the face of the earth within seconds – not an easy feat when we are looking at a huge expanse of flat plains. Then again, they are the fastest antelope! I am not sure if the male lion was a bit cranky that his missus was so slow to react, as they seemed to have a bit of a tiff in the road… or more likely he was probably trying to hit on her and she was justifiably letting him know it was not the time nor place.
The downside to this whole crazy story was that the lions then chose a most annoying place to settle back down into – they lay down amongst bushes and grass that made photos difficult, particularly when trying to perve on them getting down to business a few minutes later. All the excitement must have proved to be an aphrodisiac!
We sat with them for another maybe half an hour or so just to see what happened, but aside from the male trying to have another go and getting violently rebuffed, not much else went down. As soon as another car came along we decided to move along. Not far down the road we came across Polentswa waterhole, and Van spotted a cheetah a few hundred metres away under a tree. The day was looking up! That was until we made the mistake of talking to the people in a car at the waterhole, who turned out to be some of the rudest people we had encountered but did manage to tell us that in fact FOUR CHEETAH had just been lying right next to their car. Right in the open, at the waterhole. MY FOUR CHEETAH THAT I HAD BEEN SEARCHING FOR MY WHOLE DAMN LIFE (or at least for the past 3-4 days).
Now I know you are all guessing what happened next. SADFACEMASTER 5000. I will admit, true to my form, I became quite sullen about it all. I am not even sure that devastated is too strong a word. All my excitement about the attempted hartebeest murder AND my national geographic cover photos dissipated and I felt like crying for the fact I missed these four cheetah AGAIN. Very stupid, I know, but I can’t help who I am! The evil Kgalagadi gods had triumphed again.
Van tried to console me and said we could come back later that afternoon, but I was still feeling quite down about it. Worse still we saw nothing more on our way to Grootkolk despite another 100,000 tracks for lions, leopards and evidence of two kills (one on the road). AND TO TOP IT OFF, they wouldn’t let us check in at Grootkolk for another hour, and we were STARVING! This despite the fact our Nossob neighbours had clearly been able to check into their unit. I bet they also saw the cheetah. LIFE IS SO UNFAIR!
We headed up to the nearest picnic site, almost at the extreme north point of the park – nothing of interest to be seen, but no surprise since it was the middle of the day and about 200 degrees.
Here Van made a small fire in the braai plate and made toasted sandwiches, which were at least quite yummy. We packed up and went back to Grootkolk, where we were now able to check in. I hadn’t realised that these unfenced camps had no electricity (only solar and gas energy) – and so we had no power to charge my computer, which was sadly dead. No blogging or photo editing for me! Instead I sat out on our verandah and read the book the Kardashians of the Kgalagadi had given me as I watched the wildebeest come and drink at the waterhole and play around. I actually desperately wanted a drink of alcohol, but for the first time in his life, Van had none!
Eventually I got too hot (I think it was about 39 degrees) and had to have a cold shower, which left me feeling much more refreshed. We hung out for a bit longer before heading out on an afternoon drive. Let me sum it up for you: long, hot, bad road, no signs of life, NO CHEETAH FAMILY, NO LIONS, more despondency and some fighting.
Clearly a great afternoon. Back at our little cottage Van mastered the braai and we ate outside before retiring early to bed. Due to my mosquito bite-ridden legs and feet I had some trouble sleeping but managed to get a few hours before being woken at 5am by lions roaring near the waterhole.
We didn’t manage to see them, but it was nice to hear the roaring nonetheless.
Time to get up and do our LONG drive to Twee Riverien!
SUMMARY:
1. SO MANY LION TRACKS BUT SO FEW LIONS
2. Attempted hartebeest murder by mating lions – or attempted hartebeest suicide and free breakfast delivery?!
3. Mean guy at Polentswa broke my heart about cheetah family. HATE HIM.
4. Afternoon drive to check out cheetah – hot. No cheetah. No lions. Fruitless. Bad road. Bad tempers. Not a great afternoon. EVIL KGALAGADI GODS CLEARLY WINNING.
Day 11: Cubs and Kamikaze bats!
As we set out from Grootkolk I felt positive that we’d at least see some nice lions early on. Not only had we just heard them an hour and a half earlier, but the tracks and signs around camp indicated there were lots of lions, and they enjoyed being on the road. I was still holding out hope of seeing the cheetah family, but this had been almost squashed completely out and I barely allowed myself to dream about it!
Unfortunately our luck seemed to have run out as the lion tracks seemed to be heading north and we decided to keep going south and not investigate as we had a very long trip ahead of us to twee riverien. Perhaps that was the wrong decision as it was relatively uneventful until we hit Polentswa again, where we could immediately hear a lion roaring. We spotted him, but he was too far away for a good sighting (or photographs), so instead we focused on the ridiculous amount of doves trying to drink at the waterhole. There were at least four falcons hunting them and it was quite the sight to behold. The doves would fly in their hundreds to the waterhole and at the slightest hint of a falcon coming (and even sometimes without one), they would all flock to the nearest trees, wait a few moments and return to the waterhole. We could see a falcon in a nearby tree was already devouring one of their friends and they were clearly trying to avoid being next.
I guess doves must get really thirsty because it occurs to me that if you are being hunted by no less than four falcons, perhaps you should just rather stay away from the waterhole altogether? Or not. What do I know? Well I know that it was a bad decision by another of the dove family because after a while we saw a falcon nail one of them and sit close by ripping its head off. Lovely! We probably could have sat there all day watching these birds but the lion had disappeared behind a bush and didn’t seem like he wanted to drink… and we had our long trip ahead, so we set out again. It was quiet again all the way to Nossob, but we did run into Jaap at Kwang waterhole and he was pretty pleased because FINALLY the photographers had struck gold that morning at Cubitje Quap (allegedly the third most photographed waterhole in the world) when a cheetah came to drink. Another cheetah sighting we missed, but at least it wasn’t my family of four (though admittedly we missed them again on the way back down).
By the time we hit Nossob we were pretty starving but couldn’t be bothered to cook anything ourselves so we devoured some sausage rolls from the shop, then continued our journey down to TR. We then came across a nice lion pride at Kameelsleep and they even had cubs! Though a water tank behind them ruined most of the photography, it was cute to finally see some cubs and also entertaining to watch the lions go and shower under the overflowing water tank – clearly enjoying it in the 41 degree heat!
Not much else on the way down, despite being told by our ex-Twee camping neighbours (the ones I originally wanted to be mauled but who turned out to be OK) that we came across on the road that there was a cheetah down the road at a waterhole. There wasn’t much to be seen other than gemsbok when we arrived. We got back to TR at around 4pm, checked into our chalet, which we initially loved (AIR CONDITIONING). But later came to hate (more on that soon).
In true form I jumped onto the reception and got some emails and banking chores done. We also went and bought some supplies from the shop. I decided I wanted to go out for an afternoon drive and perhaps just sit at the closest waterhole (quite a nice one as far as waterholes go in this park) and read my book. Someone had seen a cheetah near there at some point that day according to the sightings board, so I figured it was worth a shot. Van wasn’t interested, instead opting to stay back and watch a movie and drink a beer (fair enough), so off I went driving our little Ho all by myself. Nobody else was at the waterhole, and I sat there enjoying the peace and my book, until the FOMO part of my brain started kicking into gear. Where was everyone? I had expected that someone would have driven past by now. I started wondering about what amazing things were happening up the road from where I was. Should I leave the waterhole, or stick it out? The waterhole was no longer in the sun, so channelling the semi-pro photographers I had been hanging out with at Nossob, I decided to abandon the waterhole in search of better opportunities. Or so I hoped. As soon as I started driving north, a procession of cars passed me, leaving me wondering if I should have instead stayed at the waterhole…
About 5km further I saw two cars parked by the road and thought it was a good sign, but as I slowly drove past, the single male occupants of both cars did not want to know me and I couldn’t quite see what they were looking at. I deduced they were simply taking photos of the sunset and slowly drove past. As I got past them my brain kicked into gear and puzzled over why two cars would stop in exactly the same place to take a photo of a sunset that can surely be seen nicely at many places along the road. I looked behind me and finally saw what they were REALLY photographing. A BLOODY CHEETAH, RIGHT BESIDE THE BLOODY ROAD!! A slight panic set in as I was unaccustomed to driving after having a chauffeur for the past three months, and there was another car coming towards us. But luckily my 15 years of driving experience prior to that kicked in and I managed to find reverse and efficiently reverse back into an acceptable position that allowed for both semi-decent photos and cars to get past. Well done Cara. At this point I was actually shaking – which is very strange. I think I was part excited about finding this cheetah, but part terrified of figuring out how to manage the sighting all on my own AND take award-winning photos. It’s the first time I have ever had a good wildlife sighting without Van to either drive (99% of the time) or at least talk me through what to do (1%). Thankfully there wasn’t much to it at this point as the cheetah was simply lying down, so I moved over to the passenger seat and snapped away. I felt a slight pang of regret for all the wasted time at the other waterhole, while the good light had run out on this cheetah, but at least I didn’t wait there the whole evening and totally miss the cheetah altogether!
After a few minutes, Mr Cheetah decided he would get up, and most conveniently decided to walk in the direction my car (and only my car) was facing. ACTION TIME! I slid back over to the driver’s seat and remembered how to switch the car back on. Still winning. As all the other chumps tried to do 3-6 point turns I was meandering along beside the cheetah. I employed Van’s tactics of driving ahead, turning slightly to allow good photography out the window, taking photos/video, then moving forward again. To begin with I left the car switched on but soon decided that was probably ruining my photos (and possibly annoying the cheetah and other people), so changed tactics to switching the car off/on as needed. I followed the cheetah right until he crossed the road in front of my car and disappeared towards the dunes. What a sighting! It was time to head back to camp, so I followed the two remaining cars, although they were speeding well above the limit and I didn’t see the need for it as I had ample time to get back. On the way back I passed the sunset drive that we had considered doing and felt glad that we had decided against it! It may not have been my family of four cheetah, but it was a great cheetah sighting nonetheless.
Back at the chalet Van was expecting more dejection I am sure, but I showed him my awesome sighting and he seemed genuinely happy for me – at least to begin with! More chores and blog writing ensued, until I looked up and realised that there was a massive gap above our door as it wasn’t plumb with the door frame. So basically we were unwilling participants at a BUG CONFERENCE taking place in our chalet. My poor feet could not take any more attacks, but alas I could already feel (and see) the mosquito bites coming up on my arm. Perhaps given my feet resembled a war torn country they had decided to get to work on other areas. Or maybe they were still attacking my feet but once you have pretty much been bitten on every available surface you can’t really tell the difference?
I went over to close our screen door, hoping it would close properly, only to find that if the other door was closed, the screen door wouldn’t close AT ALL. So the options were either have a proper door closed with a massive gap at the top for all manner of bugs to invade through, or have only the screen door closed so that everyone can see in and have no security since it had no lock. BECAUSE AFRICA. Not great options. At the same time I went to have a shower and killed about 5 mosquitos in the space of a minute. OH MY GOD. I really don’t understand where all these mosquitos even come from. This park is ARID, and only has MANMADE SHITTY LITTLE WATERHOLES. I don’t even think there is one at Twee Riverien, other than the pool. Yet I feel like I have never experienced worse mosquitos in my life? WHY?!
Perhaps it will go down as one of life’s great mysteries. Either way it didn’t help our predicament. Van tried to fill the door gap and sprayed the shit out of it with Tabard, but I still got into bed and was attacked (no joke) by a cricket, a huge moth and a small moth in a matter of about a minute. I am not even joking. I managed to take the large moth and lock it in the bathroom (it attached itself to my pants), but the other two unfortunately did not fare as well. But I soon found out we had greater problems. Apparently we had a pet bat in our chalet. Van was clearly too tired to care and he fell asleep almost immediately but I hardly slept for the sound of this bat squeaking and flapping around, hitting things all over the place. Then the power went out and it got terribly hot, so I had to come out from under my covers and I swear mosquitos got me again and the itchiness on my feet was awful. I barely slept. Towards morning I could hear the bat somewhere near me and then all of a sudden it hit my face! Luckily my face was under a pillow, but I couldn’t help but scream and sit up. I don’t mind bats for the most part but when they keep me awake AND launch an assault on my head, they are just crossing the line.
Van couldn’t have cared any less about my screams and didn’t want to know about what was happening. I could have been being killed by vagrants, but he wasn’t about to intervene if it meant it would interfere with his sleep. He did finally (begrudgingly) put the light on at my request because I was scared of this bloody bat and what it would do to me if I so much as moved.
Seriously who would have expected that creatures would have been so much more bothersome when sleeping in chalets compared to when we were camping! The only thing I had to deal with in our little tent was a cute little bird that shit on my pillow. At least I wasn’t being attacked by all manner of bugs and bats. HONESTLY.
I’m not sure I really slept after that, but finally Van’s alarm went off and it was time to get up and head up to Kalahari Tented Camp for our last two nights in the park!
SUMMARY:
- Defeated by the evil Kgalagadi gods and four cheetah family for good. Officially the only people in the world not to see family of four cheetah near Nossob.
- CUBS! CHEETAH BY THE ROAD!
- MOSQUITOS STILL RUINING MY LIFE. Where are they even COMING FROM?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
- Some builder somewhere should definitely be fired. How hard is it to have a door fit in a door frame? Seems like BUILDING 101 to me.
- KAMIKAZE BAT TRYING TO KILL ME IN MY SLEEP. OMG.
Day 12: In favour of the Kgalagadi gods!!
We ended up getting out slightly late from TR to head to Kalahari Tented Camp, but I wasn’t stressed as it seemed sometimes people who left later had the better sightings (particularly with cheetah, though not in the case of my photographer’s wet dream sighting!). We had also decided unanimously to go the longer way as we believed the Nossob road to be much more productive than the Mata Mata road. Also people had spotted Caracal on this road at one specific spot three times in the past six days, which to me added up to a 50% hit rate (probably also to many other people who can compute simple sums), and since I DESPERATELY wanted to see a caracal (and really get a photo of one since I had already seen one before in Timbavati) we thought it was worth a shot.
This turned out to be a great decision as not far from camp Van managed to spot a meerkat! Nothing could really beat the meerkat experience we had already at Kalahari Trails (particularly as they basically got in Van’s lap and rubbed against us), but I still really wanted to see meerkats in the park. They were doing their meerkat thing and we stopped long enough to see them posing on the road very nicely. This was despite the fact some chinese people came along and tried to ruin everything by speaking at 1,000 decibels very annoyingly. Luckily they soon sped off and we were left to enjoy our meerkat sighting alone.
Suddenly something scared the meerkats, one of their scouts let out an alarm call and they all ran towards their burrows. We figured that was our cue to leave, so on we headed. Only a few kilometres further we pulled up to Leeudril waterhole, which so far had yielded nothing in the way of wildlife during our two weeks, but today it seemed was our day because what do we find drinking at the waterhole? THREE CHEETAHS! And absolutely no cars in sight. We sat with the mum and two young sons until they finished drinking and walked away. The two youngsters even played a bit (too far away for good pics) and it was such a lovely sighting. As they were almost disappearing over the dunes another car pulled up but they were so focused on a jackal that was now drinking at the waterhole, I don’t think they even saw the cheetahs to know what they missed out on by only minutes.
It seemed luck was on our side today! Luck continued as we simultaneously spotted a male lion lying under a tree at Kij Kij waterhole further up, just as two cars in front of us sped right past. Admittedly he was a bit far and in the shade for great pics and we still had a way to go (and breakfast to cook), so we turned down the dune road and carried on. Most people say that the dune roads are not great for sightings (as opposed to the river roads), and this has been our experience although I think we’ve only driven them twice so far – not really enough to know for sure. We have also heard more than once that 80%+ of kills are made in the dunes, so it can’t be all bad! Though Van spotted both cheetah and lion tracks, we only saw a hartebeest and some ostriches on the dune road.
Back on the other river road now, we went in search of a picnic spot to cook our breakfast. Finally we pulled into the same one we had heard the lions roaring nearby as I cooked my vegemite on toast, but it was absolutely CHOCKERS with people. Even so we found a table and pulled up next to it, but Van was already deciding it was too windy to cook and we would just go to the toilet and carry on. As it turned out we didn’t even get a chance to do that as a guy came up and told us we should hurry to the next waterhole as there were brown hyenas there. I had seen these on our sunset drive but I was very keen to see them (and get some pics) in the day so I was happy to forgo relieving myself for the opportunity! He also said there were five cheetah a bit further on, but I wasn’t as excited about that as I expected by now that they would likely be lying a few hundred metres from the road in the shade.
Sadly we didn’t manage to see the hyenas, and when we found the cheetahs the sighting was indeed crappy so we drove straight past without so much as stopping for a pic. How unlike me!
We wondered whether Kalahari tented camp would allow us to check in early – we didn’t dare hope but we were pretty keen to cook our breakfast on our deck overlooking the river bed and waterhole! Luckily the camp was unattended when we arrived with a list of people checking in and their corresponding tents. We thought we may as well give it a go, and when we showed up to our allocated tent the lady was just finishing cleaning the kitchen area. She said it was fine if we stayed, so we unpacked some of the car and watched some ostriches and springbok near the waterhole until she finished her cleaning. Then it was breakfast time!! Bacon and egg rolls – our standard!
The next few hours were spent reading, writing blogs and transferring photos (me) and playing phone games (Van) before we decided to go to Mata Mata and buy some supplies and head out on a short afternoon drive. It was once again about 37 or 38 degrees, but the heat here doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad as in Kruger. Not as much humidity. In the morning it had been 28 degrees when I was still wearing a fleece top! Maybe we are just used to it.
Anyway not much sign of any wildlife until we stumbled upon a lone and slightly sick-looking lioness lying close to a waterhole. We also bumped into some of our Kgalagadi friends from Nossob and had a long chat with them. They had had a great day, bumping into lions with cubs on the road and then finding the cheetah family of five and having them all to themselves for a while. None of this was making us jealous until they mentioned that they had driven past (and missed) a leopard in a tree! Van is on a mission to find a leopard in this park, but it looks like it will be unsuccessful as we haven’t managed anything other than leopard tracks once. Still, since the leopard had been seen close to where we were at that moment, we held out some hope that perhaps we would see it on our way back to camp.
No such luck, but perhaps even more excitingly (for me), we did find a family of bat-eared foxes as we were rushing back to camp! I even managed to get a couple of great photos before we had to leave to make it back to camp on time.
Back at camp Van got the braai going and poured some champagne (we had stocked up on some alcohol the day prior) but the fire took about 10 hours to be ready, so we didn’t eat until everyone else was IN BED. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. In fact I don’t really know as I’m writing this as I’m STILL WAITING for the fire to be ready to even put the food on. Pray for me.
In other news we do love Kalahari tented camp and I sorta wish we were staying here a little longer, although overall I think I am almost Kgalagadi’d out after these past ten days!
I wonder what we will find tomorrow? The elusive leopard? A brown hyena? The family of five cheetah? Nothing? Only the Kgalagadi gods know (and they were kind to us today).
SUMMARY:
- We are back in favour with the Kgalagadi gods! Meerkats, bat-eared foxes and a cheetah family drinking at a waterhole!! All sightings we were by ourselves
- Leopards exist – allegedly. We still remain sceptical.
- LOVE kalahari tented camp, even if the waterhole is about 50km away and is mostly obscured by a tree for us.
- MOSQUITOS CONTINUE TO RUIN MY LIFE> DEATH TO MOSQUITOS
PROCEED TO THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THIS AMAZING KGALAGADI TALE… DAYS 13-14>>>
