Safari continued

Thursday 7th September:
Every morning we get a 5:30am wake up call from Brian for the morning game drive. I was already awake, excited for our first morning drive after yesterday afternoons drive being so amazing, but the phone rang and so I woke Harry up. We quickly got ready and met at the meeting area in the main lodge (where the meals are).

We then got in the jeep and off we went. It was much colder in the morning as we had been warned, so we had wrapped up warm.

It was lovely seeing the park in the morning with the sun rising. It looks so different at that time in the morning to during the day – beautiful colours and lots of silhouettes. Brian loves the sun rises and always sings ‘here comes the sun’ (The Beatles) when he sees it.

It was another amazing drive 6am-9am. We saw some of the same animals again, but some of the new animals we saw were Hornbill (grey and yellow), Buffalo, Rhino, Hyena, Wildebeest and Baboon. Here were a couple of my favourite photos…

Towards the end of the drive, Brian and Charlie were talking in their local language about what we were going to see last (they wanted to keep it a surprise). We arrived and there we saw 6 month old lion cubs with thwir mum, having killed and eating an impala.

It was getting on for 9am (breakfast time), so we headed back to the lodge, thanked Brian and Charlie and went straight for breakfast. It was lovely, as all the food is here, and what a great view to eat all your meals in front of!

After breakfast and the early start, we relaxed on the sun beds on our balcony and Harry had a little snooze while I watched the elephants at the water hole that you can see from our balcony.

At 1pm, it was time for more food – lunch. You’re constantly eating at this place! After a lovely lunch, it was time for our afternoon drive. We met at the main lodge at 3:30 for tea and coffee and heading out on the drive at 4. Brian told us we were going on a Cheetah search this afternoon!

In addition to some of the previously see animals, some of the new ones we saw on this drive were Hoopoo, Magpie shrike, Lilac breasted rola, Ostrich and… Cheetah!! My best photos from the drive…

As the sun started to set, it was time to find somewhere to pull up for the usual ‘sun downers’ (drinks and snacks from ‘Charlie’s bar’, as he calls it). I decided to try the South African Amarula this time as apposed the the delicious Savana cider I had yesterday. It’s a bit like a bayleys that you have over ice. Harry had his usual local beer.

We drove back in the dark looking for nocturnal animals, but no luck today.

We got back at 7, in time for a quick change before dinner at the main dining area. We had a couple of cocktails with dinner and Harry had lamb shank and I had a veggie lasagna – delish! They shine a light on the water hole in front of the main lodge decking so you can see if any wildlife comes to it in the dark.

Friday 8th September
We got our usual 5:30am wake up call from Brian, got up and ready and met to head out on the morning drive. We had a new German couple join our group. We were going on a male lion search! Here were some photos during our search…

And then we found them, 5 lions! Two female mums and three full grown cubs – amazing! We followed them for quite a while as they wandered around.

Some other new animals that we saw on the drive were waterbuck, which you don’t see many of due to the lack of water in the area, and we found honey badger tracks but not the actual animal.

Brian then found a spot to pull up and get out – despite only recently seeing lions nearby!! They offered us tea, coffee, hot chocolate or bush mix (a mixture of coffee, hot chocolate and Amarula – the bayleys like drink I had had the evening before). I had a local Roibus tea and Haz tried the bush mix – I tried his, it was delicious! I’ll be having one of those next time. We had the drinks with blueberry muffins.

We then drove to a nearby pond and saw some new animals… Egyptian and spur wing goose, a Nile Crocodile, a Terrapin and an Egrit.

We then drove back to the lodge for breakfast. We relaxed for an hour or so after breakfast and then decided that we maybe needed to do a bit of exercise with the amount of food and drink we were consuming! So we went in the lodge gym for half an hour and then in our plunge pool to cook down after. We then went up to the main swimming pool to relax on the sun loungers and have a dip in the pool before lunch.

After lunch we relaxed in our lodge – Harry did some sun bathing and I caught up on some blog writing.

We met at the main lodge for tea and coffee and then headed out on the afternoon game drive. The afternoon drive was a bit quieter, we didn’t see many of the usual bigger animals but we saw a few new animals and birds including lots of Ground Squirrel, that live in little burrow holes in the ground, Pale chanting goshawk, Sand grouse, Glossy starling, Ant eating chat, Crimson breasted shrike, a baby giraffe (too far to get a photo), Grey goaway and a Black backed Jackel. A few photos…

We then stopped for our sun down drinks and snacks – a GnT today. As usual we then drove back to the lodge in the dark looking for nocturnal animals. I took a picture of how dark it is when we are driving back.

On our way back we saw a Genit, which Brian said is quite rare to see. It’s a tiny relative of the leopard (the only one of the big 5 that we haven’t managed to see yet – so we are claiming we have from seeing a Genit!)

When we got back to the lodge, we quickly changed and then headed for dinner. Everyone sat by the fire for pre-dinner drinks and then tonight we had dinner with our whole group rather than just Harry and I – so with Charlie, Brian, Richard, Paula and the German couple. It was a nice chance to hear about Brian and Charlie’s lives outside of work. while eating dinner we saw some Rhino visit the water hole in front of the lodge.