I was awoken in the night by the heavy smell of smoke. I got up and checked our huts roof and those of the huts around us…all ok, so the smell was coming from the controlled burn. I returned to bed and had a restless remainder of the night sleep. We both woke early with headaches from the smoke, we needed the fresher air outside the hut to clear our heads.
Today we packed up ready to leave Shingwedzi. We were sad to leave. It was a great camp and excellent game spotting. We said goodbye to Josephine, who was busy chasing a large baboon around with her rake, because he had stollen her black bin liner full of rubbish…..yes it was as funny as it sounds but I kept a straight face and sympathised with her about what a nuisance the baboons were🤣🤣 But on a more serious note …visitors feed the baboons, we evidenced this when we saw one eating a cut up piece of fruit.
Feeding them is signing their death warrant, because they then become a nuisance, they expect food and they are dangerous wild animals…in the end the rangers have no choice but to shoot the whole troop to keep the visitors safe….so if you do safari PLEASE never feed any animal.
We set off down the road, on the way up it had been a tedious drive with very little wildlife to be seen. I gave John the first choice of what we’d see first and he once again said Waterbuck…they had been prolific in the area, I said I’d have pangolin as that way John couldn’t fail to win and he was lagging 5-1 behind….however John said that he didn’t want a gimme so I selected zebra.
Our first spotting was a large elephant, followed by a giraffe. A little later we saw a large herd of zebra…sorry John, it was several hours later before we saw waterbuck, whom John now declares are not his friends…. 6-1 to me!oh dear! 🤣🤣
We continued along the road….up until Mopani we saw a variety of game at fairly regular intervals.
There was a lovely waterhole with drinking tower where elephants were drinking both from the tower and the trough. Buffalo, tsessebe, zebra, impala were all loitering with intent.
A long line of waterbuck crossed the road to join the queue at the trough.
As we progressed we saw another herd of zebra and at the back of the group was a male ostrich. This is only the third ostrich we’ve seen all trip.
The ostrich is the largest and heaviest living bird. They are flightless. Ostriches are also the fastest running bird, they are able to reach speeds 35 kms an hour Males are typically larger than females, weighing up to 287 pounds and measuring up to 9 feet in height.
A kick from an ostrich is powerful enough to kill a human. They are sometimes referred to as the “ camel bird”. They are heavily farmed and rather frighteningly over a million a year are killed for the fashion industry. They are also farmed for their meat, every part of an ostrich can be used in the farming market- their skin for leather, feathers and meat. There are farms in the Cape area where you can ride an ostrich, sitting behind its neck. However we much prefer to see them in the wild and our sighting was very welcomed. We didn’t see a female with him…when they are courting a mate the males, usually white, legs turn bright pink and they put on a dance display by opening their wings and showing their jet black feathers and pink legs off. The female is a rather greyish brown.
About 12 km before Mopani Camp you cross the Tropic of Capricorn line.
On arriving at Mopani there was a huge herd of buffalo already sitting in the shade. The temperature had reached 33 degrees Celsius.
There was also along line of wildebeest strolling towards a very small waterhole…a few zebra mingled around.
We stopped at Mopani camp for a leg stretch and the loo. It is situated on a dam with a reasonable amount of water in it but there were no animals taking advantage of it. The shop was very well stocked. The camp used to be a delight, but a couple on our former sunset drive said the chalets were very tired and it didn’t seem to have been modernised or even refreshed since it opened in the early 1990’s.
From Mopani to Olifants with the exception of a pair of white backed vultures ( WBV) we saw “diddly squat”…..unless you count anthills. It was a long drive with the cars cruise control locked in to 47kmph all that was left for me to do was steer….it really is a dry area for game. We passed Letaba and headed on to Olifants. The turn up from the main road to camp is 9 km…we laughingly said “ let’s see if the number of animals we spot equals the number of km”…..no it was 9-0 to the kms🤣
We booked in…our hut was a small rondavel, not unsimilar to the Letaba hut….only this time the curtains had been replaced and did meet in the middle. There was only room for one case and the only plug socket was once again next to the sink….(because I didn’t book until April this was the only accommodation available, it’s wise to book 11 months in advance and choose the best accommodation you can afford. If it’s just 2 of you try for a 3 bedroomed hut so you have somewhere to open your bags and cases) . The air conditioning took several hours to cool the rondavel to a comfortable temperature. We did however have a view of the river and we could see two hippo having an altercation.
We headed out for a drive at about 4.30pm. We took the road down to Balule Camp because it runs alongside the river. We saw a couple of elephant in the river…apart from that our circle back on to the main road was once again devoid of any living creature. Once back on the main road we headed along toward the Olifants Camp turn off, suddenly a couple of large elephants walked across the road from the river, stopping on the road edge to browse from the shrubbery. Then more and more came. A car came up close behind me..I swerved on to the other side of the road and reversed next to them. I told them I’d done it because they had got too close to me and didn’t give me the opportunity to reverse at speed if I needed to avoid a stampeding elephant….turns out they were French and didn’t understand a word I said. Another car arrived and I reversed back to them….it was a breeding herd of elephants. A youngster stood on the road kneeled down and punched his head onto the tarmac… a strange gesture and we were uncertain whether it was scared or angry. Finally after 20 minutes they all, seemed to have crossed the road including the youngster. Although two were still feeding on the road edge we followed the French car leaving enough distance for us to be able to accelerate if necessary.
We turned up the 9 km road to the camp. This time it was 9-1 to the km…a giraffe obligingly gave us a nice view. We made it back into camp a few minutes before the gate closes….i don’t know whether an elephant roadblock would have been excuse enough, if we’d been late🤣🤣
Our viewing count for the day was 99+ impala, 4 squirrels, 60 wildebeest, 1 yellow billed hornbill, 2 yellow billed stork, 1 lilac breasted rollers, 11 warthog, 5 quail, 21 giraffe, 99+ elephants, 99+ zebra, 1 ostrich, 1 kudu, 5 tsessebe, 75 buffalo, 47 waterbuck, 1 saddle-billed stork, 13 hippo, 3 WBV.
We went to the restaurant for supper…I had roasted chicken and John had venison steak. It came to £23 which included two Coke lites each. We asked a couple who had come in from the parks sunset drive if they had seen much. We had been toying about taking it the following night. But as they had only seen a scrub hare, a jackal and an owl we decided to give it a miss and save the money for an extra drive in Satara.
We returned to our bijou rondavel for a game of cards and an early night…in beds which could have been made of rock.
2 J's World of Adventure 