“The day that the rains came” – by Jane Morgan No. 1 on the UK singles chart in 1959 – she died a couple of months ago aged 101….(makes my dad look like a spring chicken at 94 this year 🤣🤣🤣). NO! I am not old enough to remember it, but it seemed an appropriate song to start the day….cold, grey, drizzle…that wonderful smell the bush exudes when it’s been dry for so long and then it gets damped upon.. The temperature didn’t rise to more than 17 degrees Celsius all day and in England we would have called it a miserable grey day….but we’re not in England and in SA it was yet another day for wildlife spotting.
We had a slow start to the day…both of us aching from the rock hard beds…we’re so used to our luxury encapsulated sprung memory foam mattress…we forget how fortunate we are until a bed like last nights reminds us 🤣🤣. But thankfully the shower was powerful enough to massage the aches and pains…
We made a plan and decided to drive the river loops between Olifants and Letaba…that was plan “A”….. John was allowed two choices of first spot today because he is 6-1 down…. He chose elephant and giraffe and I chose zebra….off we went …Oh my goodness!!!! The vibration from the corrugated roads was the worse so far…thank goodness we don’t have false teeth because I am telling you even our jaws were rattling and we’d defiantly have lost any falsies🤣🤣🤣….i didn’t need to bring the “tens” machine with us, these roads shock every fibre within your body….
After 45 minutes without a single sighting Plan “B” was made and we took the circular road back to Olifants…. John was just saying “in 5 minutes time we’ll have been going an our without seeing a single creature, animal or bird”. As he finished talking I caught sight of a Grey Lourie ( now renamed The Go- away bird) . Then 2 minutes later we saw a giraffe standing next to 2 zebra…John claimed the point..6-2 …
Back on the tar we were going to go down to Balule Camp on the dirt…but as I was actually having to use the windscreen wipers, the drizzle was slow steady rain, we hatched Plan “C”. Staying on the tar we saw a nice small troop of Chacma baboons.
Turning down towards Satara we saw a herd of Waterbuck in the rivers shallow channels. Other cars were stopped and it was soon apparent that they weren’t looking at the buck. We asked a car and they said 3 lionesses had been seen……been was the operable word…they could no longer be seen. ….some cars crawled along the road at the edge of the river…we asked again and were told 2 male lions had been seen..yeah! Who started this rumour…no one still there had actually seen a lion….we left them to it.
A little further on we saw a lovely African harrier hawk in a tree next to the road.
As we went over the bridge I spied two magnificent Goliath Herons…they really are majestic…we haven’t seen one since we were with Same Aaron in Botswana in 2023. We spent some time watching them wade in the shallows.
We had been going to turn towards the East and take the road which runs parallel to the Mozambique boarder….but we still hadn’t seen many mammals so Plan “D” was hatched and we turned to the west. It was again a bone-shaker road. After a while we saw a fabulous Kori Bustard….they are very strange looking birds…the largest flying bird native to Africa.
We continued on and as the surrounding area opened up into scrub land plains…and there darting across the plains, across the road and back again were not only one but 3 Black Backed Jackals…..
Black backed jackals are a widely distributed species that are known for their cunning and daring. They are often seen nipping in to steal a morsel from Lions. They have a distinctive call known almost as well as the roar of a lion. They are the most common and best known of all the African carnivores. The name jackal is frequently used to denote the cunning and versatility so typical of this species. They have a dark saddle on the back, which runs from the nape of the neck to the base of the tail. They have a black, bushy tail and reddish flanks and limbs; standing about 400 mm at the shoulder and a meter in total length. Our 3 black backed Jackals were racing around.
A red billed hornbill even photo-bombed my attempt at capturing a running jackal.
I was ecstatic about our sighting as they are one of my absolute favourites.
Shortly after seeing these little fellas we about turned and retraced our steps. On the way back we saw pockets wildebeest keeping out of the rain under a tree.
At the tar road we went straight over on to the Balule Camp Road. We saw quite large groups of impala mostly laid down, keeping warm out of the wind, it had by now stopped raining.
A group of waterbuck grazed at the road side and small groups of zebra hid behind bushes.
We crossed the river on the low pontoon, nothing was on the banks or in the water.
We sat overlooking the water to eat our sandwich before heading back to Olifants camp. We were almost back to the tar when I almost drove past a massive elephant just munching on a bush at the side of the road. We had a quiet conversation and he continued to enjoy his snack while we slowly passed by.
A few metres further on was a much smaller elephant who had obvious aggression towards us…shaking his ears and stamping his feet…we accelerated passed tout de suite, without incident.
Our viewing count for the day was quite low 99+ impala, 2 lilac breasted rollers, 1 grey Lourie, I African fish eagle, 1 African harrier hawk, 6 giraffe, 25 zebra, 2 Goliath herons, 8 baboons, 1 yellow billed hornbill bill, 3 red billed hornbill, 17 waterbuck, 3 black backed jackals, 18 wildebeest, 3 elephants.
Back in the camp we spent the afternoon resting before going to the restaurant for supper. It was heaving as no-one wanted to braii in this inclement weather. We both had burgers, I had chicken breast and John had beef, a Diet Coke each and ice cream to round it off…all for the princely sum of £17.00.
We wandered back to our hut using torchlight then snuggled down for the night…too cold to sit outside and play cards and no room inside.
Tomorrow we head to Satara.
2 J's World of Adventure 