One of those days that starts off full of promise, but delivers little on the promise.
I was up early, but avoided the mob at the gate at 05h30, but left at the much more respectable hour of 06h00. The day was beautiful, cool at first with not much cloud around. I was keen and anticipated action.
Well the most action I got was just before my pre-determined turnaround point a grouping of three vehicles parked on the roadside brought a glimmer of hope. The cars were positioned such that I could not enquire what the attraction was. A quick sweep with the binoculars revealed just green veld and not much else. I waited, and low and behold a head of a leopard appeared at the base of a tree about 80m away. The glass confirmed that he was big, just how big I don’t know, but his head was huge. It counted a tick for the list, but it was only a head shot. So much for leopards being in trees, this one was lying at the base of one in the shade. When he put his head down he was completely invisible. A great spot to whoever picked him up.
A feature of the drive was the lack of plains game in the riverbed. My previous experience had been that the buck, wildebeests etc. all feed in the riverbed while the predators view from the dunes. Well, several times on the drive I saw groups of buck up on the dune slopes feeding. My reasoning is that because the feeding is so abundant now the animals actually know it is safer for them on the slopes as cheetah, for example, cannot hunt them. There are still loads of standing water pools so the designated waterholes, usually a sure place to view, are redundant now.
The other reason is that I have heard comment that the Mata Mata side is producing poor animal sightings. My experience confirms this, but maybe I am doing things wrong.
At the designated picnic stops it is always welcome to stop and these usually coincide with breakfast. It really is easy out of my truck now and I have eventually got quite organized. Today I arrived at one simultaneously with another traveler. In the time they were still waiting for their water to boil in their kettle I had finished my breakfast and tea. This prompted them to come over and inspect my set-up. Poor husband was berated by the wife to be more organized “like this guy”. Always nice to chat to fellow travelers. They confirmed the lack of decent sightings.
A first real cloudless day today and of course the heat came up a bit. I decided to forego the afternoon drive as the morning drive was quite long and I would be covering the same ground as the morning drive the next day. At Mata Mata there is only one way to go and that is south. In addition, I would be covering that same ground on my outbound journey to Nossob Camp tomorrow.
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