I was surprised in the early morning that it was pleasantly cool. Cool enough to pull some duvet up. A heavy overnight due had fallen and the tent sheet was dripping wet. Who would have thought that in mid Jan where it is supposed to be the hottest month? It made for a very pleasant start to the day.
The previous night the African Scopps Owls owls had been working overtime with calling and there were other animals calls as well. No lion roaring and that meant they were at least 15km from the camp. As usual I was up early. Although the gate opening time is 05h30 it always amazes me that people start lining up at the gate at about 05h00. What for? The gate is not going to be opened any earlier. Being in the premium campsite your private bathroom is right next to your car so a 05h30 warm shower was welcome before heading out.
I always enjoy the northerly direction early in the morning. Not much action at the first two waterholes, but then a stopped car ahead alerted me to a sighting. A group of 5 lions about 80m from the road were settling in for the day. Further on the game concentrations picked up and it was hugely relaxing just to park off at the waterholes to just enjoy the views. A feature of the waterholes was that usually you had them all to yourself. Birdlife was fair with some raptors spotted as well as the usual smaller birds. Outbound the road was damp so spotting animal spoors was easy. On the return I was tracking a decent sized cat spoor on the side of the road and this culminated in a magnificent male lion lying right next to the road. Again, a sighting I had all to myself. I spent some time with the king of the beasts as he was in really good condition and was just relaxing totally unperturbed when, in my excitement, I accidently pressed the hooter when bending down to get my camera.
The return journey proved totally different to the outbound journey. By now the heat had got up considerably and the road had dried completely to the usual loose sand and corrugations in parts.
It really has been hot for the rest of the day and I elected to stay in camp rather than go out in the heat. Judging by the cars in the campsite that was the majority decision. I expect the lions to come down to the campsite in the next day or two so hopefully we may have some action right in front of us.
A feature that I have noticed is the volume of these enormous anchors that people tow. Just about everyone in the campsite has one. They are packed with everything and then some. I look at my simple set-up and wonder am I missing something? At a cost of several hundred thousand Rand it is a massive amount of money to tie up for the two or three trips you may take in a year if you lucky. They seem to take hours to put up and take down again. As a general comment the website gives Nossob campsite as full, but, at a guess, it is about 60% capacity.
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