Getting back onto the vehicle after a holiday is always a little daunting. All the information that was so easily available before the break is now shoved way to the back of the brain, behind the memories of all the good times that were had whilst on leave. Running through the safety brief with my new guests is the start of the relationship that is formed and from the looks of things the three Swiss ladies and myself were going to get along like a house on fire. The request from the ladies was to see some cats and they said that they were interested in everything else. After the first 15 minutes we found the lions that I had sneakily found that afternoon and after watching the 7 adolescents trying to keep out of the afternoon sun and were still digesting the buffalo that they had killed and eaten within a day and a half. By my calculation that is nearly 80kg of meat each in a day and a half...WOW!
From then onwards the drive just got easier, the ladies really starting enjoying the little things and we still managed to finish the rest of the drive off with buffalo, elephant and rhino... Whilst having our sundowner, I managed to find out that I had a secret agent in the group as one of the ladies works at a lodge in Tanzania and was out visiting on holiday...her bush knowledge had seemed too good for a regular tourist, but as a ranger it is always nice to teach someone with a lot of knowledge a little something more...
After dinner and some deep and meaningful conversations about the meaning of life we headed to the parking area for a star gazing session...the stars were just magnificent and we got there just as the moon was setting. Once I had pointed out some of the major constellations we all just lay there on the ground staring at the stars. Through the whole time we were there we had a small meteor shower come through and within the space of 20 minutes I saw 5 shooting stars... Lets just say that I was happy to have a place to lay my wishes down...
This morning started off with a bit of adrenalin as our little bush leopard was busy calling in the river bed as we were heading round doing wake up calls. Obviously she was now our target for the morning drive and by no means an easy one. This female is the shyest of all our cats that live in and around the property and an absolute nightmare to track on foot. We set out and immediately picked up her tracks in the river and we could hear the birds and squirrels alarm calling near by. So we set off in to the next crossing point in the river to try get ahead of her. Solly and I hopped out of the car to see if she had crossed and as we walked down the river we heard another squirrel betraying the whereabouts of the leopard. We decided to jump into the landie and head down the river so as not to scare her if she saw us on foot...we hadn't driven thirty metres before we found her looking down on us from a fallen down marula on the bank of the river. She hung around for 30 seconds and then jumped down into the long grass. Trevor was also trying to get in to see her and we were now trying to pull out of the river while Trevor was moving around to see if he could cut her off. But true to the nature of a leopard she just proved too clever for us. She was always crossing just behind us and to make matters worse we had birds alarm calling like mad in a tree nearby and we were certain that it was her...turned out to be a verreauxs eagle owl that had been spotted by every animal that side of the property and with our attention pointed in the wrong direction our leopard slipped away from us.
It was now time to find some other things and again start talking about and explaining the little things. The questions from the ladies were just perfect and always of high intelligence which just allows me to get really deep into all the subjects. We spent some time with 2 male rhinos and a pair of zebra, then went off to have a cup of coffee and finish the morning off with a walk.
No comments:
Post a Comment