Monday 10th March 2014

The weather was poor this morning and at one point I thought we were going to be rained off. If we had it would have been so disappointing for Mum and Dad to have one of their game drives taken away from them. As it happened we were fine despite a small shower, we certainly faired better than those who had gone to the shooting range 20km to the west at one end of the concession. The torrential rain that they had meant that they had to abort after only two shooters.

We had no major sightings although we did hear an elephant in the thick bush when I was telling Mum and Dad all about a tree. No matter how interesting a tree is it’s not going to compete with an ele. The highlight of the trip was a cuppa on the kopje overlooking Makwadzi Pan, another opportunity to spend time with my folks and let them take in the amazing view over to the Limpopo.

When back in camp Mum and Dad relaxed on their deck with Mum starting to make a list of everything we’d seen. Unfortunately there wasn’t much to put down yet, fingers crossed that will change over the next couple of days. During various duties around camp I kept on popping in to say hi to see how they were getting on. It started to heat up which was encouraging for the afternoon drive but made my 5k around the fire break hard going.

We had some luck on the afternoon game drive, lots of zebra, kudu and jackal, some buffalo as well as the impala, nyala and baboons which are quickly becoming firm favourites. Our rarest spot were the three ground hornbills at Rhino Boma on our way to the bridge for sundowners.

As we made our way back to camp we heard a leopard calling. I got very excited and suggested that we take a slight detour to see if we could see it. Mum wasn’t too keen to be charging around the African bush in the dark looking for this big cat, I actually think she was more worried about me getting us lost. Dad seemed to be getting into it with his normal calm exterior giving way to youthful excitement when the spotlight caught the eyes of an animal on the road ahead. I really enjoyed this and just wished it had come off and we’d found the leopard, there’s still tomorrow night to come.