Wednesday 9th April 2014

Again I didn’t sleep well because I was anxious about missing my alarm, I need to trust it to go off on time as it does every morning when I’m on duty. The lack of sleep left me pretty bushed but I found a cunning technique to rest my eyes every now and again. I’d pick up my binoculars and look into a tree whilst discretely closing my eyes for a while, kind of a power nap so to speak.

This morning we walked Rhino Boma from the old Wilderness camp access road, a good walk but unfortunately no encounters again. We did have a hippo come at us from in the water but he stopped when he reached the imaginary line of his territory. As we backed off he displayed for us by shouting, showing his teeth and thrashing about.

For our afternoon activity we set off early and headed west to the far end of the concession via the old western boundary. I was secretly hoping to see the lion and cubs again but we had no luck. It was an incredibly long drive down to Banine Pan but worth it, we set up afternoon tea and had our sundowners overlooking the pan.

On the drive back we bumped a breeding herd of eles who took a disliking to us with two of them trumpeting and running towards us as we whizzed by in the Cruiser. We really wanted to show our guests a leopard, they are such great people and deserved a sighting but again no luck.

I was responsible for the Braai tonight and managed it with little help/interference which was very surprising given my South African audience.