Wednesday 19th March 2014

Before Jomi and I got to walk solo again we had to go on a big loop around to the top of San Pad to drag a fallen tree across the top of it to say that the road was officially closed. It took us a while to get there, not just because of the distance but because of the stunning sunrise on a spectacularly misty Makuleke morning.

Because Wien is on the sleep out he has the second .458, this means I’m walking with the .375, it’s still big calibre but it is noticeably smaller. The smaller bullet means there’s less margin for error, I’d much rather something that’s capable of making a bigger hole. The walk was successful as we had an epic buffalo encounter. We had the sun and wind in our favour which meant we could take our packs off, sit down and get comfortable as we watched 200 plus buffalo cross the flood plain in front of us.

We finished off the walk by taking in the various pans and vleis (marshes), this didn’t go according to plan as we had to wade knee deep through the water. In fact Jomi actually went in up to his waste when he stepped in an old aardvark hole. Despite being on alert for possible crocs cruising the area it was still a lot of fun.

The rest of the day involved a lot of driving about with little time for anything else, not even a shower. I wouldn’t have it any other way especially as I led in the afternoon. Again Jomi and I went looking for encounters, this time only one. I was leading and found it hard work, it’s not that easy finding the buffalo and even less easy finding the best route to them despite spotting them initially from the hill.

On the way back to camp we saw a leopard on Pafuri Main, this finished off another fantastic day in Africa in style.