"After a good nights sleep, I headed off to the showers. Being kind of a bunny hugger I really appreciate the whole Eco camp philosophy, that is until you have a cold morning shower, as the solar power hasn't worked its magic at 6 in the morning. Olifantsrus is a nice camp but we felt they could have done more – they could have made the camp areas a little more private and had more showers.
After coffee we packed up and went back to the view site. As the area is so dry, the waterholes are all teaming with game and birds. This morning I added kudu, jackal and another 3 birds to our list.
We left camp for the 190 km trip around 8:30. We stopped at all the waterholes on route, they are usually a few hundred meters off the road. You soon got to pick up which waterholes had water and which didn't, those that didn't had no signs of life around.
At Sonderkop waterhole we saw more animals around the small water hole than I have ever seen: herds of red hartebeest, zebra, springbok, gemsbok, wildebeest, warthog, ostrich, jackal and guinea fowl all crowded around, waiting for their turn to drink before loping off. There was no vegetation for hundreds of meters around. There was definitely a sense of agitation as the animals waited their turn, the plaintive cry of the wildebeest and the bark of the zebra were most prominent.
At the next waterhole,Ozonjutji m’Bari, we again had herds of zebra, gemsbok, wildebeest and springbok. There was more water and the atmosphere was less frenetic, which was surprising considering there were 3 lionesses under one tree and a mating pair under another – the male was huge with a black mane. What a life, food and water on tap – it would be like Kirst living next to Sandton City.
We stopped at Okaukuejo, with it’s big castle turret like structure for lunch. The last time we were here here, I climbed to the top of the castle with Robs. I gave her a call, nice to have reception in the camp, and was relieved to hear the doctor was happy that she was on the mend. She was more concerned about the effect of being on meds on her social life and thought it ‘sucked’ because she was not with us.
From Okaukeujo we headed past the southern section of the pan. On our last visit the pan was full of water. We also added elephants and birds to our list along the way and we saw some big sociable weaver nests.
At Halali, we met up with Al and Tony again. It is really nice camp, reminds me a lot of the Kruger National Park camps. We did another sunset hide visit, at this one you sit on a bank of rocks overlooking the waterhole. We arrived to a herd of ellies and a black rhino drinking. It was fascinating to see a standoff between the two. Our memories of this viewing will be somewhat marred by my usually law abiding husband not taking much note of the ‘Be Silent’ sign; a noisy drinks pouring session, followed by his pinging cellphone, then the loud sneezing, topping it off with a fart – and very dirty looks from all around.
We slunk back to our very comfortable hut for chicken potjie for dinner.
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