18th – Last drive

The day started as planned like yesterday and at 0530 we were off on our last drive of the trip. The focus was to try and find the elephants further south in the park. There was a lot of driving and racing around but our driver and tracker had to admit that the elephants had gone into the thicket where we were not able to follow.

Despite the results of this hunt we consoled our selves with the fact that the weather for once was really nice and no ponchos were needed. It had turned truly enjoyable.

Gabar goshawk.

Brown snake eagle.

Rock hyraxes.

Lovely weather when crossing a riverbed.

The always elusive leopard was still on everybody’s radar and luck was with us – at least partially; we saw it for a brief 2 seconds while crossing the road in the distance. And that was it. Due to how fast it was over no one got a shot of it (including those in the other car) which was a bit of a relief for me as I didn’t even get to point the camera in its general direction before it had disappeared again. But officially the leopard had hereby been spotted.

A very short quill from a porcupine.

Having spotted to the leopard (albeit very briefly) I realized how much I had been focused on spotting one as I relaxed quite a bit afterwards and took the rest of the drive in a more mentally leaned back state than before. We did get a small bonus towards the end of the drive, though, as we (not literally!) bumped into the cheetah family again when we found them relaxing near the road. The cubs were more active than yesterday but otherwise there was still a lot of purring heard.

We arrived back at the lodge a bit past 0900 where we had breakfast after which I returned to my tent, had a quick shower and packed. The but got packed, bills were paid and we were off around 1030-1100.

African striped skink that seems to have lost its tail.

The drive back to Johannesburg was uneventful – we had our last break where all the rhinos were but this time we got lucky as they were all much closer to where we were. We arrived back at our destination at 1830 and an hour later we had our last dinner together.

More rhinos.

Sable antelope.

Even more rhinos!

I was not given my old room again so my 6’er streak was broken, instead I got room 9 which had a balcony form where I could see lightning in the distance. I set my camera up to try to do a time lapse with the view but it seemed as if I missed the majority of it.

Tomorrow most people will be leaving for the airport after breakfast at 0730 as they are doing this safari as part of a longer trip; some are returning to Cape Town, some to Vic Falls etc. 3 of us are staying a bit longer as our flights aren’t until almost 1900.