May 28th. We started
our Set Route at 6am, and the sun was just about to rise. It was a beautiful
cold morning, with lovely pink and orange clouds scattered around. Our drive
took us up and around new areas that I haven’t yet seen, which was awesome! We
saw a steenbok, which is a very tiny antelope species that are pretty uncommon
to see because they are so small! We also saw a lot of giraffe, zebra,
wildebeest, impala, and warthog along the drive. We crossed the Selati River
and went up north in a small area of the reserve and just kinda wandered the
roads up there. We found a gorgeous lookout with a lot of rocks that we took a
little break on and enjoyed the scenery. Then, as we were driving around, we
saw lots of lion tracks! There is a pride of lions up here, the Askaris, that
we don’t see often because we don’t come up here much. We saw some old male
tracks, probably from last month, but they were solidified in the mud. Then, we
found some fresh mufazi tracks! Two females, most likely from last night or
this morning!! Andrew and I got really stoked, because we wanted to find them,
but because it was a set route and it was already 930, we didn’t have the time
to go off-course and follow them. We are planning on spending a morning up
there looking for the pride in the next week or so. Since we know they are
actively around that area, we can go back to find them. It was a pretty warm
day, by 1030, so there weren’t any animals at any of the dams we checked. We
got done with the route about 11, and headed home. When we got back, I helped
Molly and Emily figure out how to put in their data, and then worked on my
mapping til lunch time. We had a nice lunch of sandwiches and veggies, and I
worked a bit more. Then, I read for a while as Kira made a Skype call. Then, we
got ready to go for the afternoon drive. We left at 330 and headed out to see
about some ellies and rhinos. We found really fresh rhino tracks, but no
visual. Then we heard about some ellie sightings earlier, so we headed to the
area. We ended up finding at least two herds traveling together, probably close
to 20 elephants! They paraded all around the truck and a few of them got a
little feisty and starting to flap their ears at us. We got delayed for a
while, as the ellies were in the middle of the road. We probably stayed
watching them for an hour. When a two ton elephant wants to stand in the road
and munch on a tree, everyone else waits! After watching them for a while and
trying to ID them, we moved on. We checked a few dams around, but found no
fresh lion tracks or anymore rhino tracks. Then we headed on a search for some
hyena, but to no avail. On the way home, we stopped on the airstrip and turned
the lights off and just stared at the stars for a while. It was absolutely
beautiful! :) Lukas pointed out some constellations that are visible at this
time of year. Then we returned home, “famba a kaya” in Zulu. Gail and Peter
cooked up some chicken stir-fry for dinner, and it was super yummy! We sat
around the fire until 9, then we all cleaned up and headed off. Rhino walk
tomorrow morning :D
Sunrise 28-5-13
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