We were getting quite good at packing up and once again managed to get away soon after the gate opened at 6h30. We decided to take the MataMata road north and then cross over on the dune road to get to Nossob. This road is less busy in the morning and there is less dust. It was quiet at Samevloeiing. At Houmoed we had a great surprise. A beautiful male leopard was drinking water and every now and then calmly checked his surroundings. We had plenty of time to photograph this magnificent animal, before he slowly walked off through the tall grass and disappeared in the dunes. What a sighting. There was only one other car to witness this wonderful scene. It was rather overcast and the light for photography was initially very difficult, especially for my phone. We saw the giraffes again as well as big herds of gemsbok. We also saw large herds of springbok. It was as if they were “floating” in the tall grass. A lively young little one gave us a magnificent show. A Martial eagle also posed beautifully for us and a steenbokkie stood long enough in the road for a photograph. A pair of pale chanting goshawks also gave us a chance to photograph them. We skipped Auchterlonie this time and continued to Kamqua for morning coffee. The Ashkam milk tart was still on the menu! On the dune road, the ostriches we had seen previously were once again “hogging” the road. At the Morevet waterhole a gemsbok stood as if frozen in time. It was much cooler this time. It was still quite early for lunch when we got to Dikbaardskolk, but we decided to enjoy the birds (mainly sociable weavers and glossy starlings) and have lunch anyway. It was fairly quiet along the road to Nossob, but we saw quite a lot of gemsbok and of course some raptors. We saw what looked like a rag alongside the road and discovered that this was a very sleepy lion! It was great to drive through the gate at Nossob again. We checked in and Marianne quickly went to check out the hide. All was quiet there. We decided to claim a campsite and left our chairs and wood there. We were opposite the couple from Uitenhage we had been talking to at Twee Rivieren. Marianne suddenly got a bright idea. Perhaps we could ask this couple if they would mind if we shared their camp site for the next night. We were very keen to go to Union’s End again, but then one needs to sleep at Nossob again. The sweet girl at reception had indicated that this would be a good plan since she had no vacant camp sites on her system. The couple did not mind and came along to reception to arrange this. We gave them half the campsite money (R180) and paid the R100 per person for the extra two people on the site. We were so excited. Now we could drive to Union’s End!! It was too late to order bread from the shop, but we bought some meat for our braai that evening and bought water for the long road. We tried to fill up with diesel, but discovered that the Nossob tanks were nearly dry. Hendrik, the attendant could only give us a 25 l ration. This would probably be enough to get us to Union’s End and back. We decided to ask Hendrik to fix our flat tyre and he seemed to be very familiar with tubes and split rims. So we left the wheel and our new tube behind and headed north for a late afternoon game drive. It was all quiet at Cubitje Quap and there was also little action at Kwang. But there were huge herds of blue wildebeest and gemsbok in the riverbed. And lots of raptors. The veld looked magnificent. It was obvious that the north of the park had received the bulk of the rain. We slowly drove back and got back to camp at 18h30. Hendrik had wheel ready for us. He and his helper had hopefully done a good job. The girl at reception also had good news for us. She could offer us a night at Bitterpan and then at MataMata. This would be perfect, because the Bitterpan booking entails driving the 100 km 4x4 trail through the dunes on the track that connects Nossob and MataMata. She had actually blocked off this booking for us! We were delighted. Marianne popped down to the hide a few times, but this time the lions stayed away. Instead a little band of bat eared foxes were gorging themselves on the abundance of insects that had been attracted to the light over the waterhole. We managed to take some footage with the Huawei phone. They were delightful to watch. We settled down to a lovely braai, but discovered that the grasshoppers and other insects had also arrived at Nossob and we had to keep Troopy as dark as possible. We by now had learnt to live with this invasion. It was great having kitchen facilities again. At Nossob the power goes off at 22h00 and we had to use our own little lights in the ablutions. All was quiet in the dark night and we missed the continuous roar of the lion from our previous visit.

Geschreven door Leartravels