We woke up to discover that a little “city” of fresh little mounds had emerged overnight behind our vehicle. Paul and Petra had the same little mounds around their’s. We were wondering whether they were the result of night-time activity of the termites we had watched the previous evening. It was fairly quiet at the pan, except for a pair of jackals. As we drove through the attractive “valley”, we spotted two male lions in the distance in the tall grass casually walking towards and later right past a group of gemsbok that were not very concerned. The gemsbok must had sensed that the lions were on a different mission and were not interested in them. We followed the pair as they walked along the ridge before disappearing into the thick bush. It was as if these two males had been “floating” through the tall grass. It was just a pity that they were so far away. We could not really get any clear photographs. We popped into the Passarge 1 campsite. This was also a lovely site. The drive through the Passarge Valley was really very beautiful and we were grateful that we had managed to secure a campsite in this valley. A special feature in both Passarge and Deception Valley are the lovely “islands of trees” that are dotted all over the pans and provide wonderful shade for the animals and for the tourists! We came across a camper with an EC registration number and sure enough, the couple was from Port Elizabeth. They were on their way to San Pan, but they were very cross, because they had had an unfortunate experience when a large group from the Gamtoos valley had occupied their previous site. They insisted that the party pack up and claimed their site. We knew about this party of 8 vehicles. Some of them were friends of ours! Now we were heading for Leopard Pan and our campsite and quickly had a cup of coffee at our site. We stopped at the Sunday Pan waterhole, where there were no animals except for a very lazy cattle egret. One of the lovely tree islands was chosen for our lunch spot and then we drove the Leopard Pan loop before going back to the Sunday Pan waterhole. This was a very attractive place to spend some time. Stephen and I took the birding seriously and made quite list, but no large animals came to drink. The cattle egret was still motionless on its dead tree trunk. It was getting late and the shadows were getting longer at the waterhole and we decided to call it a day. Back at Leopard Pan campsite we had our usual shower and got a fire going. We had by now settled into a very regular and easy routine. This is the more frequently visited part of the park, but we still had seen very few vehicles.

Geschreven door Leartravels