14th Lower Sabie continued
It was a beautiful morning for a change so we parked off at Orpen Dam for a while watching the odd local coming down for a drink.
We were now all hungry and sick of being in the car, so we ducked back down the H10 as it was the quickest way to Lower Sabie.
The H10 was quiet as per normal but we did stop a few times for some of the usual gang.
As we arrived at the H10/H4-2 intersection I conned for a short trip down the H4-2 as I knew about a leopard which is often spotted in this area around 4km from Lower Sabie.
The H4-2 at midmorning in holiday season is chaotic, so I quickly lost interest once in the leopard area as surely someone would have spotted it if in the open, however the Cow was on the ball and I don’t think she even knows how she managed to spot the leopard as it was only visible through one small gap in the bush.
I was still trying to position the car in front of the gap when the leopard suddenly got up and started cruising which caused a few panicked pics through the twigs.
In seconds the leopard had disappeared into a bush next to the river and nobody else had seen it. I couldn’t believe that it had turned into “Harry Houdini” so we spent 10 minutes reversing and then slowly going forward again, which only resulted in a mini traffic jam of “What do you see’s”, so my irritation was growing, hence decided to cruise back to camp for breakfast.
The rowdy gang next to us were in form again, but fortunately the parents took them on a camp tour, so I could enjoy some peace.
At around lunch time the Cow ducked off somewhere and I was alone and bored, so ducked into the unit to disguise a strong whiskey mix in a bottle of water, but as I took the first sip one of the rats game charging in “Robert is outside the swimming pool area”, so I followed with my jippo water bottle.
Robert was on a camp cruise with his junior while his senior was chasing some Pokémon app thing in another part of camp.
Albert came charging up to us 10 minutes later and informed us that she thought there was a leopard in front of the Lower Sabie deck, but we laughed it off. Later that day Robert advised us that Albert had been correct, so I wasn’t popular with Albert and I’m still getting chirped about it.
For our last afternoon drive we wanted to take it easy, so decided to cruise up to Nkuhlu and back.
The causeway produced a giraffe with a suspect foot and then a few birds popped up for the Cow, but there wasn’t much happening so stopped for a loo break at Nkuhlu and soon were heading back towards Lower Sabie.
Somewhere on the way back we bumped into Robert and informed him that it was quiet, so he turned and we continued in convoy.
A few minutes later a small ellie herd crossed in front of us and Robert tried to get me to pass, but I couldn’t work out if he was setting me up due to the Cow’s fear of ellies or whether he was afraid of the ellies; however I was under instructions from the Cow to remain where we were.
We tried to find the Houdini leopard from the morning, but time had run out, so we cruised back to camp.
We had a chat with Robert in the Lower Sabie car park and decided to link up at Mugg & Bean for a chow later, but first we had to repair the faulty window patch job, “Roberta”, properly as we had a long drive to Imfolozi the next day and I would never handle the Roberta rattle the entire way.
When we arrived at Robert’s spot I wasn’t sure who had the worst neighbours because his were louder than ours, so in minutes we were all on our way to Mugg & Bean.
I have never been to any Mugg & Bean before so this was a first and I don’t want to seem too critical of the chow and service, but for us it wasn’t fantastic for the price, so we won’t be doing it again, however at least Robert was good company.
After saying cheers to Robert we cruised straight to bed as a long day and the Swazi border politics awaited us in the morning.
To be continued