The 4 cheetah were very difficult to spot and one could only see them from one place, so as others began to stop frustration was building as many couldn’t see the cheetah.
I was about to move on to let some highly excited aunties in for a view when I spotted something moving towards the cheetah who had became rather nervous
Suddenly a boon burst from the bush and the cheetah took off in the opposite direction, which caused a choice outburst from me as I stuffed up the pic and then popped the clutch, so the car took off forward much to the surprise of all.
The gangster boons continued to harass the cheetah and fortunately my clutch mission had set us off in the correct direction, so we were in front of the queue of cars.
A few minutes later the cheetah disappeared into thick bush and we lost sight of them, so switched off and waited.
After 5 minutes I was starting to get irritated as we were cooking in the sun, so was about to suggest that we ducked when the Cow shrieked “cheetah, CHEETAH chasing impala!!”
The impala and cheetah crossed the road at such pace that I took pics of just about everything but them, which caused another choice outburst, which started the Cow off on a greasing, but my adrenalin was pumping, so I ignored the Cow and roared off towards where they had entered the bush, but they were gone.
I would hate to think what the oncoming traffic thought looking at us, because the Cow and I were now in a full scale argument. Thinking back now, I’m not sure why, because it’s only a photo.
We spent another 10 minutes driving slowly up and down, but never spotted the cheetah again.
I had a conference with Brad and he also wasn’t fast enough to capture the action, so we all had a small pelican about that, but it had still been a good sighting, so decided to head back to camp for a lunchtime braai.
The rats were overexcited about the Sunset drive story, but I was concerned as some love it and others hate it and I was major worried about the fact that I had to sit for 3 plus hours without smoking, so found myself sucking on two cigarettes in the car park before leaving.
23 were permitted per vehicle and we ended up making the balance with a Canadian group travelling together.
After the first 1.5 hours, we had travelled 4km and had stopped to discuss kudu, impala and boons. I was nearly asleep, desperate for a smoke and the rats were whining to go back to camp as it was so boring.
As the sun set we spent 10 minutes discussing the stars and continued to stop for every set of reflecting eyes, which 90% of the time were impala, so my blood pressure was at an all time high and I started to beg the guys with the torches “Stop shouting stop for every impala”, which didn’t seem to go down well.
We finally stopped at Duke’s waterhole and discussed the stars again, so I took a few snap shots of boons in the trees next to us.
Eventually we started to stop for nocturnal animals, so my cheesy returned and we spotted our first porcupine and a few km later another one, but I battled with my little flash to get something worthwhile
We also found plenty ellies, buffalo, hippo, jackal, etc cruising around and just before we left the S28 to head back to camp a male lion started roaring and then crossed the road in front of us, so it wasn’t a total failure, but I was still sour that we didn’t spend more time looking for nocturnal animals and less time discussing animals that one can find in 5 minutes in their own car.
I don’t think we will attempt a sunset drive again until the rats are older as they slept for the last hour of the drive; it’s a mission to control them in a crowded vehicle and one also misses that great evening braai time, which I so enjoy.
To be continued
then hearing the silly yet sinister giggle of the resident hyena clan.... listening to the merry Babblers mocking laughter, the majestic Fish Eagles haunting call, the raucous Francolins cackle. Sigh. 