Mountains & Zebras*

[PJL]

After the lack of an early start, I had a good sized afternoon/evening drive planned but somehow we set off a bit later than I had hoped.

There weren't nearly as many raptors in the park as I'm used to seeing in Addo, and they were generally very skittish, so I was quite pleased to get a pic of this jackal buzzard



Out on Rooiplaat this blesbok posed for a nice mug-shot



The water in the park is very spaced out with many pans currently dry. However we found this nice gemsbok drinking at one of the few pans which had some water left in it.



As evening progressed, the ant-eating chats always seemed to appear on bushes.



We started out on the Sonnenrust 4x4 trail but we were going to have to go round fairly fast if we were going to make gate closing time. There were nice herds of springbok and black wildebeest around, and then we startled a big herd of eland so we stopped to watch them galloping away.
The meandering roads sometimes left certain grandparents snoozing, but thankfully as we were about to pull away again one was very wide awake and spotted something very strange in the tall grass near some nearby trees. It took a lot of patience but eventually a head popped up to check us out



Finally we had found a rock monitor lizard
They were high on my wish-list for this park, so it was great to catch one. We waited a while and then it crossed the road





We were able to track it through the bush until it eventually wandered off.






Everyone was pleased with such a good sighting, but about 500m later there was another shout of 'rock monitor'
This one was much less comfortable about our car and had hidden in a hole. We waited a while until it showed itself.




Time was really ticking so there wasn't much else to report on the drive back to camp... the next day would involve cheetah tracking

[PJL]

Thanks Lis, nan, Mel, Pumbaa & Flutts for your comments and following along.

It's been a bit crazy trying to get work finished off before Christmas, so this next instalment has been delayed a bit... but hopefully it's worth the wait

We were up early on our last morning in the park and ready to hopefully find some cheetah
The kids are unfortunately not yet old enough to go tracking, so S kindly let me go with my mother whilst she took the kids and the rest of the grandparents off on a drive.

Dan was our guide again, and he explained that we would be aiming to find Angela who was very relaxed about people approaching on foot. Samara on the other hand had cubs and was generally very quick to run away so wouldn't be suitable for the 'older generation'

Both of these cheetah have tracking collars which provides a GPS location every 4 hours, and allows radio location within a certain range. Based on where they had been located, we would see if there was any sign of Samara but concentrate on finding Angela.

Driving along the main road we first came across some white storks which occasionally visit the park




We knew the area where Samara had been hiding quite well from a number of our 4x4 drives, but there had never been any sign of her. Fortunately Dan's eyes were better than ours, and he pointed out where she was sitting far off on a hillside. 3 other little heads were in view as well



It didn't take long and she got up and disappeared over the brow of the hill, so we took a drive further round the hillside to see if we could see her again. After driving back and forth she eventually appeared on the ridge line again, but this time no sign of the cubs.... where could they have gone



She then got up and wandered down to the shade of a bush and that's where the cubs were hiding





A short while later they were up again with the cubs trundling up the hillside.







Samara decided that was enough of a show for one day and led her little ones up over the hill and out of sight.



It was fantastic to see them despite the distance away... also nice that they were found with eyesight rather than a radio transmitter

[PJL]

Thank you nan, Lis, Mel, RP, Pumbaa & Flutts for the comments

We continued on with the plan to find Angela who was somewhere north of Samara. Travelling along we came across a gemsbok resting in the shade



And a short while later we came to an abrupt halt so as not to run over this amazing boomslang
It had quite a fright and moved quickly up into an acacia bush next to the vehicle... rather close to us






Angela seemed to be staying fairly still, so after some triangulation Dan was honing in on her location. We were expecting to be exiting the vehicle at any moment when the 'unexpected' happened... we rounded a corner and were almost immediately charged by a very aggressive blackie




Thankfully she stopped short of the vehicle after some shouting from Dan. Apparently she's quite an old lady as you can see from her large 2nd horn, and typifies the grumpy aggressive black rhino personality!




After a while she moved off and we continued on our search for Angela. But each time we were getting closer, our grumpy rhino kept appearing




It was good to see that the oxpeckers which were introduced a while back are doing well in the park




So despite plenty of searching, and definitely getting very close to her, we simply couldn't get out of the vehicle to go and find Angela... the rhino was just too aggressive. One time when I really wasn't wanting to see a rhino

That was pretty much the end of our visit to the park. It's certainly a place I'd like to visit again sometime - preferably in the winter in one of their nice warm chalets