Africa Wild

Bushcraft wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2016 11:32 am

The S33 is one of my favourite roads, specifically because it’s quiet and often produces leopard, so I started on a con.

“The S33 is just a few km back, let’s check out the first 5km or so where there’s normally some water around.”

The con worked and the first 2km of the S33 produced a hyena snoozing, some ellies and a giraffe that looked “taller” than normal because we were in a dip and it was above us.







About 3km down the S33 there’s 2 small newly made loops which take you to above the riverbed and a small patch of water. We found 1 car parked off in the loop, so also drove in, but they seemed to be having coffee and we didn’t see any action at the small puddle so I drove out.

As I was about to turn back towards the H1-3 I noticed the parked off vehicle occupants having “words” with each other and then suddenly the ballie started waving at me to return, so I did.

“Do you want to see a leopard?”

I found it to be a rather strange question and was about to give a cocky answer, but only managed to blurt out “YES!”

“In the bush in the riverbed below us there’s a leopard hiding out” so we thanked the ballie and found a spot to park.

I immediately checked out the spots, but it was rather difficult to see and the rats started with all the questions “Which bush, where, how far”

“Quiet!”

Albert didn’t believe a word so started imitating me to Hawkeyes next to her, which only got me more excited at the time, but I laugh at the pics now. The Cow took a pic of the bush with her camera to show the rats which calmed things down a little.




We couldn’t see what the leopard was up to and it may have been asleep, however there were impala coming down to drink at the little puddle, so we decided to wait a few minutes to see if there was any movement.

15 minutes went by with no movement so we all started to get distracted and eventually I was looking up and down the riverbed at other animals and the Cow was very into some Green Parrots that were cruising around, so when the spots disappeared from the bush we were all caught by surprise.

“The leopard has gone!”

“What!”

“Wait, there! It’s looking at us”

The leopard had walked out into the open and was sitting down checking us out.



Suddenly the leopard started on a stalk towards the impala, so our car went into an instant major flap, but fortunately Hawkeyes and I had cameras ready and the Cow was operating the video camera.

Bushcraft wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2016 6:40 pm

I was willing the leopard on but others in our car were hoping the impala spotted him and all it took was one bright impala who paused and then started barking just as the leopard was about to pounce and it was all over.

The leopard jumped up as if he was going to still chase, but then lay down again, so I positioned the car better in the loop to suit the leopard’s new spot.



The leopard relaxed in the open and it was still just us and the original vehicle which makes the S33 so cool because on any other road in the south there would have been chaos already. After 5 minutes the leopard cruised back towards the bush and got comfortable, so the Cow could concentrate on the parrots having a drink.