23/12/08. Christmas was upon us once again but by now I had pretty much lost all sense of time, in fact it was only late in the day on the 24th that I realised it was Christmas Eve.

I had woken early again on the 23rd but still not feeling great, swollen glands and all, I slept in till past 5am and then headed out to Mahonies loop again as I really did not want to go far.

After driving for about 30 minutes or so I parked up under a large fig tree next to the tributary for coffee. There was not too much going on except for the birds but it was lovely to just sit and relax to the sounds of nature.

A small family of Nyalas came down the far bank after a while but they were very ‘twitchy’ and when I tried to get a shot of them they must of smelt me or seen the movement and scarpered rather sharpishly.

As I was getting back into my cab I heard noises coming from a small thicket just below me about twenty feet away, Strange noises that I could not recognise at first. Needless to say I got into the cab quite quickly and continued listening through the open window.

After a while I realised that I was listening to a baboon comforting a new born baby! It was a wonderful experience listening to mum cooing, I never actually saw anything but I left after an hour or so absolutely convinced that the baby had been born under my very nose as I drank coffee!

I moved round to carcass corner where I intended parking up for a few more hours before heading back for another nap. I arrived around 8am to find nothing going on at all.

After a short while I spotted 9 buffalo bulls walking down the dry river bed towards me and for the next one and a half hours I had over 300 different animals come down for a drink and wallow, buff, kudu,impala,zebra,baboons,steenbok and warthog.
Additionally there was the seemingly resident knob billed duck ever present as well as a whole plethora of other birds.

After a long midday break back at camp I headed north for the Klopperfontein dam where I also found abundant birdlife and various game. I checked out Barnards drift for a while and then headed for the Klopperfontein waterhole which has wide expansive views all around the water and the river beyond.

There was a lot of movement here too which kept me occupied. A couple of big elephants came out of the tree line down by the river and came over to the water reservoir which was just a few feet away from where I was parked. Then another came from a different direction, then another, then another couple…all from different angles. Eventually there were nine of them and it seemed like the sweet water in the high walled reservoir was a meeting place as they all clearly knew each other well.
It was fantastic to see them all greeting each other and quite clear that the relationships between them all differed. One of the last to arrive was a particularly stocky beast, not as tall as one or two of the others but probably heavier with amongst the largest tusks of the group. This one was clearly a favourite with just about all the other ellies, especially one of the younger teenagers, and I was left wondering whether they were brothers or even father and son.

The biggest elephant of the bunch seemed to be the grumpiest and the least liked of the group. I got the feeling that he was the bully of the group and the other not so tall elephant was the good guy who looked after the others.

They spent quite a while at the reservoir, drinking and splashing themselves, resting their trunks against the high walls and coating themselves with sand dust as I looked on from a few metres away tucked into a small thicket of small Mopani bush trees.
They left in ones and twos to all directions, much the same as they had arrived, the last to go being the big grumpy guy.

It was at this point that he seemed to take an interest in me and my landy, and walked over to within touching distance of the bonnet.

It is impossible to describe just how big these guys are when they are standing next to you! Suddenly they are towering above you and one realises how small and insignificant we are by comparison.

I held my breath and sat there as still as I possibly could be. He edged closer not looking at all happy and I was left thinking, or should I say feeling, that my presence was irritating him immensely and that he was looking for something to take his irritation out on, particularly as he had largely been shunned by the rest of the group who had now all left.

It was probably less than five minutes but it seemed like ages we both sat staring at each other from two metres or so. I looked around me for an escape route but realised I was going nowhere as I had bushes to the right and left of me and a stone ‘obelisk’ directly behind me with a brass plaque announcing the name of the waterhole, and of course an approximately 5 ton elephant blocking my path.

For the first couple of minutes or so it really was a heart stopping moment. I knew he could of completely trashed my cab if he wanted to and the adrenaline was pumping hard, I didn’t even want to try and take a picture of him as I would of had to show movement to do so, I didn’t even want to breathe!! There i sat, inwardly shaking my head at myself for getting into such predicaments!!

Just a few minutes of pure excitement but it was a moment I shall never forget.

I have been mock charged before on a few occasions but this experience, even though he did not charge me or make noise, really took the cake.
After what seemed an eternity he moved off, albeit grudgingly, and he would take a few paces and turn back to look at me again. It felt like he was saying “I should come and bash you up but I can’t be bothered”!!

A terrible thing transpired on what i have now worked out to be the 23 december.

A few days beforehand i had been driving along the tar road heading east away from Punda. About 20 klicks or so from the camp i was quite startled to see two guys walking along the bushline on my offside.

They were clearly refugees. Torn, dirty and bedraggled, they had obviously spent quite a while in the bush. They were both drinking from old two litre plastic coke bottles, what looked like dirty water.

The Immediate reaction is to stop and offer help but simultaneously one realises that it would be foolish to do so. They both looked very shady and slightly alarmed to see me, there was no way i was going to stop. Essentially in the middle of nowhere, they could of been murderers on the run for all i knew.

My immediate reaction was probably motivated by the fact that it was not the first time i had come across refugees. The first time (about 20 years ago)had been quite amusing and the second time i had guilty feelings afterwards when i had driven straight past the guy, after which i had resolved to try and help if it happened again.

As i say, i did not stop…common sense prevailed.

I did stop about half a klick down the road and thought about it, but after a while i concluded that they must be walking on the road to give themselves up anyway. No doubt a rangers vehicle would pass them soon enough and pick them up and i trundled off on my way.

A couple of days after passing these two guys i was in camp roughly around midday. I had showered in the ablution block and was back in my tent drying off and getting dressed. My tent was right on the edge of the camp with my tent entrance facing out into the bush. I was standing just inside the entrance totally naked as i dried off. I did not really care if any animals saw me undressed and the last thing i expected was people to be out in the bush outside the camps perimeter.
So i’m standing there in all my glory drying my hair when another refugee comes walking past my tent less than 20 metres away!!….i am not sure who was more shocked…him or I.

I thought about going through to the rangers to make a report but once again i figured he was giving himself up. Sure enough that was the case and i heard later up at the camp reception that he had done just that and i thought no more of it.

Then on the 23rd i was chatting with another camper who told me that earlier that day they had found a woman sitting by the side of the road a couple of klicks outside the camp, she had two young children with her.

When the rangers picked her up they questioned her and asked why she had given herself up when in fact she had almost made it into SA.

Apparently she had left Mozambique almost three weeks earlier with three guys from the same village and her children.
The two younger guys had deserted them one night several days beforehand and the older guy had left her the following night.

These must have been the guys i had seen on the road and by the camp in the preceding days.

It must of been absolutely terrifying for all of them, i knew i had been listening to the lions roaring for several nights past.

One of her kids was apparently quite sick at the time she was picked up which is the reason she gave for giving up.
However, the guys talking to her must of detected something in her words because when they pushed her a bit she said that in fact she had three kids but one had died the night before and she had left the body under a bush near to where they had found her.

Isn’t that shocking? It kinda makes any problems i have or have had melt away into absolute inconsequence.

They drove her back to the spot and sure enough found the little infant’s body hidden under a bush where the mother had left it.

The lady i was talking to in camp also said that later in the day she had driven past where it all happened earlier , and laying on the verge was a tiny pair of kiddies shoes made from old car tyres that had been left to mark the spot.

I am glad i never saw them, but even so, i have an image in my mind of this kiddies shoes by the side of the road that i don’t think will ever go away.

Slept really well last night and woke at 3.15am feeling as good and refreshed as i had for a few days. It was a bit damp and cloudy so i lit a fire and sat having an early coffee by the warmth. I thought it might clear a bit as the dawn prevailed so i set off at 4.30 to get some sunrise pictures. No chance as was proved.

It was good to get out early though and in my headlights as i headed south out of camp i caught two African wildcats crossing the road and three separate genets in the bushes alongside the road as they prepared for sleep during the coming day.
I saw many other sets of eyes, many of them were hares and rabbits but some were indistinguishable.

Darkness brings a whole different perspective to the bush.

Having realised i was not going to get my sunrise shots i headed for Mogambo, and was parked up under the sausage tree soon after 5am. It was very quiet except for the birds and general noises of the daytime bush creatures waking up. Amongst others i watched green pidgeons breakfasting on the fig tree, Wood Hoopoes scurrying around and taking food back to their nests in the trunk of the fig tree, turacos, and striped kingfishers.

At 5.50am i saw the big male leopard stepping out of the bushline and pad softly down to the waters edge, followed moments later by a female leopard. A fantastic sight, the sky was still grey, mist was rising from the ground as the temperature warmed up and these two magnificent animals crouched side by side nonchalantly lapping up their early morning drink, silent except for the sound of slurping water.

The whole bush seemed to freeze!

After a good long drink it became clear that they only had one thing on their minds, particularly the female as she started rubbing up to the male. At first he did not seem interested, acting in a lordly superior manner, he even seemed to swat her away at one stage. Seeing the two together made the male seem even bigger, his paws were absolutely massive, seemingly as big as a lions.
She kept on at him, rubbing herself against him, hopping over him and lying slightly in front of him until eventually he could no longer resist and mounted her.

It was over in seconds, followed by a deep throated guttural roar from the male and a kind of victory purr from the female. As he finished he seemed to bite at her neck, to which she responded by snarling at him and twisting round under him as he swatted away her snarl with his huge paw and a reciprocal snarl of his own.

Absolutely incredible to watch with all the senses totally tuned into the scene before me. I am quite sure i must of been watching awe struck with open mouth!!

A first for me and a wonderful experience, i had the pleasure of their company for the next two hours completely on my own during which time they repeated the act four times. At around 8.00am a landy came by with a couple of youngsters in the back and i was so chuffed with everything that i moved out from under my spot and let them pull in for a better view. Unfortunately this movement disturbed the two leopards and they moved off into the bushes.

They continued to mate though and each time they finished the same guttural growls emanated from the bushes where they were laid up. Hearing it but not seeing it was, in its own way, as exciting as seeing it before ones eyes.

Around 9am a herd of about 20 impala came down to drink, totally unaware of what had been transpiring at the exact spot where they were drinking just minutes beforehand. In the middle of their drinking the leopards could be heard again finishing off their business and the noise almost paralysed the drinking impalas, they did not know which way to turn, and after a few minutes of silence as they tried to scout out the direction of the growling they fled in the direction from which they had come.

In between watching the leopards and everything else that was going on at the waters edge i had been watching a striped kingfisher who had been perched on a bough above me checking the ground intently for breakfast. At about the time the impalas scampered off i noticed he had caught a snake about 15 inches long and was busy whacking the snake against the branch to kill it.
I was quite surprised as the snake seemed far too big for the little kingfisher, yet after several minutes of pulverising the snake against the branch he swallowed the thing whole in a split second. It was hard to understand where the snake had gone too, but the magic of the moment will live with me forever.

By 10.30 i was feeling quite tired and with no noise from the leopards for a while i decided to head back for food, sleep and a refresh, as well as recharging my camera batteries. I must of taken at least a 100 shots of the leopards.

By 2.30 i was back at the sausage tree.

Almost immediately i heard the two leopards going at it again, as they did every 15 minutes or so for the next couple of hours before stepping out together again for another drink at 4.30.

At that point there was a big tusker wallowing in the water and as the leopards appeared he kind of mock charged them flapping his ears and telling them in no uncertain terms that he did not want their company.

They got the message, and although not so much out of fear but more out of respect they retreated. I followed them at this point and found them both sitting on top of a huge termite mound that was built at least 15 feet high around the base of another large fig tree.
They mated again in all their glory atop the termite mound before the male scampered up the tree to a kill that was wedged into one of the upper branches. I could not be absolutely sure but i think it was the unfortunate female grysbok that i had seen a couple of days beforehand.

By now a couple of other cars had arrived and i was pointing out the sequence of events to them but it was all too much for the leopards, they appeared to go off deeper into the bush and i never saw them again.
George and Eileen from the camp restaurant came down as i had told them what i had been seeing at lunchtime but sadly they had missed everything.

I drove slowly back to camp savouring the days viewing. Truly a day to remember.