Olifants
October 4, 2017

Today was a pretty low-key today. We only planned to go out early morning and late afternoon and that is exactly what we did.  The highlight of the morning drive was spotting hyena in the river when we stopped to scan the riverbed. We also had a plan to go to the low bridge crossing at Balule as we had read there were some good bird spotting possibilities.  We weren’t disappointed and added about 10 birds to the trip list (we are now at 99 birds for the trip so far).

The rest of the day we just relaxed around the camp and enjoyed the view over the Olifants River from our chalet. We obsessionally took out of our binoculars to see what we could see. Over the course of the day we saw impala, waterbuck, elephant & giraffe in the river bed without moving from our chalet. It was very hot today with the temperature rising to 37 degrees. Dare I saw a bit warmer than I would actually have liked. There also was not a breath of wind so it really was quite stifling at times.

This evening the highlight of the game drive was rescuing three damsels in distress.  We did the same drive as last night and when we got to one of the pull off spots overlooking the river we found two ladies outside their car trying to place rocks under the tyre of the car while the 3rd was driving trying to get it out. Michael and I had been cautious yesterday when we did the exact same thing but our car has 4×4 and so we engaged that and we actually had no problem getting back up at all. They were however in a Renault and could not get the car back up. We told them to reverse as they needed it to hit the sandy patch with some pace but they were too scared and so they asked if I would be prepared to try. Being a kindhearted guy, I said sure and after trying with a short run in which didn’t work, I reversed further down the slope and hit it with pace and managed to get the car out for them.  They were delighted, thanked me profusely and they jumped in their car and headed off as quickly as possible (clearly to avoid further embarrassment).

The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful after that. Another beautiful bushveld sunset with the almost full moon rising before the sun had set. A braai for dinner (chops, chicken wings, sweet potato, potato and ratatouille).  Inside the chalet with aircon running to cool off! It is still about 27 degrees outside (at 9pm).

Until tomorrow …

P & M

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