We decided last night that we would head to the Transport Dam which is about 25 km from the camp this morning. We figured we would just stay there for an extended stretch and see what was coming and going. The drive out was incredibly uneventful. It was unfortunately very overcast and also raining so the bird life was even lacking. We only saw hyena (one walking down the road and a mother and child in the den) until we got to the waterhole. At least at the waterhole there was waterbuck and impala. We spent a good amount of time there and an elephant also came and went and then we decided to head back to camp but on a longer route back.

As we were heading back to the main road, one of the cars that was earlier at the dam was parked off and we saw they were watching a leopard in a tree. He wasn’t active except that after a few minutes he went higher up the tree and found another comfortable branch to sleep on and went back to napping. Really nice sighting and reasonably close to the road.

The return trip was much more fulfilling from a game perspective as we saw elephant, wildebeest, zebra, impala, waterbuck & baboon. We also added a few more birds to the trip list though today was a poor day for birding due to the overcast conditions and rain.

We spent the rest of the day in the camp, did some camp birding (list up to 134 now for the trip) and H had a late afternoon run around the camp. I started a braai early because I feared that it might start raining again. We almost made it before it started to pour down with rain. We did a boerewors braai. We had to finish off the wors in the pan on the stove as the heavy rain eventually put the fire out completely. The rain was like a waterfall coming off the hut’s thatch roof. Just running out to get the wors off the braai resulted in me being soaked (my shirt is still wet!).

I’m sure it will be an early night again!

Until tomorrow … P & H