As the sun is only rising close to 6am, we decided to only head out at 5:45am this morning. A few more minutes for I to sleep in the morning. H went in to wake her up and first thing she said was ‘Oh Man’ (in an American accent). She is quite the little character. When she tires of all entertainment from the vehicle occupants, O & M resort to some screen time on the iPad (don’t judge … it doesn’t happen often but it does help). She has been remarkably resilient and good though even on the longer drives. She definitely is fascinated to see the animals especially when they are close to the road. Tortoise, pala, elephant and duku seem to be the favourites.

We went out to the Shitlhave Dam and on route, H, M & O added a lifer and then at the dam we managed to all add a lifer (Green Sandpiper). H & I are now on 189 for the trip. Our best ever previously was 200 for 14-day trip to Kruger so we would be disappointed to not go well past that on this trip. I think it is a combination of the right time of year and our ever improving birding skills. H today went past 400 lifers (she has over 80 for the trip!). Given she started properly listing last year January, that is quite a remarkable count for less than 15 months. She bought herself a bottle of Rose wine to celebrate passing 400 tonight.

We did a few of the local around the camp loops including the one that we had seen the male lion on last night but he had moved off and no sign of the buffalo he was eating either. Besides a few kudu, some elephant, a sole buffalo sitting in the mud and some more klipspringers on the rocks, the game life has been pretty poor. Still no rhino and actually very few predators. If it wasn’t for the bird life we would have been very disappointed.

I (18 month old in case of doubt) had a nice long (over 3 hour) nap today and some of the others (M in particular) did similarly. Rest of us just spent some time relaxing, reading and really enjoying nature. It was much cooler today as it was overcast for most of the day and so we decided to head out a little earlier for our evening drive. Again we didn’t see a lot but just as we were about to drive back into the camp we saw a lone Red Duiker so at least something new for the trip in terms of game.

The traditional braai for dinner (chicken, sausage & vegetables) and then off to bed. It is amazing how basically doing nothing for most of the day really exhausts you!

Until tomorrow …

I, P, H, O (again for multiple klipspringers today) and M