We left on Monday morning for Punda Maria. As it was only a 75 km drive, we decided to sleep in and only leave around 8:30am and then to take a slow drive. Of course, H & I were awake by 5:30am and it seems Miss I has fallen into a similar routine as she was also awake early (much to M & O’s dislike). H & I went for a walk around the camp for the last time and it was quite pleasant to do it at that time of the morning as it was only mid 20s at that point.

As it was already quite late when we left, the temperate had risen to 32 degrees C and the bird life and animals were already heading for shelter from the heat. We did not see much either in the way of animals (except the standard ones) or birds.  I only added 2 new birds on the drive. We arrived at Punda Maria at about 11:30am and check in time was only 2pm. Usually if it is quiet they are happy to give you a key earlier, but they were still cleaning our accommodation. They said it would be ready at 12:30pm so we decided to order some lunch at the restaurant.

While we were waiting for them to bring our food, the receptionist came and gave us our key and as Miss I needed to sleep, M went to the chalet to drop off stuff and get it set up while we waited for the food to come. He came back and said the accommodation wasn’t great. Firstly, the one bedroom is a mezzanine room with very steep stairs but more importantly it wasn’t air-conditioned and then secondly, one of the other bedrooms air-conditioner was ridiculously noisy. M went to complain and pointed out the reservation says 3 air-conditioned bedrooms (which is factually incorrect). The receptionist said she would call the manager.

In the meantime, M & O went to put Miss I down to sleep in the non-noisy air-conditioned bedroom and when the manager arrived, I went to speak to him. He was very pleasant and agreed that the reservation was mis-stated in its description and that they were aware of the air-conditioner problem but the person coming to fix it could only come next week. I said that we couldn’t have one of us staying in the non-air-conditioned room and so we really needed another room at least and I was prepared to pay for that but staying there without air-con was not an option. Fortunately, they are not full now so he could easily give us a separate room for H & I and M, O & I could keep the house. He also offered that we check the other similar one out and we could have that (it was next door) if we preferred it. Both air-cons worked in that one so we agreed to swap after Miss I awoke from her afternoon nap.

O was not feeling well and so they all stayed and didn’t join H & I on the afternoon drive. We went to the Klopperfontein Dam and while we only added 3 more birds to our trip list, what struck us was the quantity of birds out in the late afternoon from what we had been experiencing. Things were looking up on the birding front it seemed.

Dinner was a braai of ribs and ostrich boerewors (sausage) and then off to bed.

P, H, M (for part-dealing with the accommodation issues), I (for being so good on the drives every day) & O

PS: Blog post delayed due to limited cellphone signal and hence no photos