H and I are progressively sleeping in later and so leaving later. We would argue we are adjusting to the gate opening time changing tomorrow. We woke at 5am and left just after 5:30am. The birds were still pretty quiet as the sun only rises at 5:30am at the moment and it was a little overcast again this morning. We had decided to do the two dams as our morning drive – Mestel Dam first and then the Shitlhave Dam. On the road to Mestel Dam, we basically only saw elephant. We spent over an hour at the Mestel Dam as there was constant bird activity and so we enjoyed our coffee and rusks there and the peacefulness (when other cars weren’t there).

We then drove down to Shitlhave Dam and on route saw baboon, kudu and at the dam saw waterbuck. That was the extent of the animals we saw today. The bush is very green and thick and there is water everywhere so I think it is pretty hard to see animals as they aren’t forced down to the waterholes, dams and rivers. The birding has been good though and continued at the dams today and also on our way back. We saw two birds on the way back right on the side of the road which we couldn’t positively ID ourselves. So I sent it to one of SA’s top birders who I know and he wasn’t 100% sure himself so he sent it on to who he considers number 1 & 2 top birders in SA. There ensued a difference of opinion and the conclusion was download the photos from my camera (I just sent them an iphone photo of the back of my camera originally) and hopefully we could get more certainty. After much deliberation, 2 of the experts agreed it was a juvenile Croaking Cisticola and one of them said it was very tough ID as they had themselves never seen a juvenile. Lifer 7 for H and Lifer 3 for me for the trip.

While we were trying to see a bird (and parked on the opposite side of the road), we had a car drive past and stop next to us. Our first thought is always that they want to know what we are looking at and we have to tell them birds and then they drive off disappointed. So H was just about to do that when they people seemed overly friendly and we realised it was actually my colleague from Australia, his wife and her sister. We knew they were here in the Kruger Park but didn’t expect to see them and certainly not randomly on the road back to camp. We did a quick catch up to hear what they had seen and fortunately no other cars came past while we caught up.

We decided to spend the rest of the day in the camp just relaxing. We both had a late morning/early afternoon nap. Somehow the hours seem to just wile away while here. Soon it was braai time. Tonight – lamb ribs on the braai. And man were they good. Along with a potato done in the coals. It was so good I said to H that it is 50/50 whether the potato or lamb were better. She was having potato and was skeptical of my view and so I gave her a portion of the potato and she actually agreed with me. It was finger looking good even though it wasn’t KFC.

Until tomorrow …