Last of the Photo Safari

Monday morning we went out for a game drive - late (8:00), so we had breakfast first. Gywen stayed behind at the lodge. Mark had taken the other family to St. Lucia for the day, so we had Ronnie again for our morning drive and we were joined by a family from Anchorage. Not a terrible lot of action on the drive... the usual hoofed animals, a kingfisher, a croc, a pin tailed widah, yellow billed kite, kudu bulls, and Barry saw a red duiker. On an earlier drive that morning, another group had seen the male cheetah following a leopard. We were on the lookout. Ronnie took us to the area where the cheetah has been hanging out, and he hopped out of the vehicle with his machete in hand. He headed into the bush to look for the elusive cat and soon came back and invited us to get out of the truck to follow him.

We walked about 20 meters into the bush and found the cheetah resting under a tree. We quietly watched and took photos as he looked around, rolled over, and posed for our benefit. After a few minutes, he sat up and looked around, then started slowly started walking toward the nearby wildebeests we all could hear bleating as they grazed. We went back to the truck and drove around to a road in the direction of his travel. We saw him again as he approached the other road, but he didn't seem to be actively hunting and we went back to the lodge before witnessing any major action.

Watching the cheetah.

That day, to pass the time, we each had a nice massage in the spa. Gywen supplemented hers with the

Martial Eagle.

best pedicure she's ever had. We had lunch and headed back out for our evening drive, this time with Riann as our guide. He was very knowledgeable and talked a lot about the animals, their behavior, and their habitats. The drive featured the usual animals, along with the elephants, kudu, a croc, monkeys, hippo, rhino, cormarant, egret, storks, a three banded plover, a juvenile black crowned heron, green backed heron, and a harrier hawk. The highlight of the evening was a huge, beautiful martial eagle - the largest in Africa. We watched him sitting in a tree long enough for us to take some nice photos. Eventually he took off and swooped down toward the ground. I though he was landing, but then we saw a heard of startled impala running for their lives. The eagle didn't catch anything, and landed in another tree further away. We watched all of the impala (including dozens of young ones) excitedly crossing the road in front of us. We were hoping to catch the rare sight of the eagle coming back to catch one... but he was taking his own sweet time and we finally had to move on.

We went to bed early, not long after dinner.

Tuesday morning we left early - 5 am - for our final game drive with Mark. It was a quiet morning, but we did see the cheetah one last time, as well as a second sighting of a baby giraffe (likely 3-4 days old), plus a brown snake eagle, coucals, rollers (finally!), starlings, and a red duiker.

Baby Giraffe!

Even a quiet day of game viewing is a good day! After breakfast we showered, packed, and checked out. By 10:00 am we were on the road for our 7+ hour drive to Johannesburg. Lots of pretty and interesting sights along the way, going from the savannah past a large pretty lake, up the hills, along the Swaziland border, through tiny villages and small towns, through forestry plantations, and across productive farmland to the outskirts of Johannesburg where a handful of gold mine dumps still dot the landscape.

Final Cheetah Sighting.

We arrived at Marty and Peter's house just after 5. Marty took Barry and me down the road to the very nice Golden Candle B&B to check in, so we wouldn't have to sleep on cots in the lounge again. We had dinner back at their house before retiring for some much needed sleep.