Mountain Zebra Day 2

We had a good nights sleep and the alarm went off at 5:15am. I was up first and by 5:20am I was outside with the kettle on.
It was golden hour and the sun was just starting to rise and there was dragons breath rolling down the huge hills. With the early morning blues, oranges and yellows the landscape looked amazing.
We left camp at 6:10am and for once we were the first ones out of the gate. We drove towards the main entrance on the washboard roads at 20kph scanning the land looking for for anything as the sun crept higher basking one side of us in golden rays and the other still in the shade of the hills.
Our first spots were black backed Jackal and we saw 6 of those before anything else. Then we saw ground squirrels and a yellow mongoose.
We turned left before we got to the main gate, I wanted to pick up the 4x4 only road that a cheetah had been spotted on yesterday but it was early, we were still abit dopey and ended up on a totally different route driving away from the 4x4 loop. It didn’t matter as it was one huge loop and it was open plains and animals were aplenty as we spotted the stocky mountain zebras, Hartibeest, kudu, more jackal, roan antelope and oryx. It was a great drive and as we completed the loop it had gone 9am. We finally reached the 4x4 route and it said it was 14.5km and as I drove onto it I engaged high range. The first 5km were a doddle. It was just tight bends on hard mud but you could see that if it was wet you would need a four wheel drive. Then the road turned to rocks and we started heading uphill, then the gradient increased and the rocks got much bigger. I dropped down to first gear, the first step up was easily 12 inches followed by 2 more slightly lower ones but the gradient must have been 20%. I didn’t know if the car would do this type of thing but this is a one way road and we’re only a third of the way in.
Ghost climbed over the rocks like it was nothing. We didn’t even have any wheel slip. We were both thinking “ thank god that’s over “ when as we turned a corner the rocks got even bigger and the slope steeper. I really thought this was going to the turn around point but ghost climbed over and we climbed up. It was unbelievably bumpy and now all we could see out the front was the bonnet we were at such an angle. We climbed and climbed until finally after 30 minutes of bumps and us pooing our pants we reached a plateau and mud again. Neither of us spoke for a little while. We were dreading what would happen if we had to go down the same terrain but luckily that didn’t happen and the plateau ending up taking a gradual descent straight back to the main road. We wouldn’t be taking that road again but ghost did so well. It was certainly the most challenging terrain I’ve ever driven.
Back at camp it was now 12:30pm and we made ghosty toasties for lunch. It was super hot now and we tried to have a quick nap inside but even with the fans on it was just to hot.
I went outside and done some Spanish lessons and Ellie listened to podcasts and then we went over and picked our neighbours brains on where to stay when we get down to the coast.
At 4:30pm we left camp for an evening drive and decided to do the loop drive closest to camp which took us up a mountain of 1800 meters. It was a stunning drive and we overlooked the whole of the park at the top. The scenery looked like something out of a fantasy movie and in the way down we drove through rivers crossing the road.
We got back to camp at 6:15pm and I lit the Braai and cooked, steak in a Braai sauce and honey marinade I made, with boiled vegetables and garlic bread. It was a great meal.
Dinner was late so by the time we had finished everything it was 9pm and we headed inside ready for another early start tomorrow.Read more