Kalahari Trails Meerkat Sanctuary

This morning we overslept and got up at 5:45am. The mongoose had, had a field day overnight eating our left over pork fat and it was all gone.
I had a banging headache and didn’t feel much like doing a game drive but I did want to see the cape foxes again. We managed to get to the gate at 6:15am and then my plan was to do the maximum speed limit of 50kph up to Kij Kij and that’s pretty much what we did. There was only one other car on the way.
We got to the cape fox den and they were nowhere to be seen. I was gutted but the weather was cooler and cloudier today so they had probably gone in for the day and after 20 minutes of waiting we gave up. We drove to the picnic sight done the loop and made back for camp.
Ellie wanted to see the owlets again and 20km from camp we slowed down to check the trees and I saw a young cape fox just sitting at the side of the road. I couldn’t believe our luck as he just sat there looking straight at us and then was joined by another. We had this whole sighting to ourselves too and got some great pictures as they were much closer than the ones we found yesterday.
After the foxes we slowly drove back checking the trees and we eventually found the one with the owls and three of them were lined up next to each other like bookends keeping warm.
Back at camp it was now 9:30am and today was moving day. We weren’t in a hurry because our next camp is just 30 minutes away so we went to the shop and brought some bread and eggs for breakfast and then gave the mongoose our old eggs. They loved them.
We finished packing up and were ready to leave at midday and we took a slow drive 20 miles down the road to the Kalahari trails meerkat sanctuary. We would be spending tonight completely off grid away from everyone and tomorrow moving to a camp with power and after checking in and saying hello to 2 meerkats that had just been rescued we took sand dune and salt pan road to our camp approximately a kilometre away.
We just layed our bed out as we were moving today and just as we made coffee the heavens opened for the first time on this trip and we had a huge thunderstorm. Ellie and I took shelter in the tin shower cubicle at our camp.
We were living the dream………..
When the rain eased up we drove back to the office and now the pans were flooded and were unbelievably slippery. It was like driving on an ice rink even in four wheel drive. Just before we got to the office we found a meerkat Den and they were all sticking their heads out watching us, even the babies.
At the office we paid for the camp and got talking to one of the staff and she told us at night they collect scorpions to feed to the meerkats and get roughly 100 in a 20 meter square. She also told us there was an aardvark here so we will be putting the camera trap out tonight.
We took a slippery drive back to camp and yet another storm passed overhead but by dinner time it had passed and it was cold enough to light a fire and cook burgers on it. Then we stoked the fire back up as the sunset and more storms came in. By 8pm we had lightning going off all around us and after taking a few shots on my camera we headed in for the night.Read more