Berg En Dahl Day 5

I was up at 4:45am and made the coffees. We had no bushbuck at the camp first thing and I wanted an early start.
The sightings boards have been full of leopard sightings on the roads we have driven so I really want to know what time of the morning that is and are they actual good sightings?
Ellie said the other day after we had watched that leopard under the bush for 2 hours that would probably count as a sighting and it probably would, but nobody had actually seen the whole leopard in it’s entirety. Sometimes we could see its head move or ears but at no point could you see the whole leopard. There was even a rumour that it was actually 2 leopards.
We left camp at 5:40am and drove the exact same route we had been driving the last few days until we saw a ranger that told us the road we were in was pretty quiet and to turn right at the next junction and give that a go, a few minutes later we came to the junction, turned right onto the S23 and a game viewing vehicle shot straight past us. 500 meters later we came to 3 cars and 2 game vehicles at a sighting and realised it was lions. A male and female were mating and 2 younger males were sleeping un the grass nearby. We stopped for 10 minutes got our photos while they were good and then the lions moved into a bushier area, we moved in as traffic started building.
As we drove on we turned left, and then right back onto our original road. We didn’t see any rhino today but we did see heard animals, elephant and a few rock monitors.
After the dam which has become one of our favourite sights we stopped at the picnic area. Neither of wanted breakfast so we grabbed a couple of chocolate bars and left and 5km down the road 4 cars were queued against our side of the road. I rolled up very slowly behind and under the hedge to our left we spotted wild dogs. This was funny as we had just been saying is there wild dog in this area? Obviously there is.
As we stopped so did 3 game vehicles and traffic started getting crazy pretty quick so we carried on making our way back to camp stopping at Renosterpan watering hole.
At camp we went straight to reception and extended our stay here by 3 days now leaving on Monday 2nd. This will be our final camp and the end of this trip is getting closer and closer.
By 2pm the temperature was 34°c but it felt like 50°c. There was absolutely no air.
Elephants, impala and bushbuck were now right at the fence line and as the elephants moved away down the dry river bed eating at all the bushes we walked along side them and they scared a waterbuck who was minding his own business.
At 3:30pm we headed back up to the watering hole but after 30 minutes of waiting Ellie got bored. Even though it was her idea, and we drove slowly back to camp.
Back at camp we made a fire and some new neighbours moved in next to us and we helped them, then we cooked pork fillets on the Braai before heading in at 8pm.Læs mere