During August we did a private tour with long time guests, James Stratford and Rosie Campbell. On the tour we visited Kossan Private Game Reserve, Mokala National Park, Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana and Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana. Rosie really wanted to see Meerkats (Suricates) and Rhino and I am very glad to say that she did not go home disappointed.
Kossan Private Game Reserve We had a fabulous start to the tour at KPGR with the sighting of some Meerkats (Suricates) on our very first game drive! For half an hour we just sat and watched them through our cameras and binoculars. At first they were a bit skittish and kept peeping out of their wholes to see if we were still there. After a few minutes they got use to our presence and started to spend longer periods of time outside their wholes giving us the opportunity for some special photographs.The rest of the drive also did not disappoint with sightings of Eland, Kudu, Gemsbok, Springbok and Warthog. After the successful game drive it was dinnertime and we celebrated the first evening with T-bone steak and a fine red wine. As has become the custom at Kossan, the early evening was spent listening to the jackals howling.The rest of the evening was spent around the campfire with exited stories about what was expected during the next 12 days. The following morning we went on a bushwalk and took some time to look and the smaller things in nature, like the animal tracks, their dung and droppings, spiders, bird nests etc. During the walk we encountered a Duiker, a few Gemsbok, some Kudu and Zebra. After breakfast we departed for Mokala National Park.
Mokala National Park Arriving at Mokala we immediately went out on a game drive. Since we found the Meerkats at Kossan we were now looking for Rhino. Mokala has both Black Rhino and White Rhino, but the Black is very elusive and we would have been more than happy to settle with a sighting of a White Rhino.It was if the animals were waiting for us around every bend and corner. We saw Gemsbok, Blue wildebeest, Red hartebeest, Duiker, Springbok, plenty of Kudu and 2 of the antelope species that makes this park fames; the Tsessebe and the Roan Antelope. Sunset was drawing closer and we did not have much time to find the Rhino, Rosie was so desperate to see. We decided to drive one more loop before we needed to head back to camp. We quickly encountered some Giraffe, which is always a fabulous sighting. We switched off the vehicle and watched them for the next 10 minutes. Realizing our Giraffe sighting had taken-up to much time to finish the loop before sunset, we decided to do drive one more kilometer and then turn back to camp. After about 700m we saw them on the right-hand side of the road; five White Rhinos. Within 2 days we were able to show Rosie both the animals she wanted to see on this trip! The Rhino were about 50 – 60 meters from the road. They were moving between some acacia trees, but the sunlight was good and James could take some good pictures to remember Rosie’s first Rhino sighting. The following morning we decided to go and complete the loop we had found the rhinos on the previous evening. Halfway around the loop we found Meerkats! They were quite relaxed and were standing on their hind legs, with their tails as stabilizers outside their borrows. We spend about 20 minutes watching them and taking pictures of them. In the process a herd of 15 Blue wildebeest walked past them and it was amazing to see how relaxed the Meerkats were with these big 250kg Wildebeest walking right by them.Three kilometers later and in the middle of the road were a White Rhino cow with a calf. Two Rhino sightings in two game drives at Mokala made us smile from ear to ear. The two rhinos slowly walked out of the road and into an open grass plain. We moved forward and switched of the vehicle to take our time and take some good pictures!
Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana: During our first night in the Central Kalahari we were woken up at 00:30 by Lion roaring a few meters from our tent. There are no words to explain how it feels or sounds when a lion is roaring so close to you. It was the first time that Rosie experienced this and believe me it is an experience you will remember for the rest of your life. In the morning we found the Lions tracks about 40m from our tent and even I had to admit that I thought the Lion was a lot closer! The Central Kalahari is a vast area and sightings are not as frequent as in other parks or reserves, but the remoteness and feeling of being in deep Africa more than make up for this. We sighted Kudu, Gemsbok, Red hartebeest, Blue wildebeest, Springbok, Steenbok, Giraffe, Warthog, Black backed jackal, Bat eared fox and Honey Badger. One of the highlights was a sighting of a Cheetah; even it was for only 3 seconds. It disappeared into the grass before anybody could even put their hands on a camera or pair of binoculars, but luckily everybody saw it and felt very privileged to have seen such a rare animal in such a vast landscape.
Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana: Moremi was a pleasure to visit, as always. We had plenty of Elephant sightings and Elephants are one of the few animals you can never grow tired off. They are always busy doing something and interacting with one another. Because of this you always come home with more Elephant photo’s than you planned on. Besides Elephants we saw plenty of other game. Impala, Vervet monkeys, Chacma Baboons, Hippopotamus, Waterbuck, Lechwe, Giraffe and Kudu. We also had a great sighting of a herd of plus minus 100 Buffalo. The highlight was definitely a pride of 10 Lions including 2 big males. Unfortunately lions don’t do much during the day except sleeping and it was exactly the same with this 10. One by one other safari vehicles pulled into the sighting and after 10 to 15 minutes they would pull out of the sighting again. Reading the animals’ body language we could see it would not be long before they would get up and move off. We spend a good 40min with them and then our patience were rewarded as one by one they started to get up and walk in our direction. They passed within 20m of our vehicle and we got some beautiful pictures.
Summary: This was another successful tour by photoShOOTAfrica. Rosie saw her Meerkats and Rhino she came all the way from England to see and we totalled no less than 4 of the big 5, not to mention the Cheetah we saw! In total we viewed 34 mammal species on this trip, not to mention the variety of birds. |
