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grrrrt is the sound of us travelling to Nossob from Twee Rivieren in the Kgalagadi Transfonteir park on 100km of corrugated roads, we’ve learnt that they grade the roads every month, but this park is fully booked all the time so the roads don’t stand a chance.

We crawled our way through 160km of wilderness yesterday and were very well rewarded, today though we were on a mission, black maned lion and everyone knows that Nossob is the camp most famed for sightings.

We drove the speed limit for 130km and it just shows that to see wildlife you have to crawl through. We did see the Cape Fox, very similar to the black backed jackal, but after all our time with these treasures yesterday we can spot the difference.
Also a brown hyena bounded across the road up ahead and dissapeared into the long gras, my first thought was who let there long haired dog out. They really are long haired and shaggy and not at all like the spotted Hyena.

We were delighted to find lion poo, we inspected it closely, it was in the middle of the road afterall, we even took a photo, huge! and it was fresh Lion poop. Unfortunately the lion was nowhere to be seen and that section of road was beneath the veld level with high bushes on either side, so he could very well have been just out of sight.

Luckily our chalet was ready at 11:30 so we were able to book in early. It was so nice to sit on the stoep and have crackers and cheese and be amused by tame squirrels. So very cute. Erica is so clever i only had to tell her once, no we don’t touch wild animals, in a way i wish i hadn’t said so, because one was so friendly I’m pretty sure it would have climbed onto my lap. Much to my surprise there are also tame Suricat’s in the camp, i wouldn’t have thought so because they are on the “what was spotted where board”.

20km North of Nossob, we were treated to over an hour of activity at a watering hole, just springbuck, blue wildebeest, gemsbok, ostrich’s and black backed jackal. Nothing we didn’t see yesterday but what was so special was watching the different species interact. The jackal, you have to love them, actually growled and stood down 4 or 5 Blue Wildebeest. To our amazement the Wildebeest gave way and he got a quick sip. A minute later the Jackal was bounding around, tail in the air, nose down a mouse hole – all this right in front of the bonnet.

About 30 springbuck were outnumbered muscle wise to 4 wildebeest who refused to budge from the water, humbly the springbuck just filed past the car to go stand under a tree next to us.

We kept thinking with all this “food” where are the LIONS. With much reluctance we decided to try the next four water holes, another 40km of grrrrttt and no animals at any of the holes. Fed up we turned back to Nossob hoping to see some lions.

This evening at 5:30 we took our coffee and went to go walk on the trail inside the camp, it really is lovely being able to walk outside through the veld without the fear of predators. That lovely grass I spoke about yesterday lined the path most of the way. The path is only 800m long but with a toddler it takes a little longer that the 30 minutes they say. We came back home at dusk to a beautiful sky all orange and pink.

While Phil bathed and put Erica to bed, i went to go sit in the hide. sadly no Lion. It was nice to sit outside at night and listen to the night sounds and the hyena laughing in the distance. A very knowledgable chap from Picketberg, was telling me what i was hearing, because of him, I now know I also heard the black backed jackal calling out a warning yip. I also learnt that buck eyes shine green at night and predators orange. I came back after an hour so Phil could have a turn, sadly no Lion either.

Tomorrow we will see Lion.