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I've had tooth ache for the last couple of days, and last night I didn't get much sleep. So I ignored this morning's 9400 alarm, and tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep. Today I have to be out by 0900 and transfer to the Crocodile Bridge rest camp.
I got up at about 0730. A torrential thunderstorm had started. As the car is a distance away friom the hut, I would get drenched packing the car. So I had a shower, got dressed, did some packing, made some coffee, played sudoku, did some more packing and by about 0815 It was less torrential, and I started packing the car.
The trip from Berg-en-dal to Crocodile Bridge is about 65K mainly on dirt roads and I wondered whether they would be flooded. But in the end there was no problem. Even though it had sounded/looked a lot, the earth is so parched that it was all quickly absorbed.
Yesterday's bird hide was just off route and so I went there but once again there was nothing to be seen and I got bored after 10 minutes.
The only significant thing I swa were lots of buffalo. This is the the first time this trip that they had been close to me. They were on either side of the road, and occasionally on the road, but they were reasonably docile that they didn't get in my way.
About 5K from Crocodile Bridge, there is a short detour to Hippo Pools. Luckily someone else was there to point out where the hippos were. Normmaly they are quite vocal but not today. There were just three of them. I also saw a goliath heron, one waterbuck, a fish eagle, and two darters.
I was expcting the shop at Crocodile Bridge not to have too much food. I had stocked up with non-perishable stuff in Berg-en-dal yesterday and this was a good idea. The shop at Crocodile bridge had no stock cubes, and not many vegetables. It also had little chicken. I found some that was refridgerated described as ready to eat. I hope it will work in my vegetable and chicken stew (again). Had bacon and eggs for lunch (again as the shop had no cheese).
Suddenly at about 1530 I remembered I'd not started tea/dinner. So I quickly prepared yet another vegetable and chicken stew. It seem to go well.
I left for this afternoon's game drive at 1607. The plan was to go north up the S28 to the Nhlanganzwani dam (which I'd been to before this trip from Lower Sabie). It would also mean that the mapping information generated from using the GPS at Lower Sabie would join up with that from Crocrodile Bridge.
It was a very fruitful game drive but I saw nothing spectacular. The sightings included lots of wildebeeste, several sets of warthogs, lots of zebra, several elephants, some monkeys and a few giraffe.
I also saw hundreds of buffalo.
When I got to the dam, it was crowded, and, as I recorded in the notes from Lower Sabie, now-a-days there is a lot of tall vegatation that makes it difficult for morte than one vehicle to get to see everything.
The vehicle that was in prime position announced to me that there lions on the other side of the water to the right of where we were. They seemed to be drunk. When I said I would have difficulty in seeing them from where I was, one of them invited me to stand in front of their vehicle. I said that that is not allowed.
Eventually I decided to open the door and of my vehicle, and stand n its doorstep. So I had not got out of the car, but I was breaking the silohuette. From this postion, I saw two lions. They were far too far away to be photogrtaphed or watched, and so I decided to leave.
I have difficulty in distinguishing between female kudu and female nyala, and so I often write down kudu when in fact it could be a nyala. The males are easy to distinguish because the horns have different shapes. Anyway, on the trip back, I saw one male and two female nyala.
I also saw a rhino.
The food tonight was good: the smoked chicken dominated the taste, but the vegetables were good.
As I'm typing these notes into my PDA, soemthing descends from the ceiling of my hut and hits the floor. It's a bat. Not knowing what to do, I leave it there. Later I wonder why I didn't take a photo.
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