Due to the rain the previous evening, Frank and Tracey decided not to join the morning drive if it was still wet. It was so I was alone with Christoff and Frank. This gave me time to ask them questions that a native South African might have found "stupid". I really enjoyed the time with Christoff and Frank. I did take lots of photos but cannot post them yet... Why, you ask? Because I was worried about having room on the SD card for my camera so I moved pictures to my portable hard drive. Then locked the SD card up in the room safe with my laptop and forgot to get it out when we went on the drive.
Therefore, all the pictures I took are on the camera's memory and I can't post them until I get home and root out the cable.
Since I can't do that, I'll mention some of the things I saw....
We saw a lot of duiker (Afrikaans for diver) but they were hard to photograph as they're very skittish. They're named duiker because when they run, they look like they're diving.
I saw lots of birds... cranes, South African bee eaters, red billed hornbills, yellow billed hornbills, Egyptian goose, white backed vulture, African fish eagles, crested francolin, guinea fowl and helmeted guinea fowl, red-crested korhaan, Burchell's starling, red-billed oxpecker, and the most amazing of all.. the lilac-breasted roller. It was amazing to see the colors that nature provides.
We also got in the middle of a herd of buffalo. They were grazing all around us and I had the opportunity to see two males go at it. It's not like bison or buffalo in the US where they clash. This was more like horn wrestling.
We also saw an alpha male impala (no, they're not just Chevys) drive a bachelor impala away from "his" females not they'd be interested because the alpha male had already mated with them.
I also saw the pride that roamed our area of the preserve (they have over 600 km of roads so you don't see the whole thing). It consisted of one male lion and three lionesses. They were off in the distance feeding. We kept trying to track them later in the day and you'll see how we did.
A caracal, which is a nocturnal cat was also spotted on our morning drive. As it was morning, it was highly unusual to see this animal at this time of day.
It was back to the lodge after a brief stop for coffee with Amarula (a South African cream liqueur which goes better with coffee than Bailey's) for breakfast and a massage.
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