August 22nd, on the road to Nossob camp

Guess what? I made it at 7:25 this morning! Only a few kilometres after I had left the camp I talked to 4 Italians who had apparently seen 2 cheetahs just 5 minutes earlier. I was a bit suspicious, they're Italians after all and maybe they had just seen a few springboks in the distance that they had mistaken for...nevermind. So no luck there. Further I went to spot a huge martial eagle in a tree and that was pretty much everything until I reached the Kij Kij waterhole approx. 50km to the north.

Again everybody told me about the resident lion pride over there but all I found was a sleeping jackal who didn't give a shit about me. Why would he care anyway? ;) I guess the coolest sighting I had there was a very shy cape fox that went to hide in a burrow when I approached him with my not too stealthy sounding car. That car rather makes a noise like a russian world war II tank, so I can't blame the poor little guy. He must have felt like a complete orchestra playing jingle bells came marching in. To my surprise it only took him a couple of minutes until he came out again to look at me curiously and another couple of minutes after which he fell asleep. I couldn't help but think of Fritz Pölking's (a famous German nature photographer) words that it's the biggest compliment for a nature photographer to actually make the animal comfortable in a way that it would just be dozing away. Well, an alternative approach would be to say that the nocturnal cape fox after last night's hunt was just too tired so that he simply didn't find any reason to stay awake. Whatever. I love the pictures. :)

So after that I took off again to hit the worst road ever! Funny definition of a "road" anyway. Sandbumps perfectly lined up, that's what it is. I'll come back to that later. A black-backed jackal would roam around Dikbaardskolk picnic spot and I was able to get a few shots until I hit the road again rather quickly. At that point the sun was burning down like crazy again and it felt like you're way too close to your campfire. Unbelievable. Then another cool sighting. An american couple in a VW Chico had stopped by the road and I asked them what they were looking at. They had to repeat it three times, because I simply couldn't believe that they had spotted a duck. Until I finally understood that they got stuck. In the sand. Being the cool guy I am I offered them help and I checked for the rope that every car should have somewhere in the trunk to tow another car to where ever. Well, not my car. To my surprise this wasn't the only disappointment at that stage. Cause now my car was also stuck in the sand, too. Can you believe it? I really had to dig deep into my McGyver toolbox to get it out of there again (incl. low gear 4WD and locked wheels, front and rear). By the time I was out of there again 2 more cars were stuck while everybody in there expected to see something spectacular. Well, nothing apart from us trying to get out of there. So the couple in the Chico finally made it with the help of a guy who actually had a rope to pull them out and we all went to Nossob camp afterwards. By the time we arrived there it was 2pm and the Americans told me that they'd still have to go all the way back to Twee Rivieren. Funny comment since it had taken me 7 hours to reach Nossob. Well, I didn't rush, but I didn't take it easy either. I found out later that they got stuck at the same place again. Anyway...

So I booked a sunset drive which supposedly takes off from Nossob at 5pm every day. There was some time left which is why I decided to put my stuff into the chalet and then take off to the Marie se gat waterhole/loop where they had seen lions in the morning. Guess what? Right, no lions, only a few gemsbokkies one of which to my amusement was quite interested in my screaming car and came pretty close. So I went back to camp, prepared my stuff for the game drive and showed up at 4:55h. Our guide then said that we'd take off at 5:30pm. Nice one! Thanks for telling me beforehand. I went to the reception and the guy just told me that this is something they do because every once in a while tourists would arrive too late just to find out that the game drive car has already taken off. I felt reminded of a few friends back in Germany who tend to do the same for me to arrive somewhere on time. :-S The game drive was 3 hours long and we didn't see shit except for jackals and spring hares. No, we actually *stopped* for spring hares. Can it get any worse? No wait: I saw my first meerkat!! I have to admit that it was roughly 100 metres away from the car. But it was still a meerkat, no doubt about that. After the game drive I went to have some Brutal Fruit (it's what we call alco-pop in Germany) with the German couple I had met in Kilie Krankie. Nice chat there (man, do they have some camera equipment!!) but I went to bed at 10. Lets hope for the best tomorrow.

Cheers and good nite!

Stefan