Last couple of days were cool, very overcast and very windy. Photography not good. Hard to drive around all those hours for so little to show. So yesterday I changed it up a little. Slept in, didn’t get up until 0600. Took my time eating Cheerios and yogurt, drinking instant coffee and packing. Hit the road heading north from Mopani to Shingwedzi. I’d planned a long, unpaved backroads trip to the west, but saw on the board that folks had seen lions to the east, so I changed decided to go 10K that direction and see what’s what. Didn’t see anything but it was a pleasant enough drive so I took a different backroads approach and kept going, heading to the east then north right up against the Mozambique border. Some of the road was rough (I’m always worried about the tires, which are substandard) but most of it was fine. Very little traffic because it’s a long way – like 65K - without short little cut-offs – not something the average mom, pop, three kids in their new Toyota SUV are going to want to do. The last 30K or so, the country changed as the road followed the course of the Shingwedzi River. It’s obvious that they’ve received more rain, and earlier I suspect. The bush became greener and denser. Really quite a pretty drive. Very little traffic. Didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but some interesting birds and one close run-in with an elephant. You’d be amazed that something so big could just disappear but in this dense bush often your first indicator is when they break a branch while eating. Then you find that there’s an elephant 20 meters away.
The clouds broke at about the time I arrived at Shingwedzi (about 1630). I checked in, got situated and went out for the last little bit of light. Watched some baboons and then sat on the river’s edge and watched a hippo express its displeasure. Hippos come out of the water and night and sometimes travel amazing distances to feed on choice grass. He was undoubtedly impatient to leave the water but wouldn’t while I was sitting there. Finally though it was time and I headed back to camp.
This morning up and out the gate at 0500. Took a nice long drive down by the river. Watched baboons being chased by male impala. Impala are by far the most ubiquitous mammal in the park. These little jewels are everywhere and it gets so you don’t really even see or notice them much. But the girls (they’re called ewes – apparently whoever decides this stuff decided that anything impala size or smaller are ewes and rams, anything larger are cows and bulls) are all pregnant and they mostly synchronize calving, timing it so that it occurs after the first rains when the grass is tall so they can hide their newborns. Minimize loss to predation. Baboons and impala mostly ignore each other but baboons do predate on baby impala and these male impala seemed especially forceful in urging these baboons to keep moving along. Right now the ewes all look very pregnant but I’d expect that we’ll start seeing babies almost anytime.
So a pretty morning drive on a pretty morning and back to the camp by 1000 or so. Toast and coffee (espresso has not made it to Shingwedzi, which as far as I can tell still has the worst restaurant of any of the main camps). And now here to relax for a bit. Washed some clothes (washing clothes by hand is oddly satisfying), write a bit, maybe edit a bit. Clean all my gear of the dust dust dust. Maybe take a nap later.
I’m thinking an evening drive and then I head to Satara in the morning. It’s a long drive so I plan to start early. If I see something on the way, great. If not then have some down time there (maybe get the car washed!) before heading to Johannesburg early the next morning. The girls are coming soon.
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