On the first sleep out the whole group stayed in one of the ephemeral drainage lines for two nights. We took food and water with us and also dug our own toilets. At the camp fire we told some ghost stories and listened to the calls of hyenas. During the night we took turns being on guard and just as Jonny and I were going to bed, after our 3.00-4.00 shift, the hyena calls were getting close enough for us to hear the vibrations in their calls… that is how you know they are VERY close. Someone was snoring like a truck driver at our end of the drainage line and we just had to move… next day we all discovered it was Helen (!), not one of the guys as we had supposed. We also checked the hyena tracks… close, as I said.
Spring had just arrived and the days were pretty hot, so we were quite happy to go to one of the camps, using their pool the whole afternoon after the first night. In the afternoon most people decided to stay where we had set up camp and the rest of us went on a drive.
We did see some lions, but they were hiding in dense bushes, but we had some really great bird sightings like this lilac breasted roller and (which we see almost every day but they are exceptionally pretty birds, I think) and also a couple of tawny eagles, that didn't mind our company too much.
That night everybody was pretty tired, so after an … hmmm… interesting wildebeest stew and Jonny’s camp fire baked bread (a life saver) we went to bed early. Jonny had trouble relaxing though, since some of the guys had spotted a rhino close by earlier in the evening and he could hear some big animal moving around about 50 meters away. I told him that it’s probably a wildebeest, attracted by the smell of his grandma.. but the next morning we did see rhino tracks, not far away from our camp…On the second sleep out we were divided into group A and B and my group (A) went with the manager of Bushwise, Mark. He is an excellent guide and teacher and I was pretty happy to be driving this evening. First thing we drove up to a 24 year old elephant bull that we had heard breaking branches as soon as we got in to Makalali. He was browsing quite happily from a tree next to the road. I was thrilled since I had for a long time worried about not having had any close encounters with potentially dangerous animals while it was me driving. The elephant became a bit too curious and since one of the students was on the tracker seat Mark told him to go away, which he did.
This night we slept in bird hides which meant that we didn’t have to be on guard duty. We woke up at about 5.00 to the sound of hyenas calling. This caused us to pack up quickly and then rush to the car to search for them… without any luck this time though./A
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