With a feeling of great satisfaction and gratitude, after spending two full days with the Painted Wolves, we departed Splash, taking a short game drive on our way to the airstrip. At the airstrip, while waiting in the “VIP lounge”, we saw two Wild Dogs running across the runway just as the plane came in to land.
A 10 minute flight to 4 Rivers with a 20 minute drive to camp, saw us arrive just in time for brunch, after which we settled into our luxury tents. In the afternoon, our guide, Clifford and tracker James picked us up for a game drive. Soon they spotted two male lions, fast asleep in the shade of a tree.
Moving along, we saw a beautiful Bateleur, which unfortunately turned away from us when taking off, as a result we could not get any in-flight photos of it.
A kite flew up out of the long grass with a snake clutched in its talons
A small herd of Roan Antelope, unusually, stayed still long enough for us to get some nice photos.
By this time the sun was low above the horizon
We decided to return to the sleeping lion brothers, finding them waking up and starting to move around
Look at the video with sound on. These guys roared ferociously.
With the lions’ roaring shaking the ground, Liana still getting great video of them, but the light becoming too low for photographing them, I turned to the sunset for one last photo of the day.
As planned, we left slightly earlier than usual, since we had a long drive ahead of us to the place where ST suspected we might find the Wild Dogs. Fortunately I had fully recovered from the side effects of the malaria prophylaxis and was feeling ready for the day. We drove in a westerly direction from Splash camp, almost to the boundary with the Khwai concession.
After about 90 minutes drive we reached the crossing onto an island where the Wild Dogs had previously denned. We started exploring the island. Almost 2 hours 30 minutes after leaving camp, we first spotted the Wild Dogs, who were in the middle of a hunt, which turned out to be successful. However, before all of them could eat, a lioness came storming out of the bushes, chasing them away and stealing their food. Warnings were sounded and the Painted Dogs were on full alert. We did get some good photo and video opportunities.
We followed them until they settled down for their midday nap. We counted 28 of them, an unusually large pack, including 9 pups, around 5-6 months old. Apparently these 9 pups were the survivors from an original 13 that were born in June/July.
Returning to camp for brunch, we decided to make an early start in the afternoon, hoping that they would not move off while we were away.
In the afternoon, we skipped high tea and left an hour early, for the long drive back to where we had left the Painted Wolves. Along the way we spotted a male leopard resting under a bush in the midday heat.
We were very happy to find the Wild Dogs where we had left them, still fast asleep. Soon we got word that several other vehicles were on their way from Splash and Kwara camps, having been informed that we had found the Wild Dogs. This was bad news to us, as there is a limit to the number of vehicles allowed at a sighting and, since we were there first, we could potentially be forced to leave in order to make way for latecomers, which could result in us missing the greeting ceremony when they woke up, and the subsequent hunt. Fortunately our guide, ST, managed to convince some of the other guides to combine their guests in one vehicle, resulting in us being able to stay.
As the Painted Wolves started waking up, yawning and moving around, there was much excitement. The youngsters started playing.
After a while they started moving off, intent on hunting, since some of the pack had not eaten in the morning and were still hungry.
Soon they made a kill, which was given to the pups to feed on, while the adults continued the hunt. Since the sun was setting, we had to leave them at this point and return to camp, exhausted after a long, but very satisfying day. We had achieved success, finding the Painted Wolves and spending time with them, having an awesome experience.
As an aside, I have had some enquiries about the exact locations of the places we visited, so found these maps on the internet, indicating the position of the Okavango delta in Botswana and the various concessions and camps within the Okavango
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So, at last, after a hectic few days back at home, Liana managed to get around to editing her videos, so here are the videos for Day 5, Day 6 and a lovely video she made using my astro photos from this and previous trips.
We had a slightly delayed start to the day, having to wait for the bakkie’s windscreen to get de-iced before we could hit the road. The first town we passed trough, Montagu, still seemed fast asleep at almost 8 o’clock in the morning and we had to wait until we reached Robertson before we could get coffee and breakfast. On the way to Robertson we passed through the beautiful Cogmanskloof.
No food photos today since I made the mistake of sitting on the wrong side of the table, resulting in poor light for food photography, or any photography for that matter. This is a pity, since the coffee and croissants at Strictly Coffee were excellent and we received service with a smile.
After breakfast, on the way to Worcester, we noticed snow on the Matroosberg.
After Worcester, we took a detour in order to drive along the famous Bainskloof Pass, built by Andrew Geddes Bain in 1853 and more recently declared a national monument. Our bakkie is fortunately low enough to pass under Dacre’s pulpit, where many a large truck has gotten stuck after ignoring all the warnings along the way. And no, we didn’t see any leopards, despite the promise on the road signs.
Passing through Wellington, Malmesbury and Darling, we reached the West Coast National Park in good time and were soon fascinated by the magnificent flower display in the Postberg section, which is only open for two months a year, during flower season.
The flowers really speak for themselves, no words required.
Satisfied, but exhausted, we arrived at Orca House in Yzerfontein, where we received a friendly reception from Francois. We soon had a fire lit for a braai and then relaxed on the dune in front of the house, overlooking the sea, with a glass of wine in hand.
After dinner, it was once again time to download and edit photos and video and prepare our camera equipment for the next day.
Look at the great daschcam footage of the day, ably curated by Liana to create a lovely memory of the day.
Etienne's Camera 