Weather, Dogs, Ellies, Holiday!

It is the 4th of May, 4:50 am and it just started raining again with lots of wind. I called my guests and told them the game drive was cancelled. Since yesterday conditions was just to bad to go out.

Last night we braved the wind and the rain, we saw one elephant sleeping. All of a sudden we saw wild dog tracks on the main road and they were heading east towards Vleipan. We were determined to find them... I mean we came all the way in this bad weather.

Some of the guys checked the power line track and saw the tracks turned North towards the road we were on. As luck would have it, a few hundred meters ahead they popped out in front of us. We were very pleased as this made it worth braving the weather! The best of all was when they started hunting impala right next to us.

The 30th of April on the afternoon drive we followed the dogs through one of the blocks with really tall buffalo grass. They did move in hunting formation the whole time, all of a sudden all hell broke lose . They killed and took apart an adult steenbok and finished it in 3 min. After all, they are 16 dogs. When steenbok feels threatened the rely on keeping dead still with their ears flattened against their head. Unfortunately, this time the wild dog’s senses got the better of the steenbok.

After this eventful drive the animals turned the tables and just disappeared - probably because of the cold.

The afternoon of the 2nd of May we bumped into a breeding herd of ellies, what a show they put on for us, even the newlyborns and one young female. I am sure the weather affects their behaviour as well. We had such fun watching them play with everything, branches, pipes and sand. After about 20 minutes they moved North in search of water. What a sighting!!!

Hope you enjoyed that. I am going on holiday on the 5th of May for 2 weeks. See you when I get back!

Written by Grant Marcus