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| Route 62, it isn't actually a sex shop, just a cafe/pub! |
Day 7 has been a day of almost continuous driving as we have to get as close to Port Elizabeth (PE) as we can. We set off from Montague around 10am and headed to Oudtshoorn with the plan of stopping at an ostrich farm there and for coffee. In a bizarre twist on the day, had coffee at Ronnie's Sex shop instead! I should probably point out that it is a roadside cafe/pub on Route 62 that is very popular with tourists probably only because of the name, and I didn't go to a sex shop with my mum. We carried on to Oudtshoorn and decided last minute to go to the Cango Caves instead of the ostrich farm in the hope that it would be less touristy. It wasn't, but they split our tour into Germans and non-Germans so the group of maybe 30ish people ended up with only 6 of us in the English speaking group so it was almost a private tour! The caves were very impressive, especially the drum room: a chamber filled with solid but very resonant columns that our guide banged out some pretty good rhythms while singing the click song!
Because we spent an hour or so at the caves, the last few hours of driving were slightly stressful trying to get to our backpackers in Tsitsikamma before it was properly dark. We inhaled some dinner in Plettenberg Bay, and made it to the backpackers by around 9/9.30.
Day 8: Schotia.
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| Safari time! |
As we drove into the gates of the park, we were immediately met by a gang of African Buffalo, one of South Africa's big 5 and apparently quite rare. We were off to a good start and after watching them for a while, we headed further into the park where we quickly ran upon a parade of 6 African Elephants (can you tell I was writing this with the game book in front of me?) another of the big 5, as well as plenty of impala, kudu, nyala, bosbok, springbok, blue gnu (hurhurhur), tsessebe, waterbuck, warthogs and several mongooses (I checked-as much as I want it to be mongeese, it isn't). We did see 2 lazy lions, but I think the highlight of the afternoon drive was seeing a male and female white rhino! We spoke to Etienne about rhino poaching as their horns are thought to cure many ailments and diseases. As of 2 December, 1077 rhinos had been killed for their horns which is nearly 1000 more than in 2008. Etienne and Schotia as a whole are apparently fighting to legalise the trading of rhino horns so that there would be some kind of control over it. You could breed rhino specifically for it, and if a trained vet takes the horn off, the rhino is perfectly fine (just missing it's horn) and the horn grows back, were as the way the poachers do it is to remove the whole nose. It would also flood the market and bring the price down and hopefully, people would realise it doesn't work and stop killing the poor animals.
The evening drive was fairly uneventful. We did see a porcupine, a genet and what our guide called an african kangaroo but is actually a spring hare. The hippos (one thing I REALLY wanted to see) didn't leave the water all night, so all we saw were their noses.
Sleeping in a tent seperated from the lions by only a meter (or 2) thick thorn fence was mildly terrifying, but ultimately great! It wasn't camping as much as glamping (they gave us fluffy white dressing gowns and white slippers - the gowns were fine but white slippers and mud seemed like an odd combination!) but it was still fun, and we didn't hear much other than the insects, wilderbeast and Cheryl's occasional squeak of terror when she had the only light strapped to her head and was getting bombarded by insects!
*BONUS DAY*
Day 9: Schotia and Addo.
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| We cheated with a rooibos tea as there wasn't any coffee. |
Today, day 9, we had an early drive in which we saw giraffe (and got to get out of the jeep and walk close-ish to them) and zebra before heading back to the lapa for breakfast, then back to our car. We spent a few hours lazing around the pool of our new backpackers/hotel, near Addo Elephant Park, as it was just too hot to do anything else. We set off into Addo around 4.30pm for a quick self-drive as it closed at 7pm.
We did see a kill straight away, but it was a Goshawk and some unidentified rodent so not quite the intense excitement we were hoping for. We kept driving though, seeing plenty of various types of antelope and zebra. As we were crawling along, eyes peeled for any kind of movement in the bush, a car comping towards us waves us to a stop and say there's a Cheetah with it's kill maybe 300 yards ahead. We immediately raced off (really slowly so as not to miss it), straining to see anything. We drive a kilometre or so without seeing anything, we thought we might have missed it as the road was surrounded by quite high bush with animal trails leading through it, so we turned around and slowly, slowly drove back to where we'd talked to the other car. Still not seeing anything even remotely close to a cheetah, I was beginning to think he might have been messing with us for a joke, but, Mum and Cheryl still held hope so we turned around again and repeated the process of scanning the shrubbery. On our 3rd try, we hailed down another car that seemed to be in a rush and asked them if they knew anything. They told us their son was their in another car, so follow them, and sure enough they led us to a gaggle of cars! After a few frustrating minutes of not being able to see a thing, some other cars left and we nabbed one of the best seats in the house. Sure enough, right off the road, there was a cheetah - blood on it's jaws and paws, eating what we thought was an impala. It was incredible, it would eat some, then look around, eat again, then look around, occasionally it would sit or even stand up to re-arrange it's meal before resuming it's eating and watching routine. After watching the cheetah for about 20 minutes I noticed a jackal that was on the right side of the wind, so hadn't been noticed by the cheetah and was edging ever closer. In the end it seemed to decide it wasn't worth it, and moved further away again.
Maybe 10 minutes later, Mum suddenly got very excited and says 'Look, look, look: A LION!' and sure enough, crossing the road just in front of the first car in the line, a massive lion was wandering into the scene. As it was downwind to the cheetah, it was immediately noticed and the cheetah stopped eating to watch it however the lion simply lay down at the waterhole and seemingly fell asleep. The cheetah continued to eye it though and didn't start eating. A few minutes later, ANOTHER LION WALKS IN! Again, the cheetah immediately clocks it and is now turning it's head to always have an eye on at least one lion.
Imagine the cheetah in the middle of a clock, it's body is facing us, so let's say our car is at 12 o'clock (and we're the last in the line of cars). The Jackal is hovering at around 2 o'clock and the lions are at 5 and 7 o'clock. The cheetah kept looking at the 2 lions and very occasionally, at our car. Mum joked that we were at the apex of the triangle and how quickly could me and Cheryl get our windows up? For about 10 minutes we sat watching the cheetah, 2 lions and jackal without anything really happening. The lions seemed to be asleep, the jackal would occasionally move slightly closer and the cheetah was always watching the lions and not eating. Suddenly, without warning, the cheetah seemed to decide his meal wasn't worth his life, and took off. Straight towards our car. Silly really, because as mum predicted, we were his safest option out. So me and Cheryl are both panicking, have dropped our cameras and are desperately trying to get our wide open windows closed! The cheetah ran so close to us that, had I wanted to lose and arm, I could have stroked it's back as it ran past!
Cheryl has some beautiful pictures which is good because I don't think I did it justice explaining!
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