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Hi ! From wonderful Olifants - sipping sundowners and reflecting on the day's sightings !
We're here for two days only ;-(but it's still wonderful ! We had little luck yesterday on the way in but since meeting Scipio in Letaba this morning our luck changed !
Immediately ! Lion rhino buffs etc Will post pictures when we get home !

Oh dear - looking at the title I think it might imply that meeting Scipio was bad luck ?!! He he noooo!!!
I hope you all got my drift - my luck changed after meeting the famous forumite from Phalaborwa !!!
Well - we decided only two weeks ago that it was time again and checked availability - Saturday night in Letaba and Sunday in Olifants - good enough , wonderful in fact like any two nights anywhere in a Sanpark as you know !!
We entered at Orpen and took the Timbavati dirt road up to the Olifants river and then tar to Letaba. Great to be there again , but no special sightings - just a sunset picture to share ....


We went on an early drive on Sunday and spent some time with a baboon family on the bridge before returning for breakfast....






On the way back into Letaba camp my SO noticed a YR on the vehicle in front of us - it turned out to be Scipio in his new bushmobile - very nice Jeep Cherokee !! Was nice to meet you and your family Scipio !!!
As I mentioned, that meeting changed our luck - just five kms on our next drive we encountered our first lion of the trip - he looked like a romantic guy - sniffed the bush and even turned back to say good bye before he went down to the river ...





We were on a roll - nice elephants




and a rhino before we got to Olifants


A great sunset before settling down for the night


The new restaurant is great - with staff to match - we were served by a delightful guy called Giet !
We asked him about his name - turned out that he was named after his father's employer and it should have been Gert , but the registrar got it wrong !!!

Monday turned out even better , but I'll post the rest tomorrow !!

Cheered up by our changed fortunes, we got going early on Monday as we planned to leave the park only by 13h00 for the long drive back to Gauteng ...


We headed south on the main road to Satara - at Ngotso North our luck continued ...


Three big males ! They got up one by one and strolled to the water hole ..






After drinking for a long time they crossed the road ...


and only then did we see the rest of the pride - nine females !!


Satisfied and happy to go home, we had a quick snack at Satara (seeing the impalas that were posted on cam sightings in real time) and headed for Orpen .
An approaching car signalled us to stop and suggested taking the S106 instead of staying on the main road...


Right on the T -junction with the Talamati road - eleven in total - which made it 23 lions in the space of six hours !!! Only these two were still feeding when we got there - the rest were sleeping in the shade..


Mix a good sighting with humans and you get ? ? a fool to spoil it for everyone
A safari vehicle from Hamilton's tented camp arrived with just two people on board , but Mister Important kept demanding - the driver had to move the vehicle this way and that way , while M I was shooting away at the rate of 5 frames per second ( or so it sounded ) He was using a bazooka of about 500mm I guess , but he urged the driver to get closer and closer , untill they were about five metres from the kill - to do what ? get 50 rapidly fired shots of the lion's left nostril ??
Well you guess what - the lions jumped up and growled - we were hoping to see a charge and a second kill , but of course the lions did what we knew they would and retreated and joined the others in the shade ...




Well on that high ( low ? ) note we could leave and hit the long road home !