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While travelling though KTP I read the book of Gus and Margie Mills: "Hyena days & Kalahari nights".

It was such a great read, you know all the places that they are describing, if you have ever been in the Park.

I love Hyenas, so I suffered with the Hyenas, even cried about the loss of certain Hyenas
I felt the heat and the cold Gus and Margie experienced in the Park.

Right in the beginning of the book I marked a sentence that I really, really love.


"Cats are certainly cool and the wild dog is wild, but the hyenas are heroes."

@ melph68
I simply could not believe my eyes the time I discovered what they had killed.
Thanx a lot for th compliments

@ Zypresse
The Oryx we saw in the dunes had been much smaller, just have a look here ....
I could only find that the horns of young Oryx grow extremely fast, but I simply was not able to find just how fast
But definitely they are born without horns.....

24.11.10

Well of course we drove the dunes road towards the Aoub river bed.
We only drove for a couple of kilometres after passing the t junction and suddenly I detected a movement.
I stopped and indeed an AWC…
She was walking down the dunes towards the road. When we stopped, she stopped as well and looked at us, only to turn around and walk up the dunes again.
I think I could see that she was even a bit upset that we had the guts to interfere with her plan.

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Later we stopped at Houmoed waterhole.
Here we saw hundreds of Sandgrouses. Two Jackals came for a drink at the waterhole and it looked as if they were overwhelmed by the sheer number of birds.

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Only a few kilometres up the road we spotted some Meerkats.

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But soon they were gone again…

After a short stop at Auchterlonie we took the Lower Dunes Road.
Our first sighting was a Pale Chanting Goshawk.

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We stopped at Kij Gamies. A car parked on top of the dunes at the look out.
While stopped there we saw a movement near that car and instantly knew Lions.
So we drove up the hill and indeed we found two lovebirds.

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Then the Lioness got up and turned around.
Such a shame this beauty had a damaged eye…
But she is still a beautiful girl.

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They both walked down the dunes and settled close to the water basin.

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A Heron was coming to the waterhole as well.

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Again on the dunes road towards Twee Rivieren, we spotted a Squirrel that was eating something that reminded us of Asparagus.

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Back at Twee Rivieren we had fun with more Squirrels at our bungalow.

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On our afternoon drive towards the Aoub waterholes we spotted a Dikkop.

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And at Monro and Giant Eagle Owl (video with sound of the Owl).

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Then we observed a Jackal drinking in a very strange way, we never saw that before…..

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Yet again it was time to return to Twee Rivieren.
Just as we drove up the hill to the dunes road we spotted one of those fragile looking Steenboks.

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Then a sunset Oryx.

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A little stop at Samevloeiing as usual.

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And only a few kilometres before reaching Twee Rivieren, another Spotted eagle owl close to the road.

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Just shortly after we had passed the camp gates we observed a Giant eagle Owl that was mobbed by two Drongos….









It was another wonderful day in KTP and it ended with a lovely braai and more bat rescues…

Annual general meeting of the sandgrouses in KTP

It is asparagus, but she has started at the wrong end or maybe she is just peeling away the hard part before starting to eat

I love the squirrel using the tail as a parasol

The border is too high for the jackal, it would end up nose down in the water.....or maybe the paws were hot

You do see a lot of owls

25.11.10

Today we enjoyed a wonderful sunrise at Twee Rivieren.

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Then it was time to leave for a drive.
Crossing the dunes we saw nothing this morning, but arriving at Houmoed we discovered a little traffic jam and coming closer we saw that there was a pride of Lions.
They already had a drink at the waterhole and were now, one by one, crossing the road.
There were two sub-adult brothers teasing each other.

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The people became a bit hectic, and a towing vehicle passed the sighting driving right through the middle of the waiting cars, so we decided to drive on, all the more, as the Lions were moving further away and finally disappeared over the dune.

Only a short drive up the road we spotted a Cape Fox in the middle of the river bed.

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Then we spotted a Tortoise…

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We were driving towards Melkvlei. Our plan was to have breakfast there.
The Lower Dunes Road was without any sighting. But the landscape with the red dunes was spectacular.
When we arrived at Kij Kij we spotted a couple of Lions under a tree.
Look at the big male, I have never seen such a “blonde” Lion in the Kalahari….

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Well we stopped at Melkvlei, but no chance to have breakfast there.
The Nossob river bed was really very windy and with the wind there was so much dust in the air. We only stopped just for a short while before returning back to Twee Rivieren.
In the dunes we met this herd of Oryx.

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Back at Twee Rivieren the wind started to get stronger and suddenly it started to rain as well.







Later that afternoon we set off for a short drive towards Leeuwdril. But due to the rain it was very quiet.
But we found this mushroom.

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And later some very nice Asclepia.

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It was still raining at Twee Rivieren the time we arrived back at the camp.
So we thought the restaurant might be a great option.
Well this had been our last full day in the Park….
Tomorrow it’s only a couple of hours to drive in KTP till noon, with hopefully even more nice sightings before we are hitting the road to Upington….

26.11.10

Today way a sad morning. As it always is when you wake up with the thought that you are going to leave KTP in only a couple of hours.....
So we packed everything, picked up our permit and reavelled towards the Aoub River Bed one last time.
It had rained a lot the previous afternoon and the most part of the night.
So our last drive was quiet.
But it turned out to be a reptile day
At first we had to stop to save a really small Tortoise. It was so small that it almost looked like a large stone.

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Later we spotted a Cape Cobra.

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And on the way back to Twee Rivieren another Cobra.

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Just shortly before we reached TR our last sighting on that trip, yet another one of those beautiful snakes...

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Then we reached TR, it was time to leave.
I think I do not have to tell you how we felt standing in the recption, waiting for our exit permit.
We said goodbye to Eva and Annetjie van Wijk, already knowing that we will meet again in 2011

Thank you to all the staff of KTP, you really did a great job.
And made this trip very enjoyable.
Thanx to Marius ( Urikaruus), Franco (Grootkolk) and Jan (KTC).
Annetjie and Eva, and all the others at Twee Rivieren....
And of course it was so great to meet Jannie and SO again.
See you all again end of this year

We had a couple of great Yellow Ribbon sightings, p@m and SO, KTF hooked and GavinW and Wannabe Nerd, it was lovely to chat with you all guys


Thank you all for travelling with us through the Kalahari.
It was a mind blowing experience and the trip of a lifetime.
I am sure I do not have to tell you that we were simply over the moon.

We dearly hope that you enjoyed the trip with us
Thanx all for reading and commenting, we really appreciate that

I just made a little video with some of the pics (and some music)......
So I hope you like this

Thank you CC, Kamadejo, Micetta and melph68
So great that you enjoyed it, the report, Francolins videos, my pics and the little video with the selection of some of our captures taken during our trip

Again, thanx to all for your great comments
If you would like to see even more pics of our trip to KTP in November 2010 have a look here , there are still some (quite a few) that I did not post within my trip report.
Believe it or not