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Towards the end of the morning there was a promise in the sky that the sun might return for our afternoon drive:

During lunch I chased the birds around our unit, but although the red-winged starling was around, I never got a photo of it. All the others were well acquainted friends like the southern-masked weaver, laughing dove, familiar chat, fiscal flycatcher, southern boubou, red-eyed bulbul and the likes.

Our afternoon trip took us once again towards Kranskop. However, so far we had only done the bit that links up with Rooiplats. This time we wanted to do the whole thing. It was very quiet game-wise with the usual suspects well hidden in the shrubs and behind the trees. All of a sudden there was a movement right in front of us. A critter was running from left to right. This time I was prepared and just tried my luck and shot through the windscreen. The photo came out so blurred that it took me ages to positively ID the animal as an aardwolf… It was gone again in a sec and although we could watch it moving in the grass I never managed a clear shot of it.

The drive on Kranskop is very scenic and it must be stunning looking in good weather. But there were still lots of clouds in the sky and the sun peeped out only occasionally.

Back on the plateau, some zebras took pity in us and stayed put to allow me some photos of them.

I think this must be the most often seen pose of a zebra…

We also got a funny looking rainbow against the mountains. Hard to make out, but it was there!

Actually, we were already headed back to the camp when we came around a corner. I said, no actually I shouted to SO that I had seen a critter further down the road and that it was still in there. So hurry up! (Which is a joke as you are only allowed to do 25 kmh.) road. It was so distant that I couldn’t make out what it was exactly, but I knew we hadn’t seen anything like that before. Of course, it was not in the road anymore by the time we got there… But being parked right next to it while it was foraging in the tall grass, I could make out the very distinctive ears…

We had found us a CARACAL!!! You can’t imagine how quickly I got onto the backseat to get at least some photos. This is the best of the lot. That cat just didn’t want to turn for me.

We kept trailing it until we lost sight because it had proceeded over the ridge. Trying to find it again around the corner was a futile exercise. We had lost it… We waited and waited and waited. But it just didn’t show anymore.
Although we had planned to call it an early day just before our caracal sighting, we now decided we would go back to the camp for a toilet break and head out again to see if the caracal would come back.
Upon our return, just before the plateau, I made SO stop for some unknown reason. I just wanted to check out the area to see if anything was moving. And there was!!! Very distant, but we found the caracal again which was still in the area, leisurely sniffing around. No photos this time around. We could barely make it out with our binocs, so you can imagine what the pictures would look like.

Well, I’d call that an extremely successful day! Aardwolf and caracal on the afternoon drive – yay!

SO and I made for the look-out point again. By now the clouds had lifted considerably and I was hoping for some nice colours to end the day. Granted!

Pumbaa, you caught me before my last post. The forum turned slow all of a sudden...
But thanks!

An hour later the magic colours were gone and all was left was the clouds:





That night it was still too cold for a braai. So fireplace it was once again and we had marinated chicken and veg for dinner.

Thanks once again, Pumbaa, Ronnie, anne-marie, Richard, PJL and Mel!

It certainly was a very special day for us! Mountain Zebra made sure
that we would fall for it. (As did Addo, obviously ).

Being a sucker for colours, the late afternoon light show was certainly
almost as exciting as seeing aardwolf and finally finding a caracal!

On we go.

Mountain Zebra
01/04/2012

The next morning we woke up to a bright, sunny day. Goodness me, this park can be gorgeous in the golden sun!