On the morning of the 26th we packed up camp at Mata-Mata and headed towards Nossob. A couple of kilometers outside the Mata-Mata camp we came across one of the most exciting sightings of our trip.
An enormous black-maned male lion and his lioness walking down the Auob River valley towards a water hole. They were truly spectacular and we watched them for an hour or more walking around, trying to drink the ‘brak’ water, but not liking the taste of it.
As the lions made their way from the waterhole to lie in the shade of a nearby Camelthorn tree a jackal appeared and wearily scouted around the lions, not taking his eyes off them. The jackal kept up a series warning calls and sat down in the grass opposite the lions and kept watch! Our day was made witnessing this interaction.
The rest of the drive was rather uneventful, with only a Green-headed wood hoepoe and two Steenbokkies providing something different to see. We spent about half an hour watching a juvenile goshawk playing with a beetle in road. He kept trying to grip it with his claw, but just couldn’t grab it.
Suddenly the beetle grabbed onto his claw and wouldn’t let go, making him jump around in a panic, trying to shake the beetle free! Eventually he took off heading for a stump next to the road, but missed it, crash landing on the other side! Very funny indeed!
Nearing Nossob, we came across a large pool of water that had gathered in the road after the previous nights thunderstorm. Sitting on the edge of this small body of water was a beautiful Hammerkop - why hunt in the dry river bed when you can use pools in the road! We stopped the Landy with its wheels in the water and the little Hammerkop took one look at this and moved over to our front wheels to use the shade it created as camouflage for his bug ambush!
We arrived at Nossob camp around lunchtime. When making our accommodation booking we were forced to stay in a chalet for the first two nights at Nossob because the campsite was already fully booked. Admittedly, after nearly 10 days camping, the luxury of a private bathroom and beds with matrasses was incredible! We indulged in a shower, washed some clothes, cleaned cameras, downloaded pictures and snoozed until it was time for the afternoon drive.
The evening drive back along the “Marie se draai” route did not yield anything new or particularly exciting. Upon arriving back at Nossob though, the sunset was spectacular, painting the sky with an amazing swath of color, for which summers in the Kgalagadi are famous. I should add that we saw beautiful sunrises and sunsets every single day, without exception. Big sky county indeed.
The Nossob camp is overrun by yellow mongoose and ground squirrels by day, and jackals by night. The mongoose and squirrels are so cute and one needs to fight the temptation of feeding them, especially when they come right up to your hand, pleading for a little nibble of food. Don’t feed the animals!
The following morning we drove the route towards Polentswa and found another male and female lion pair walking down the Nossob River valley, not far from the camp. The rest of the drive did not yield anything new or exciting, despite all the rumours around the camp that there were brown hyenas, spotted hyenas, and a pride of six lions in the vicinity. Admittedly we were beginning to despair a bit about our lack of interesting sightings. Nonetheless we persevered on our drive and on the evening drive were rewarded with a springbok wrestling match, with aggressive head butting, pushing, shoving and snorting. The match ended spectacularly with the victor somersaulting the smaller one into the air, thumping him onto his back into the dust. Needless to say the fight was over and the losing male ran off, tail between his legs, so to speak, licking his wounds and shaking his head and ears about.
The following morning (28th Dec) we were up early as usual and once again drove the northern route towards Polentswa. Sightings were slow again and we only just glimpsed the back end of a brown hyena leaving a nearby water hole. At least we saw it, albeit briefly! We also spotted a den with jackal pups playing in the early morning sun! Their mum returned while we were there, regurgitating a slimy meal for them. Yummy!
We had to move out of our chalet that same day and were back in the campsite for that evening. In all honesty, being in the chalet was nice, but staying in our little tent was better, forcing us to appreciate our beautiful surroundings far more than when lying behind closed doors and curtains.
We returned from our early morning drive and after checking out of the chalet at 9am, we headed on a short drive again, this time on the “Marie se draai” route. We stopped so Arne could photograph some seed pods on a tree and with the engine turned off and immediately heard the roar of a male lion right near the Landy!
It didn’t take long to spot him under the tree. His roars were penetrating and gave me the chills. He was being very vocal and walked from one shady spot to the next.
We could see that he had eaten well that evening as he had a very fat tummy! We watched him a while before heading back to camp.
The 29th December came around and it was time to pack up and leave for Tweerivieren again. We decided to drive all day to maximize our game viewing time ….and ended up driving for 13 hours, covering only 215kms! It was the longest drive ever…! Sadly we were not even rewarded all that much for our effort, with the only exciting sighting was that of five lions sleeping in the shades of several camelthorns on route to Tweerivieren in the Nossob River valley.
Our epic drive ended at 19:30pm that evening when we eventually arrived at Tweerivieren. After just managing to set up our camp, make some supper and have a quick shower, we crashed into our sleeping bags.
Read the final Part 5 of our Kgalagadi Trip 2011
Text and images by Arne and Cecile
