It was one of those really shabby days at the office. Certainly it was with heavy heart that the pair of us found ourselves on the back of a Landie at sun-up, cavorting about in Sabie Sand.
Ingrid Sinclair of Flow’s Cape Town Office and I had been given one of those briefs too ghastly to detail – produce the content for the website upgrade of a game lodge in the Sabie Sand. As a result we were forced to head north-east for three days to this rather stunning place called Cheetah Plains.
Tacky, huh?
Tacky, indeed. That Monday morning, as the rest of Flow contemplated computer screens at the office, the shine in Ingrid’s eyes said it all. Armed with mugs of hot tea we sat in the Landie with Andrew our guide and Ranson our tracker, under a marula tree.
Six feet above us Mrs Leopard was having quite a time of it, and we were the least of her worries. The scent from the bloody grey duiker she’d hauled up the trunk to safety was attracting quite a crowd. Underneath waited a couple of hyenas, above the vultures circled; her young son arrived for an easy breakfast but mom was having none of it, and after her tirade he slunk off to find his own.
It was a smidgeon of the astonishing game we saw on bush drives reduced to three thanks to the buckets of rain that persisted for most of our stay. But the lodge was divine, the food fabulous and the staff even better, and in my book there’s not much to beat the damp spring bush as it recovers from winter.
Far from hiding from the deluge, the animals emerged en masse like a jolly West End chorus to delight in the new leaves, filling waterholes and settling dust.
“What aren’t we going to see?” asked Ingrid as a herd of Cape buffalo circled our vehicle.
She was right. In this neck of the woods, spotting the Big Five in an hour or two was easy. And forget seeing one rhino on the browse, in that piece of heaven it’s more likely to be a family of five. Our hyena sightings were a close-up of a mother feeding her babies, and following a posse of youngsters dead set on creating as much havoc as possible in the Sabie Sand, while mom was out sorting lunch.
Next to our vehicle young elephant bulls sparred while their baby brother stamped his feet in fury at having to remove leaves from a branch, without tusks. And no we didn’t see a pair of rare wild dogs but a pack of 19 sunning themselves under our noses, on the banks of a waterhole.
Such dreary days in Africa…
See photos of our adventure below.
Drive slow. Elephants crossing
Ingrid Sinclair enjoys morning coffee with Andrew our guide (left) and Ranson the tracker
After a niblet of duiker for brekkers, Mrs Leopard settles down for a nap, metres above our heads
The hyena boys make comfy after a long feed from mom