Klik hier om hierdie blaaie in Afrikaans te sien
On the way home in our "train" we drove along the Nossob riverbed wherever possible to get away from the atrocious access road to the park. The proper "road" is in the background, and an RSA/RB border marker is in the border fence on the right.
There are a few hundred Cheetah (Jagluiperd) in the park, but they are not easily spotted. On this trip these were the only Cheetahs we found, a group of six taking a nap. I was lucky to get this shot when one woke up and sat upright for a few seconds.
While the Black Backed Jackal (Rooijakkals) is found in most of the larger game reserves in Southern Africa, they are nowhere else as plentiful or as visible as in the Kgalagadi. They are usually loners who feed on small prey, but they are also scavengers. Whenever one finds large numbers of them gathered in one small area, stop and take a good look around, since chances are good that a larger carnivore like a Lion has made a kill nearby and that the Jackals are waiting for it to be done feasting, so they can get a chance at the leftovers before the Vultures move in.
Some Jackals discovered that the people camping in the rest camps often leave bones around after having a braai (barbeque). At Nossob rest camp two or three came into the camp every evening as soon as the sun set, and kept on trotting around among the campsites until the early hours to see what could be found to eat. One night I counted twelve of them! They are not tame, but some are brave enough to approach to within three or four feet as long as one remains still.
No, not your regular house kitty! The African Wild Cat (Vaalboskat) is slightly bigger than our house pets. Until this last trip I've never seen one, but this time we found several.
We visited this lone young male Black Maned Lion (Kalahari-Leeu) two days in a row where he was feeding on his Blouwildebeest kill. The kill is lying behind him next to the big tree.
Here he decided it was time to make some room for more food. Fastidious like all cats, he made his toilet some distance from his kill.
The Kalahari Lions are not a different species from those in other parts of Southern Africa, but they are darker in colour, and some people firmly believe they are larger too. Less than two kilometres from where the other Lion was feeding, we found a pair taking a nap on a dune right next to the road. The lady seems to be really enjoying her beauty sleep, with the tuft of her tail stuck carelessly in a bush.
Now how can I enjoy a nap when those people come and stop virtually on top of me with that tin can pumping out its stinking exhaust fumes!
Oh brother! There's another bloody stinking tin can contraption on the way over here.....
So you want to stare? I can do that too.....
I consider this shot as THE picture of our trip, since it's not every day that one has the opportunity to photograph this guy, even more so at eye level! We were returning from Union's End to Nossob late in the afternoon, tired and no longer very attentive after a long day of driving around, when Maggie let fly with such a loud scream that I thought I had run over a Ground Squirrel or some other cute little furry thing. It turned out that she had been startled by this Cape Cobra (Kaapse Kobra) perched on the sand embankment next to the road. In spite of her vehement protesting, I backed up back to the snake and then had a helluva time to persuade her to wind down the car window so I could take a picture. It only gave me a chance at this one shot before it made off into the bush behind it.
We hope you enjoyed the trip to the Kalahari with us!
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Created on 8 September 2003. Last updated on 2 October 2003.
