Safari - Day 5 0730 Thursday Sept 4 0600 was the time my alarm was set to go off, but I was awake a few minutes prior, having slept the best since arriving in South Africa. I had signed up for the morning walk which left at 0715. There was hot water for instant coffee or tea before we left on our walk which tasted good as it was cool outside and everyone was wearing a coat or pullover. The walk started with some basic ground rules as follows: Only walk where the guide walks There are poisonous snakes and 1 of them looks like the sand which is why rule 1 The guide carries a walking stick only. If we see a lion, Do Not Run. If you run the lion will hunt you down. Get behind the guide who will deal with lion. I wanted to ask about a refund (22 bucks) at that point but the early morning light was so nice I could not say no to the walk. The guide identified quite a few plants and told us what the bushmen used them for. There was of course the Acatia tree, but also the Flu bush, the Shephards Tree (big roots that go down 100 metres to hold water for months), the Three bush and many, many more. There are different grasses, some of which are bitter or inedible. There was a ground spider that builds its web on the sand and also a thorny bush used for making tea. Bringing up the rear of our group was a young local fellow who is in training. He had binoculars and was on the lookout for lions. When we returned after the 2 km walk, breakfast had already started, so we simply joined them. There was a Craft Village Walk scheduled for 10 am but both Bob and I had seen a video of it on Youtube and it looked pretty canned. ... Turns out it was quite staged, according to the people who partook of the event. Lunch was a Tuna quiche which was so-so and did not agree with Bob. The afternoon was spent loafing about our room and getting caught up with my blog. The afternoon passed quickly and soon we were heading out on the safari 4 X 4s for our Sunset Drive and Sundowners. It left at 4:30 and we headed out over the dunes hoping to see some wildlife. We soon came across a small hyena skulking thru the grass quite some ways away from the 4 X 4. Next we saw a Orynx but by this time we had seen enough of them it was no longer a big deal! We also saw a hawk of some type and stopped briefly for a photo op. We finall stopped on top of a dune to watch the setting sun and also to enjoy a drink. It was starting to get chilly on our drive back as it gets dark very quickly out in the desert. Supper that night went from 7:30 until a little after 9 pm. It was Ostrich and potatoes and green beans which I ate. We have an early start and long dusty drive in to Namibia tomorrow so we packed tonight. Mike had mentioned he saw the Milky Way sometime during last night after the moon had gone down so we will get up at 0430 to try and photograph it. Safari - Day 6 0730 Friday Sept 5 Although the alarms were set for 4 AM, I awoke about 10 min. prior. Perhaps it was the anticipation, or possibly my internal clock is starting to work again, but for whatever reason, I was awake and anxious to see what the midnight sky would look like with no moon (it went down around 1 or 2 am) and with all the lodge lights out as well. Both Bob and I had brought along miners headlamps for precisely this reason, and they worked like a charm. The lodge generator was not scheduled to start until 6 today, so it was very dark, quiet and serene. I must confess to a bit of concern when I first walked out of the room and onto the catwalk as the lecture about lions being present at night was still very fresh in my memory. We took a number of photos, sharing Bobs tripod, and experimenting with what we had studied up on from the internet on Astrophotography. The 500 Rule was designed to limit your shutter speed to prevent any star motion. It basically said you divide 500 into your focal distance to tell you the slowest you could go. I was using an 17 - 40 mm lens so I stayed around 25 - 30 second exposure. .... The pics look great on the small camera screen so hopefully there will be one to show when we are back to civilization. Everyone was at breakfast by 0615 and we were on the road by 0730 in the 4 X 4s the lodge uses. The /Xaus Lodge is pronounced as house lodge, only with a click in your tongue before house. The 29 km drive out over the 90 dunes was not only as rough as when we came in (same road), but now it was quite cold as well as they are open air affairs. There were blankets on the seats so Bill, Bob and I pulled it over us to try and keep warm. It really was quite chilly on that drive! Mishek was already waiting for us at the entrance to the lodge so after transferring our small packs and the box lunches from the lodge, we were back down the road in Transfrontier Park, heading for Namibia. Did we see game or what? It was early, and as we drove down the small valley, we came across quite a few different species. By 10 AM we had seen Spotted Hyenas Feeding on a far off ridge, Steenbock, Gemsbock, a Major Eagle, a couple of Vultures, Wildebeest, Osttrich, a Giraffe and some bird species I cannot recall. We went thru customs into Namibia around 1030. Mishek informed us Namibia time was an hour ahead of S African time but Daylight Savings was ending in Namibia in 2 days so not to bother changing our watched. S, Africa does not utilize daylight savings time. In Namibia we had a 260 km drive over dusty, bumpy dirt road.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:21:39 +0000