Imfolozi dag 2: First session with an incredible view

Dinsdag 20-11-2018

Imfolozi dag 2:        First session with an incredible view

Dieren vandaag gezien / Animals spotted:

·         Nyala

·         Impala

·         Kudu

·         White-backed vulture

·         White rhino

·         Leopard tortoise

·         Bark scorpion

·         Eastern striped skink

·         Rainbow sink

·         Green-winged pytilia

·         Blue waxbill

·         Scarlet-chested sunbird

·         White-throated robin-chat

·         Village weaver

·         Black-bellied bustard

·         Martial eagle

·         Violet-backed starling

Today we got the chance to sleep in, guess what. I woke up at 5. I decided to do some work on my writhing but I didn’t book much progress.

At 8 was the information briefing. Ryan did a good job. He explained some extra info about the animals. During the break I walked up to the rock. It was really cloudy and we didn’t see much, just some warthogs, an elephant and some kudu. At 10.45 am Ryan started the last part of his presentation. I enjoyed seeing the differences and similarities in the presentations of him and Fi.

At 2.30 pm we left to go onto session. We started off with a lesson in telemetry on the hill near camp. Ryan’s overall explanation was good and he took his time. Because there was a lot of interference he asked me to scan. It was quite hard and hearing beeps was a big challenge. We were scanning lions and CF17. No luck. We were close to the lions but they were just out of our sight hiding behind the bushes.

To get some signal Ryan decided to drive up the second highest mountain of the park. It was a bit of a challenging road. Quite bumpy and narrow road with branches hanging into the road. When we arrived at the highest point we had a wonderful view. There was a huge amount of interference so Ryan took over from me. In the mean time I had time to take some photos. It was an incredible viewing point. Driving back down felt a bit like a roller-coaster ride, except we didn’t turn up side down, thank god. We drove back to the camp. Whilst doing this we had some rain with lightning in the distance. It wasn’t to bad. We came across some great animals, like the black-bellied bustard, the martial eagle and a white rhino who had just taken a mud bath.