Thursday 7th

After yesterday's pointless early start we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast this morning. There was an iridescent sunbird out in the garden by the pool, and indeed it looked to be a gorgeously hot sunny day. Which it was; a bit too hot for me. It was about 10am before we made it into the park. The first excitement was noticing two huge, ugly maribou storks perched on a tree top near the gate visitor centre. Possible they always perch there but we usually get our tickets and whizz off into the park without having a proper look around.

It was quite hot even early on, and I think the animals were hiding in deep shade because we saw not much driving into the centre of the park. A steppe buzzard circling overhead and calling was the highlight. I took the car down an unsurfaced road to the north of the central road, the first time we've ventured into the northern section. It all seemed very dry there, a few small birds in the thorn trees but no animals. We stopped for a bite of lunch in a hide overlooking a small lake. These hides are a relief because they are the only places you're allowed to get out of your car. We're feeling like a couple of potatoes driving around all day. The car parks for the hides are surrounded by tall fences sometimes with electric wires too, to protect the tourists from the wildlife. At this particular hide the fences were quite badly splintered, and destroyed in a couple of places. I did a bit of deduction and worked out that an elephant must have got itself funnelled into the angle between the car park log fence and the steel post and mesh fence protecting the walkway to the hide, so it had simply forced its way through the corner, then crossed the car park and smashed down the heavy log fence on the other side to continue on its way. I'm glad my car wasn't in its way too!

The hide was quite full of people also eating lunch. They'd all brought picnic baskets loaded with salads and chicken and were eating of plates with knives and forks. We sat munching our rock buns feeling like poor relations. There were four female water buck on the lake shore and a couple of sacred ibis. We decided not to venture any further into the northern park as it was very hot and quite lifeless looking, so we followed a loop round back to the main road. A good move. First we passed a small group of red hartebeest, an animal we hadn't yet seen with long curly horns. Then Robbie's eagle eye spotted three rhinos lazing together beneath some thorn trees. We stopped off at the hide where we'd seen the elephant yesterday, and there was the resident hippo wallowing in the water right underneath the hide. You could see its nostrils by peering between the planks of the floor. And smell its breath, which was like the worst fart you have ever experienced. I don't recommend. We exited by another gate hoping we could get a swim at one of the lodges there, but they were "residents only", so we drove around the outside of the park back to Mogwase and had a swim here and a quick work-out in the gym.

Then we returned to the park at 5pm. Incredible luck: we saw an elephant quite close to the road only 5 minutes from the gate. Then we drove down to the dam where we'd seen hippos the first morning, and there were now seven of them bobbing about and yawning their huge jaws wide. Did a loop along the dirt track and saw the elephant still there when we exited. We had dinner at the Golden Leopard resort again, and saw a spotted thick knee in the dark car park, a nocturnal bird that struts around on long legs, and there was a huge herd of impala grazing there too.