Grab a couple of cold drinks, beers, some chippies and a cuppa coffee. Load up my Lux and sneak out the house around 4:30. At 7am I pull into the parking lot of Manyane gate, Pilanesberg. ( Kwa Maritane gate is closed into the park due to flood damage)
Hook the Lux into 2nd gear and begin my day of solitude game viewing. All's pretty quite and not much going on, but I'm chilled. The bush is really thick and flood damage is really evident, there are place where debris is 3-4m higher up in the trees.
Spot a couple of the usual antelopes, zebras. At the hides there's the usual water birds and the odd hippo. The animals are all in good condition after the rains.
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Saw a rhino and calf ( quite far from the road) and a little later came across a black rhino ( also quite far for a pic)
But my day was made when:
Just past Bakgatla a fellow game seeker stops me and points to a bush on the side of the road saying "Hang around and see what comes outta that bush". I'm thinking lion, cheetah,
Suddenly the bush shakes and out jumps two Wild Dogs that were on a kill
, well that was me. I could've go straight home after that - mission accomplished. After awhile they run down the road to meet two fellow dogs from the pack, who in turn run straight past me into the bush.We sat watching these guys jumping in and out the bush for about 10mins and then other cars started arriving, I then moved on to allow the others to enjoy the spectacle.
About a 1km further down the road, still chuffed with the sighting, something caught my eye next to the road and suddenly about 10 dogs came out of the bush onto the road and ran past me on either side of the Lux. They were obviously the rest of the pack on the way to the kill.
A special moment shared with these beautiful animals and really lucky to have had 2 sightings.
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