Tuesday August 12th

Yesterday was Shopping Day! We went into town. We shopped at Spar and a bottle shop. The latter is a warehouse selling booze. Last night I had my first glass of wine in over a week. I may have lost some weight :-)


Lunch was at The Ghost Mountain Inn – which is, in fact, a very nice hotel indeed. But they can't cook fish and chips for toffee.


I wimped out of the afternoon drive as it was raining - it was, honestly – and I have showerproof but not waterproof gear. This turned out to be A Good Plan as it was not only very wet, but the truck was chased by an adolescent bull elephant with a testosterone overload. Some experiences are best avoided. My time was better employed sorting out a shooting schedule and a shot logging sheet, de-anting the kitchen and cooking macaroni cheese for dinner.


This morning dawned cold and misty, but dry. We finally located the dogs who entertained us by lying in the long grass with little more than their ears visible, so we left them to it and went off in search of cheetah.


Scarlet seemed closest. As the telemetry told us that she was very close, an impala dashed across the track so quickly that it was almost impossible to tell what kind of antelope had flashed across our vision – rapidly followed by Scarlet at full cheetah pelt. It was over in under a second. No time to turn a camera on. You have no idea how fast a cheetah in pursuit of breakfast can run until you have seen it.


Graeme, wildlife stunt driver extraorinaire, rapidly reversed in the general direction taken by both animals and asked for a telemetry scan, completely unnecessarily. Scarlet and her kill were right in front of us. A little judicious manoevering and we were within 15 metres of a cheetah having breakfast. She took a look at us, decided that we weren't in competition, and proceeded to act as though she was completely alone only pausing to drag her prey behind a tree; a very small tree.