Moremi Game Reserve - Day 6

Xakanaxa has beautiful scenes.

We always hope that our early mornings leaving in the dark will pay off, but they usually don't. But for the first time in a long time it paid off and with the biggest prize of all - leopard. We spotted eyes in the headlights and quickly worked out it was a leopard. 

He immediately went down to ground and for a moment we couldnt see him but eventually he turned to us and the lights caught the reflection of his eyes. He quickly slinked off and we had to reverse and go up a new road but luckily we caught him again and this time he was just sitting off the road watching around him. We spent a few minutes with him before he got up and walked in the opposite direction, away from the roads. Nothing more to do except be stoked to have such a good sighting of him, even if it was in the dark. 

Morning coffee stop. 

We had been told that the lions had been sighted yesterday but they had crossed the water channel and into one of the tree islands that were inaccessible to the vehicles. We followed the general direction of where the lions had last been seen and then found ourselves a nice coffee spot that had water channels in all directions and a few birds to enjoy. And while having coffee we heard the lions roar - just where they had said - across the channels in the tree islands. And with no way to get there we just had to enjoy the roaring. 

Side Stripped Jackal, a nice find. 

We found the buffalo herd from the day before all out in the open in good light. And a really nice sighting of 2 side-striped jackals, something we only see in northern Botswana. They seemed to be on a mission and ran across the road in front of the car, all the while being mobbed by a lilac-breasted roller. By midmorning we'd found some zebra heading to drink but wanting to first roll around in some dust, as well as as a couple of giraffes at a salt lick. 

Zebra, time for dust bath.

We decided not to go back to the campsite for lunch in case the big group was there and busy. Instead we picked a beautiful spot under some trees overlooking the big channel lake and had lunch, and the reason why we make sure we prepare a lunch we can eat on the go. We chilled out there the afternoon with Cheryl photographing the birds and Dru having a nap. Heat of the day done, we meandered around for the afternoon game drive but didn't see anything special with the exception of a nice herd of elephants coming to a waterhole to drink. 

Ele's at the water is always special. 

Eventually we got back to camp around sunset to find an elephant wandering around. Someone had told us that an elephant in the camp had raided a car and this was probably the perpetrator. Making sure the car was closed we headed to showers just in time as the big group arrived just as we were finishing. Settling down for our evening under the stars we relaxed until bedtime hearing owls and distant lions and making plans for our morning drive.

Zebra crossing!