Day 3 - Tracked Rhino

Woke up to the baboons barking apparently at a leopard. One of the other guest said he saw the lions on the way back to his room last night and had to turn around. The leopard was also on the boardwalk this morning about 4:45am. As we head out for our morning walk we see the lions close to the lodge have made a kill and are eating a Nayla, we don’t stick around as there are 2 other vehicles there and we have to get walking before the day gets too hot. We walked along a gorge and came to a river followed it a bit then headed up the cliff sides. On the way up the cliffs we notice some fresh Rhino tracks. We tracked the rhino for about 45 min when we finally spotted it. A female and her calf. It was pretty cool to actually track something, find it and be walking while you do it. It is so different to see theses animals on foot. We watched them for about 20 min as they watched us: both the rhino and us being extra cautious. Soon, they ran off so we kept on with our walk. As we walked back down the cliffs we noticed some elephant tracks going through some very narrow areas. We never saw any elephants during our walk but you would never expect to find them walking down the side of a rock cliff in such a tiny little space.

The afternoon we went for another drive and stopped at the most beautiful spot to watch the sunset. We were high up over looking a massive gorge with a river running through it. The scenery was stunning looked more like something you would see in the Grand Canyon. I didn’t think places like that existed in South Africa. There is something about the sun over here that makes it seem more beautiful. It always is this amazing red and it looks so much bigger and closer then it does back in Canada.