The Kirks

Once again, we were up at 6am for the morning drive.  Like so many places (and so few people) Africa looks at its best early in the morning.  The sun rising over the “Africa Trees” (The Umbrella Thorn) and the early animals grazing on the veldt are stunningly beautiful. 

One of the first things we came across was a pair of black rhinos.  There are only about 2000 black rhino left on the planet and less than 20 in Phinda.  Quite recently they had a calf born at Phinda which was one of the few times that black rhino have been moved to a new reserve and then have bred successfully.  The two we saw were an old bull and a younger female.  They’re certainly aware of the vehicle and people and they snort and stamp a bit but then because we’re not a threat, they amble away.  We get lots of photographs of animals bottoms because mostly they just amble away from you. 

We passed through a herd of zebra and wildebeest and then we saw a couple of giraffe heads in the distance and driving towards them, we realised it was a group of about 20.  I must have been off school the day that they did collective nouns for giraffe because it turns out it’s a “journey” of giraffe.  All their heads were turned in one direction which was a bit odd until we saw the two sub-adult lions that we’d met yesterday were hiding in the grass and the giraffe were watching them carefully. 

Either the lions were tired or not terribly good at hunting yet because they weren’t that hard to see and didn’t really seem to be too bothered about hunting.  Although giraffe don’t move that fast, it’s quite rare for lion to kill a giraffe because their necks are a long way from the ground and they’ve got pretty fearsome hooves.  One of the lions wandered behind a couple of the giraffe for about 10 minutes doing a kind of desultory stalk and then both the lions flopped down in the shade of a tree and went back to sleep.  I’m sure it’s a rough life for lions sometimes but most of the time it just looks like a big doss.  According to our ranger John, it’s extremely rare to see a proper hunt and kill.  He’s been here three years and only seen two kills in the entire time.

When we stopped for our morning break, we ate a couple of monkey oranges.  There are two types in Phinda.  The green monkey orange tastes a little like a very tart cross between a apple and a pear.  Inside it looks a bit like a brain but there’s not very much fruit and very big pips about the size of a large clove of garlic.   However, it is pretty nice.  The black monkey orange (which is in fact orange) tastes a bit like a bubble gum and also has huge pips.  They’re both really hard. If you imagine a cricket ball stuffed with tiny skinned mangos then you get the idea.  They’re not unpleasant but it is unlikely that they will take over from kiwi fruit any time soon.

On the way back, we commented on the little birds flying around.  It turns out that they were dung beetles.  Dung beetles are actually quite large: say about the size of a plum.  Without the dung beetles, the entire reserve would be knee deep in elephant poo so they perform a very important role.  We picked them up and they’re incredibly strong.  You can push them down and they just keep moving.  Guess you have to be strong to deal with a few kilos of rhino poo on your head.

We got back to forest lodge and had another superb breakfast – we’re all going to be the size of hippos by the time we get away from here.  Some frantic packing and then we drove over to Phinda Vlei which is another smaller lodge on the Phinda reserve.  There are only six cabins and there are only another four people staying here.  Rather than being in the forest, we’re looking out over a clear grassland with wildebeest, nyala and baboons running around.  It is truly beautiful.

The evening game drive was fairly uneventful for a while and then we caught up with the mother cheetah and her four cubs again. Phinda is known for its cheetah population and it is a real privilege to be able to see these fabulous animals at such close range.  Once again we took many many many photographs.

We thought me might track down one of the elusive leopards this evening but we weren’t in luck.  It turns out that leopards are one of the most common big cats in Africa due to their very eclectic diet but they’re solitary and hunt at night so they’re quite difficult to see.

The night sky tonight was really clear.  Scorpio is overhead and the milky way stretches from horizon to horizon.  The dust clouds that obscure much of the milky way stand out against the background of the thousands of stars.

We were all very tired tonight but we managed to force down more of the excellent food.