Report by Sally and Paul Bartho
30 October 2018.
After the wedding in Kamberg, Sally treated her two sons from Australia to a two night stay at Elephant Rock in Nambiti.
We had a family cottage – two en-suite bedrooms overlooking a dam.
We arrived at lunchtime in blistering sunshine and enjoyed a pleasant meal with a fair share of tipples.
Then, when it was time for the afternoon drive at 16h00 the weather went overcast and was decidedly cooler on the way back.
Birding was not the name of the game. We shared the vehicle with six others from Germany. Most of the interest was focussed on the Big Five and other animals. Birds were not a priority – much as we expected- but the drives did stop for birds we thought others might be interested in. Despite that we identified 93 different bird species. Click here to see our list.
The following day the weather was much cooler with a bit of drizzle on both morning and afternoon drives. On the last morning no-one was interested in the morning drive because of the rain and cold.
Service was excellent. Breakfasts were superb and lunches filling but we found the dinner on the second day not up to the super standard of the first day. The management understood our feelings and I am sure this will not be repeated in the future.
Our birds photographed:
It was not all about birds. We did have a number of interesting animal sightings. As expected we saw four of the Big Five – only the Leopard was missing. The Rhino was a White Rhino so you could say we only saw three!
There were two new male lions introduced from the Eastern Cape which we found fairly quickly having as you would expect a nap.
We also unexpectedly bumped into another pride of four lions – a male and three females.
Not to be outdone were the Giraffe, Kudu, Hippo and Warthogs among many other species not photographed.
Then we were entertained by Buffalo and Cheetah.
We came across a herd of about 50 Buffalo with many boisterous calves. It was fun watching their antics chasing each other trying to assert dominance.
Then there were the two Cheetah juveniles with their mother. The young must have been enjoying the cool weather as they romped around chasing each other.
It would be interesting to return with a compliment of ten birders taking over the whole camp and focusing on birding. I know the guides would relish this for a change.
Cheers
Paul and Sally
Birds are our Story 