Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Khutse Game Reserve: Day II


We woke slowly on our second day in Khutse, with a mission to find a few wild animals and a camping spot that was farther out in the bush. It became apparent relatively quickly that we would not be seeing a large concentration of animals on this trip. It's the rainy season and with an abundance of water the animals tend to scatter. We did see qute a few Hartebeest, Springbok, and Ostrich, but I knew our odds on catching sight of a Lion were slim to none.

We drove out to a camp spot about 25 km inside the park a had a bit of lunch and rested under an acacia tree during the heat of the day. At about 3pm a few clouds came in and we began to see lightning in the distance. The weather cooled down quite a bit, so we decided to do another game drive and check out some of the other camping areas for future reference.

The game was scarce, and the weather was coming in strong. The sky got dark and it was raining off and on. Then at about 5pm we got a real surprise. It began to hail. Some of these hailstones were nearly the size of a marble and I started to fear that they would bust out a window. It was over pretty quick, but we knew that we wouldn't see any more game out in the open after that storm, so we began to head for camp.

We found a good spot over looking a pan in which we hoped we would see some game in the morning. The lightning intensified all around our camp, and I must admit it made me a bit nervous. We were in a wide open area, under a tall tree. Not the safest spot. That went on for hours, and we called it an early night. We would break camp early in the morning and hope to catch sight of some more game as we made our way out of the reserve.

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