So how was today in paradise? Just another day? Well………not really. Actually not at all.
Allan had been searching for his leopard all day yesterday without success and had asked me to fly to see if I could locate him. My plan was to fly at dawn but I awoke to low cloud blustering in from the south. Not looking good for flying.
A couple of hours later it had eased and I was in the sky but without success in finding Allan’s leopard. There was some good news though, the dogs were now further east from where I’d left them yesterday. Couple more days and they’ll be back east of the river……..? Hoping so.
I also found Manyari near Hlamba Mlonga, close to the airstrip. I went to spy her out on landing. She was with Magwaza but no sign of the cubs. Leaving them I bumped into friends who of course wanted to see those rather useless sleeping lions. I took them there and ended up bursting a side-wall on one of those new tyres on Mark’s vehicle. Roll on useless tyres……… (one day I’ll let you know the make of these tyres. Don’t get them!)
Back home to try and repair the tyre and then off to reunite with my lonely vehicle on the other side of the river. I carry a rucksack with all the stuff I need to transfer from the vehicles, and as luck had it, it broke while crossing the river.
I was almost happy to be back with my vehicle until I discovered the 2 flat tyres! No big deal changing and repairing tyres but first I had to get them across the river into Mark’s vehicle. And that’s where the dung beetles came into being. I felt just like them rolling my truck tyres through prickly reed beds, across bare soil covered in paper thorns that stuck to the tyres and so of course my hands too, across soft river sand, pick them up to cross the river, (would have been a great weapon if a croc had attacked), then up the steep bank on the far side. Half a kilometre later I was at the vehicle. But only half way, as I still had to bring the other tyre.
On several occasions the tyres would run away from me down the slope and even up the slope, reminding me so much of this video clip of the dung beetles with their runaway balls. (I had posted this last year some time.)
Then it was home to repair the punctures, back to the river and then the same slog all the way back to my vehicle with the repaired tyres. All happily fitted and suddenly a whole afternoon had disappeared and the sun too was disappearing, not giving me any time to follow up on the dogs.
So the day went by without my cameras seeing the light of day which meant me pulling the video clip out the archive and photos from a couple of months ago.
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