10-12 Mar 2007 - Quiver Tree
After a later breakfast having been to the canyon's rim for the sunrise, we were joined by a small group of Baboons some of whom were quite large. They had learnt that campers put food waste in the green oil drums, bottles in Blue & cans in Orange, someone fired a shotgun and theyall rang off I guess it was a regular occurance. We stopped of at the Canon Roadhouse for a drink, just as we were leaving the gardener who was watering the plants we had just walked past called out snake!! There was a puff adder curled up under a catus it was about 2ft long , the owner came out and put in a bag a told us he would release it out away from the lodge. Later we stopped in Keetmanshop for more supplies and fuel, before arriving at Quiver Tree Farm 200 km from our starting point. We set up camp we see a family of meekats, dwarf mongoose and ground squirrel. They also looked after a few cheetahs, so after we had a swim around 5 pm we entered the cheetah's cage with Coenie the owner of the farm to fed them while he gave us a interesting talk. That night after dinner in the torch light I collected some beetles & other insects, ready to feed our new friends the meerkats in the morning. But after tracking them down and offering them "ready meals" thinking it woud make photographing them easier, they were not interested. I did get some interesting sunset shots of the quiver trees, which I hope to put on site soon. The second morning a very noisy sheep arrived in the camp who took a liking to Rosie and popped up onto the stone table we had been eating on, I missed a perfect shot of lamb with out the mint sauce!!
It was 300km on to Kalahari Game Lodge right on the Mata Mata border with South Africa so we stopped for a drink in small hotel in Koes about half way, the couple at the bar asked where we were going as there were'nt many places to go. It turned out they ran Kalahari Game Lodge and were out getting supplies, so they make a quick getaway so as to be there on our arrival.