Day 12

Today started at 0440! We were all up and ready to go by 0530 for a Game Drive. We arrived at the Reserve and within about five minutes, we saw two cheetah. They were so close to the road and just so beautiful and magnificent. We sat there for about half an hour watching them, they were so chilled and relaxed and just stunning.

Next we saw a herd of impala, with several babies amongst them. We also saw quite a big group of kudu and then some nyala too, all of which were very beautiful.

We saw a dung beetle rolling its little ball of dung along the road, one of the rules in one of the books is that ‘dung beetles have right of way’! I love it. Apparently they can move up to 800 times their own weight!

We also saw a lot of birds, including cape turtle dove, cinnamon breasted bunting, dark chanting goshawk, violet back starling, green wood hoopoe, magpie strike, white crested helmet strike, European roller, yellow billed hornbill, grey heron, Egyptian goose, Wahlberg eagle and a yellow billed kite.

We were also shown a tree which had been half pushed over and we had to decide why. It turns out that a big giraffe had walked over the top of it to use it to scratch its belly!

I thought that this tree was very beautiful with the clouds behind.

We drove back to camp in time for brunch – bacon and egg sandwiches with a salad too.

After brunch it was time for self study and a question and answer session about tomorrow’s exam. We picked Ben’s brains for a bit and then carried on studying.

I went to the LSSD shop and then spent some time chatting to Rachel and Jess. I went back and started learning a few birds (we have to do 15 a week) and then it was time for dinner. Today we had beef stew with rice and salad.

After dinner it was time for more studying, shower and an early night ready for our test tomorrow.

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