1st August:
We pushed on, still needing to travel 27 km to reach Sarara and with our legs understandably achey. Again it was a cloudless day with equally high temperatures expected. We decided to cut over a hill, with the camels going around it. From the hill, I saw another Verreaux's eagle, as well as large numbers of rock martins and lesser striped swallows. There was also a slate-coloured boubou and a tree of vitelline masked weaver nests. We stopped for breakfast after three hard hours of walking in a beautiful lugga.
Our breakfast spot
Following breakfast we continued towards Sarara in the boiling midday sun. For hours Sarara seemed to not be getting any closer. After 8 hours of walking, we reached the Sarara airstrip and could clearly see Sarara.
Approaching Sarara from the airstrip
Finally we reached Sarara at about half past two. We had remarkably managed to walk about 140 kilometres in five and a half days in high temperatures through thick bush. After a remarkable six days, we said goodbye to our camels and guides and relaxed for the afternoon. It was the end of a truly remarkable camel safari, something I would recommend to anyone.
In the early evening, I headed up to the waterhole to put up my camera. I added Hildebrandt's starling and red-eyed dove to my list on the way, and hamerkop and green-backed heron at the waterhole. As I was putting up my camera, dozens of Liechtenstein's sandgrouse started to come in for a drink.
The camera picked up dozens of pictures of lesser kudu, dikdik, elephant, buffalo and spotted hyena coming for a drink.
Lesser Kudu, Sarara
African Elephant, Sarara
Cape Buffalo, Sarara
young Spotted Hyena, Sarara
2nd August:
We headed out for an early morning game drive, in search of the wild dogs which had been denning on Millennium Hill, right next to Sarara. They appeared almost straight away, the female coming close enough for a photo. The 10 puppies made a wonderful sight as they play fought in the long grass, with the magnificent chorus of the stone partridge in the background. There was also a steppe eagle perched on top of the hill, alongside dozens of baboons. After about an hour and a half of watching the dogs, we headed back for breakfast.
Early morning cloud on the Mathews mountains
African Wild Dog, Sarara
When we got back, we heard the terrible news that three elephants had been killed by poachers overnight and another had died with a hugely swollen foot just by the camp, creating an extremely pungent smell.
Soon after breakfast, I went up to the waterhole. There was an African pied wagtail there, as was the hamerkop and green-backed heron, but aside from some dikdik, there were no mammals. That all changed when a group of elephants appeared, right in front of the hide.
At 5 o'clock, we went for an evening game drive. There was a rattling cisticola next to Millennium hill, and a mixed group of rufous chatterers, African penduline tits and crimson-rumped waxbills and another group of whydahs, with straw-tailed, steel-blue and eastern paradise present. We found a young leopard at the singing wells lugga, and several genet cats on the way back. We then had supper, before heading out again. We drove down the airstrip in search of the aardwolf we had seen on our last two visits to Sarara. Unfortunately we didn't see it, but there were several dusky and Nubian nightjars as well as a spotted dikkop on the airstrip. We saw more genets, before seeing the leopard again. The highlight was a remarkable sighting of a lion, a mammal which is only just starting to return to Sarara after years of poaching. It was only the second sighting of it by our guide at Sarara, in ten years of guiding here and forty years of living here.
Leopard, Sarara
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