They say that “all good things must come to an end”, so regrettably this will be my final post for our KTP visit – argh! Our last three nights in the KTP after our epic venture into the Botswana wilderness area were spent back on the Nossob Riverbed:
We finished the epic wilderness trip to the Botswana side of the Park with a memorable crossing of the international border with South Africa, but without a border post or fence!
Our first night back on the Nossob was spent in a cabin – yes, a cabin – back at the Nossob restcamp (#10 on the map). The best part of staying here was actually leaving the next morning and heading downriver, eventually getting all the way to the southern most part of the Park and the Twee Rivieren restcamp, and en route watching a pair of adult male cheetah brothers in the riverbed lounging and then scent-marking a big acacia tree, before lumbering off and up the dune hill on the opposite of the riverbed from us, only to dissappear as soon as they plopped down in the comfort of the soft sand and cushy grass. Here’s proof of sighting (but also see the video for coverage):
Another “fun” sighting was of a Gemsbok with a very young calf, which we only rarely saw on this trip, and of a Springbok right after she gave birth (and looked like she might also give birth to a twin, but it didn’t happen before we left), but you’ll have to watch the video to see this encounter.
The Lower Nossob was similar to the Upper Nossob in many respects, i.e., a fossilized dry riverbed bordered by partially vegetated dunes, but the woody vegetation, specifically, the trees, became increasingly sparse as we drove south, giving way to grass and sparse woody shrub covered dunes. We found the entire drive down the riverbed delightful. Here’s a few pics:
We also did a little drive into the dunes between the two major riverbeds, the Nossob and Auob, and were mesmerized somewhat by the stark beauty of the rolling dunes, with the white sands in the valleys and the red sands on the hilltops, and the luxurious grass covering much of the dunes. Here’s a few pics:
We did a few wildlife drives up and down the lower Nossob while we were camped at Twee Riverien and found the wildlife surprisingly exceptionally unafraid of our vehicles. Consequently, we were able to get very close to quite a few of the critters, which was a real treat. Some of these close encounters are in the pictures and video below, but a couple of other sightings are worth distinguishing.
First, we saw yet another pair of adult male cheetahs (a “coalition” as they refer to these groups of 2 or 3 males, usually brothers, but not always) climbing up a big Acacia tree to scent mark with their urine and feces, presumably to get their scent as high as possible to encourage the greatest dissemination of their scent, both for territorial purposes, but also to attract females in heat. Not the greatest picture, given the distance, but trust me it was glorious watching them through the binoculars:
Nancy also captured this classic cheetah scene at a distance, after the two males left the scent tree and headed up into the dunes. The picture is way too grainy, but the scene is epic and thus worth showing. There is nothing that captures the essence of wild Africa, at least to me, as a cheetah on a hill surveying the landscape:
The second wildlife encounter was with 2 lionesses and a very little cub coming to a water hole, but I failed to take any still pictures as I was too focused on taking video, so you’ll have to watch the vidoe to see that. At this point in our KTP journey you might be wondering about how we were able to have all these cat sightings. We had repeated lion, cheetah and wild cat sightings (unfortunately no leopard or caracal), which lived up to the reputation of the KTP being a great place to see the big cats. Other folks we met had equally stunning encounters with all of these species, including leopard. Surprisingly, even in this semi-desert, there are lots of animals that thrive in this environment. Gemsbok, steenbok, springbok and ostrich in particular, but also a few less common species such as the mighty Eland and spectacular Kudu. All of these are ideal prey species for the big cats, so they too are in abundance here. It truly is a magical place to come watch this predator-prey dynamic.
Here are some other pictures to enjoy:
Here’s a composite video of our Lower Nossob visit, including 2 different cheetah encounters and 1 lion encounter, plus a couple of other fun encounters:
KTP Lower Nossob video (14 minutes)
OK, not much else report here on this 4th KTP post, so I will mercifully let you go until my next post on our visit to the Tankwa-Karoo National Park in the Great Karoo Desert. See you there!
New Species:
- Groundscraper thrush
- Cape cobra
- Mole snake
- Bibron’s gecko