In and around Urikaruus

Whew, its been a mission getting back on-line after all the disruptions to our local internet services. Hopefully that's behind us now.

Urikaruus, a cute little camp as I said previously. We were treated to some very warm (not surprisingly) weather during our stay here. This was the first camp that we were to spend more than a single night at. It was great to settle in and feel that there was no pressure to move on again.

As I described in my previous post, the units faced out into what I suppose may have been an old river bed, long since dried-up, now with a man made watering hole put in place to provide the resident animals with some place to get a drink! And come and drink they did!

The main visitors were the blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) and springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis), and they came in numbers! Some of the herds were well over 100 animals strong. We also had giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), a number of different bird species, the Lanner Falcons (Falco biarmicus) were there daily catching either Namaqua doves (Oena capensis), Cape turtle doves (Streptopelia capicola) or Sandgrouse (Pterocles namaqua). Here are two lanner falcons that had just caught another bird and were eating it on a dead tree just to the right of our chalet.

The White-browed sparrow-weaver (Plocepasser mahali) and Cape Glossy starling (Lamprotornis nitens) were regular visitors on our veranda.

The sparrow-weaver and his wife and child and obviously become VERY habituated to the humans residing here, and vocally demanded to be fed on a regualr basis. They were so tame that I could touch them from time to time. We are strong believers in the fact that you MUST not feed the animals in the National Parks, so we would try to discourage these persistent little birds, but clearly others had been feeding them. Sad!

This little juvenile Laughing Dove Stigmatopelia senegalensis) had my daughters very concerned that it was too young to look after itself, but it seemed to be quite capable, and also very un-afraid of the human poking camera lenses in its face!

all the best
Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za/

Back on-line at last ... and on with the trip.

Well, over the last few days there have been apparent "upgrades" taking place to the Seacom undersea cable that supplies South Africa with a significant portion of our international bandwidth. As a result of this work it has been almost inmpossible (for me anyway) to work on any of the international sites I use, like blogger.

Well, it seems like we're functioning again. So back to the trip.

Just after mid-day we arrived at Urikaruus. A small little camp just off the main road about halfway between Twee Rivieren and Mat Mata camps. A sum total of four two bed chalets, plus the Camp Attendants unit.

The picture on the right is of the chalet we stayed in. You can just see the roof of my car at the bottom of the pic. Gives you an idea of how high these units are on their stilts! The room to the left of our chalet is the kitchen / diningroom beloning to our unit. The image on the left of the two above looks along the back of the units from the perspective of just outside our unit at ground level.

And this the view from the front of the dining room!

Amazing :-) ... One of the things that really amazed all of us was the clarity of and colours in the clouds and sky, I don't think a picture can truely do it justice, but I've tried!

all the best Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za/

On the move again ... Urikaruus here we come!

Urikaruus is described by the offical Sanparks website as :

- Unfenced, built on stilts, tourism assist. on duty
- No children under 12 allowed
- 1 bedroom with 2 single beds - No additional persons allowed
- Equipped kitchen - Gas fridge / freezer
- Provide own drinking water and firewood
- Barbeque facilities on deck
- Solar power for lights, gas for hot water
- Wc and shower
Urikaruus Wilderness Camp - Guests have to provide their own drinking water and firewood.


This really does not do this lovely little camp justice. Once again I'm moving ahead of myself.
We left Mata Mata around 9am in the morning. There had been an impressive rain storm the previous night, so we were interested to see what had happened on the roads and in the veld as a result.
 
As we moved out into the park it almost seemed; at first; as if the rain had just been sucked into the ground. The nice thing was that the dust had settled and when you drove along there was no real dust being created. we were sure as the day went on and it got hotter again this would soon change!
 
Our first sighting on this morning was one of our regulars, the black-backed jackal. This one was right by the roadside and I managed to get a couple of decent pictures, this one being my favourite:
 

Next was another regular, the Pale Chanting Goshawk (Melierax canorus), I was still searching for a great shot of this bird, and this nwas a little better but still not where I really wanted it.
 

Then I spotted the comedian of the Kgalagadi! This gemsbok had clearly caught its horns in something and had not managed to rid itself of the foliage.
 

And then junior! This little springbok was just exercising its running legs as we arrived. I unfortunately was not in a position to catch its first pronk, and dart. I think it could not have been more than 24hrs or so old. At a close look one can see some of the afterbirth remains on its mothers rear.
 

The light by now 10am, had become extremely harsh and bright, as you can see in the background of this images, making the lighting quite challenging. So, I am relatively pleased with the outcome of these shots, although I had to do quite a bit of post-processing.
Then we spotted a Lesser Grey Shrike (Lanius minor), a Lanner Falcon (Falco biarmicus), a Tawny Eagle (Aquila rapax) all in quick sucession.
 

 
Closely followed by a striped kingfisher (Halcyon chelicuti) with a grasshopper it had just caught, another Tawny Eagle and two Southern White-faced Owls (Ptilopsis granti).

 
Then we saw the impact of the previous night rain. The road flooded and the communal nest of some Sociable Weavers (Philetairus socius) that had gotten just too heavy with the water and fallen out of the tree.
 

The some more Eagles! Wow, we had gotten so used to NOT seeing big raptors in some of the other wilderness areas we visit on a more regular basis, that we were starting to feel quite spoiled! A Juvenile Martial Eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus) and a Black-breasted Snake Eagle (Circaetus pectoralis).
 

Whew, quite a morning, and I never mentioned the usual ... herds of springbok, wildebeest, gemsbok and of course ground squirrels and some smaller birds we could not identify. All of this was in two and a half hours! Shortly after that we arrived at our next camp Urikaruus. But thats for my next post ;-)
 
all the best
Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za/

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hmmm..... I've rushed headlong into the trip without telling you about some of the things that went on/in before!

In planning this trip we established that we would need to take drinking water for at least 9 days, all our food and other drinks for that period too, as well as the obvious .... clothing, cameras, books (we like to take at least a bird book, mammal book, reptile book, spider book, tree/bushes, and then reading material too.) and that's for 4 of us. Ria (my wife), Gayle and Claire Marie our daughters, and of course myself. My computer goes too, for downloading images taken on the trip.

Foolishly, I did not take any shots of all of the items packed into the back of my Nissan Sani, it was quite a load! Here's some of the detail just to give you an idea:
1. 65 litres of drinking water, in 2 25l jerry cans, plus 3 5l bottles.
2. 18 litres of fruit juice.
3. 12 beers and 12 ciders (all we could fit :-( )
4. 4 camping chairs and 1 camping table.
5. 1 tyre compressor (you have to deflate your tyres when in the park)
6. 2 camera bags and monopod, 1 laptop and briefcase
7. 2 large suitcases, 1 for Ria and me, and the other for the girls (20yrs old and 17yrs old)
8. 2 vanity cases, one medical box
9. 2 5kg bags of charcoal
10. 1 40l cooler box with all our meat for 10 days.
11. 3 55l crates containing all our other food, the juice and drinks mentioned above
12. 1 large torch, 2 headlamps, 1 camping shovel, some basic braai equipment.
13. 3 pillows ....

To mention the bulk of it I think!! Here is an older image of an earlier trip for which we took considerably less:

Impressive? ... well I think so.

all the best, Ivan
http://www.andersen.co.za/