Anton and Renate's Wildlife Adventures: 2016

Leopard close to Tholo Dam

This is a short trip report from our week at Limpopo-Lipadi Private Game Reserve, in the Tuli Block of Botswana. We visited LL with some awesome friends, and this trip included 3 pre-toddlers, between 12-18 months of age, which surely made our stay more interesting!

Good friend Felix Reinders also joined us – check out his work at www.felixreinders.com

Please click on a photo to view better quality (especially on a smartphone where the quality looks really bad...)

African Wild Dog on our 1st game drive

I will focus on 4 highlights of the week, and let the photos speak for itself!

The first highlight happened on game drive 1. We had a quick 2 hour game drive to the Zanzibar dam area, where we spent some time with a pack of 14 African Wild Dogs. Upon our return we entered the River Camp area at the shareholder gate, when Cilliers (a friend visiting LL for the first time) asked if he can switch off the spotlight now. I replied a definite NO, as we have seen Aardvark on this short road before. When we reached the Limpopo River, he spotted 4 eyes in the bush on an island in the river! It was a mother leopard and a small cub! Only 2 minutes form camp! Unfortunately they were quite skittish, so could not manage great photos – but still amazing to see them so close to camp! We actually saw them again early on our last morning at the same place, but they were skittish as before.

A magnificent Kudu bull on Southern Plains

Elephant on Swarsloot

The 2^nd highlight is actually quite funny. We saw a leopard with a kill the one morning close to Tholo dam, and decided to return the afternoon. She was still there with her kill – but as we approached our one wheel collapsed into an aardvark hole! Yes, we got stuck in an aardvark hole, close to a leopard… It was quite an experience trying to do vehicle recovery with the high-lift jack, with the women keeping an eye on the leopard, and the men recovering the vehicle. Luckily all went smooth, and we enjoyed the afternoon with the leopard!

The leopard while we were doing some vehicle recovery...

The 3^rd highlight was a night drive between 19h30 and 22h30. We were on a mission to find an Aardwolf, so we decided to go and search for it on the middle plains, where the habitat is suitable for them. We got so much more….

The drive started with an African Wild Cat, the we had a nice elephant sighting close to Cabbage Dam. Next stop – Middle Plains. There we criss-crossed the plains, and stumbled upon 2 very relaxed male cheetahs! We tried not to bother them too much, as it was night already. A few minutes later we got our Aardwolf, and it stood watching at us for a few seconds, before retreating into his den. Mission accomplished!

We returned via Mbusi waterhole, where we found a leopard drinking at the waterhole!

We closed out the game drive with another African Wild Cat sighting! Awesome 3 hour drive!

African Wild Dog close to Shareholder gate

Leopard (named Olebile) close to Southern Plains

The 4^th highlight was when we had our morning coffee on Swartsloot. We were relaxing with our coffee and rusks when a lion suddenly started roaring! It was very close – but unfortunately we couldn’t get visuals this time, but it was a seriously nice surprise!

Lion close to Oppikoppi

Aardwolf on Middle Plains

Lion close to Oppikoppi

Elephant on Swartsloot

Special sightings for the week included Spotted Hyena, Brown Hyena, Lion, Leopard, African Wild Dog, Elephants, Gemsbok, Cheetah, Aardwolf to name a few….

Marabou Stork

Crimson-breasted Shrike

Fiery-necked Nightjar

Brown-hooded Kingfisher

Violet-eared Waxbill

Acacia Pied Barbet

Birding was a bit quiet, but we had good sightings of Marabou Stork, White-backed Vultures, and an African Cuckoo Hawk made a fly-by. The normal bushveld birds were plentiful as usual!