Today was our last day, five of us, John, me, Carolyn,Chris and Tony, still had the energy to get up early and be ready to start a walk from the lodge to Mahai falls with Sampson. We left at 6am - it was a lovely clear and cloudless morning with great views of the Amphitheatre which looked magnificent. As we walked the sun rose and due to mist in the east was a perfect red ball. It was a great and refreshing way to start the day - we again saw grey reedbuck grazing and were serenaded by stonechat flitting amongst the grasses. We got back around 8am - Sampson put out a bone at the vulture feeding station, as Jeremiah the normal Lammagier feeder had not arrived. I waited briefly to see if one would come but then had to go back to the toom, finish packing and have breakfast. Chris and Carolyn waited a while longer but to no avail only white necked ravens came and pecked at the bone but then while they were having breakfast one did arrive and flew off with the bone; Chris had photographic proof! These are the vultures that drop bones from a great height to break them so they can then feed on the bone marrow.
As we waited to leave on the bus I did get to snap a Jackal buzzard, another species of this area, flying overhead - you can't win everything!
As we headed off from the lodge back to Johannesburg there was one more surprise. We drove through the Golden Gate National park - I had never heard of it before - the scenery was superb - there were zebra mixing with cattle, I am not sure why the cattle were in a national park but I am sure there is a good reason. Then we saw the piece de resistance a herd of black wildebeest - black or brown bodies with blonde tails with different horns to the normal blue wildebeest we see elsewhere - magnificent animals (today's picture).
Next stop was an early lunch on the outskirts of Bethlehem before arriving at the airport at 4.15pm -in time for most people to check-in and catch their flights - some however were leaving tomorrow, like us, or going on to do other things.
We jumped out of the bus at departures, said our goodbyes and made our way to the bus station to get the hotel bus to the Aviator,our hotel for the night.
When we arrived we repacked our bags properly - much to Johns relief! To spread the load we split it between 4 bags to make our trek across London easier - we think 2 light rather than 1 heavy bag each will work best.
All done we had a fish and chip supper in the restaurant and I watched South Africa struggle to beat Argentina 22-17 -in a Rugby match live from Argentina - the Argentineans were very unlucky.