As our flight was @ 1000am we opted for a 0700 am breakfast and a wake up with meerkats ( today's photo). We headed off to the burrow system they were seen to go to bed in and waited - it was thought they had split and were in two not far apart. We saw one come out, go back then come out and sun itself - but no others - a late start due to the windy weather we thought- wrong as Ben spied 90% of the family in the distance at the other system of burrows and they w...

It dawned, as predicted, much cooler so we were thankful that we had opted for a later start and a morning with the meerkats. We missed them getting up and sunbathing as we heard of a caracal in the area - we found the cape fox it had killed but couldn't find the caracal. When we arrived with the meerkats they were scurrying around frantically digging for insects and really big maggots - they are them quickly but occasionally I got a glimpse of one going down! Th...

Well we slept until 0630 - had a great nights sleep but missed the meteor shower. After the long walk walk to the very outside loo I made a coffee, albeit the cafetière under plunger pressure shot a lot of it out all over me and the nice Tswalu white dressing gown! Liam arrived at 8 am with some much welcome porridge which we ate before setting off for the pans in the extreme west. A cold front is definitely approaching the cape because it was a cooler day and t...

We were up before our alarm call at 0630 - it's the end of winter so it was still dark. We walked to the main lodge and after a quick bowl of porridge ( more like semolina or mealy pap) we headed off to drive around the contours of Tswalu. The wind was up and it was quite chilly, the first animal was a bat eared fox curled up trying to stay out of it, this was closely followed by sable grazing on the side of the hills amongst the rocks - one was silhouetted a cha...

We arrived in South Africa on Monday 9th August and spent our first two nights in the lovely Intercontinental Hotel at the airport recovering from the flight - we didn't get too much sleep -and the hectic two weeks before we left. I went to Spa for some indulgence while John was hooked on his new book, by a Nigerian Orange prize winning writer; we also indulged in watching the Olympics - some thanks to South African Television and some thanks to the BBC Sports Ap...