Sat after work, Sonja Jackie and I went to the Gaborone GR after work. We get there and come across a few kudu, I take my camera out and it just wouldn't focus. I looked at all the settings and then realized that when my camera bag fell out of my backpack when we got back from Khama that something happened to the lens. The year previous when I was at Makanyane, my camera fell off my lap and the auto focus started acting up. But this fall did it in, I was so upset. I was leaving for Duma Tau the next day and my mom was coming the following week for our 2 week vacation. Here my camera won't work, ugh! The lens would work with manual focus but with that big lens it was very difficult to hold it steady and focus. I was beside myself. When I got home I called my dad and asked him to get me another lens and send it with my mom. So he called nelson's and they were out of stock because of the tsunami in Japan, they we having trouble gettin gstock. He found one in NY and it was being shipped overnight to get there the morning my mom was leaving. It finally arrived at 3pm with my mom having to be at the airport at 8pm. Talk about tight, thank god my dad got the lens and I would be able to have it for when my mom was here. That didn't help me for Duma, where I had wanted to go for the last 3 years, that is known for there preditor sightings. What a nightmare.
Our last game drive at Duma, how sad. What an amazing place, it was well worth the wait. We started out early, it was my last chance to find the dogs. We went over to the other side where they were last seen and Ron found some fresh tracks from the dogs. We drove around and around and we found a spotted hyena. It took off and he tought the dogs had made a kill and the hyena was going to go and steal it. We drove around some more and then as we were going to give up Clive said wait. My god I don't know how he spotted it but he saw a leopard on a fallen tree. We got to her and she was just lying there watching that hyena with her impala. We got closer to the hyena and he took off. The leopard decided to follow. She was pregnant, you could tell and we followed her follow the hyena. At one point she was right next to the truck looking up at Sonja. She could have touched her she was so close. We found the hyena and it got scared off but the leoprd didnt' see that it left the impala. The leopard went back to the spot where she had the impala, jumped up the tree to see if it was there still and back down. We left her there, i hope she went back to where the hyena left the impala. On the way back we stopped for a big male kudu and then saw a huge croc. while we were looking at the croc Sonja saw a female lion across the river. We stopped for coffee and then back to the lodge. Right before we got back there was a large herd of zebras right at the water. It was so beautiful with their reflections in the water. What a nice ending to our last drive.
