According to our Southern African Bird finder guide, Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park in South Africa’s far northwest corner is one of the best places in all of Africa to see cats hunt. Typically access to the park can be gained through five gates in three different countries and visitors can travel between South Africa and Botswana easily, without even a passport so long as the visitor exits through the same country that they entered from, hence the name “transfrontier”, but with COVID all gates were closed unless you had a negative PCR test on hand. (All we had was a negative rapid test from a few hours ago when we crossed into South Africa from Namibia that they said we couldn’t use!) We literally crossed into ZA and came straight here so we couldn’t be bothered to take another COVID test. We can’t complain though because typically parks in South Africa are booked well in advance, but with COVID fewer people were travelling and there was still room at the campgrounds despite us literally just showing up.
We came specifically because we really, really wanted to see caracal and our friend had managed excellent photos of one hunting the sandgrouse, but after two days in the park we never managed any big cats, save for one leopard sighting a mere 10 minutes after entering the gate! We had such good fortune so early on that we thought the Birdfinder guide was spot on with their assessment until we didn’t see a single other cat in two full days! Even lions, which typically are the most commonly encountered feline, were not being seen. We asked around and no one was seeing cats like they normally do. The superfluous rainy season made for tall grasses and poor visibility, not to mention an abundance of food sources so predators weren’t hunting the watering holes like they normally would in the dry season. Truth be told, we really didn’t enjoy our time in the park because we hardly saw anything at all. Game was sparse and diversity was low. Thankfully we did manage to find a few Burchell’s Sandgrouse mixed in with the Namaqua Sandgrouse, but even bird numbers were low! A highlight for us was hanging out at the campground because the birds would come so close! They even discovered our faucet on our truck and were taking turns getting something to drink!
Burchells & Namaqua Sandgrouse 
Burchells Sandgrouse 
Secretary Bird 
Gemsbok 
Meerkat 
But then, just before dusk on our second day as we were driving to head out and leave, we encountered three Bat Foxes. Unfortunately we only had a few minutes to spend with them before needing to high tail it to the exit to make it to the gate before the 1830 closing time. As we were rushing to get out in time, we saw a beautiful Leopard just walking next to the road!! Time was running out before the gate would close and we really didn’t have the time to stop, but how could we possibly just drive right by this cat?? Naturally we did stop, but as a result we couldn’t stay nearly as long as we would have liked. As we drove away the leopard was pawing at a tree. Kind of funny though that we saw a leopard within the first 10 minutes of entering, the last 10 minutes before exiting, and almost nothing in-between! Such is life in Africa!
Bat Fox 
Leopard
From Kgalagadi we drove almost straight to our friends’ house in Pietermaritzburg. It was finally time for us to say goodbye to our beloved truck. Our time with the truck was coming to an end…