In January I was invited to join my Birding friend who was conducting a water fowl survey in Hwange National Park. I jumped at the chance to go with and so left Bulawayo at 11 a.m. on a Friday. The drive to Hwange was very straight forward and went by so fast, that is seemed like no time at all (actually it was 2 p.m.) before I found myself standing in the car park at Main Camp, all checked in and ready to roll. We were to camp at Masuma Dam which is up in the Sinamatella area and we were to drive through to Park to reach there. We started off at a leisurely pace, bird spotting on the way. The bush was very thick as it was the middle of summer, and I was on a birding weekend, not an animal weekend, so any wildlife that I did see was a real bonus. The birdlife was outstanding - by the end of the weekend we had reached about 150 species !! We stopped at good old Nyamandhlovu Pan which as always provided a wonderful panorama of animals and birds coming and going. Once leaving there we pressed on to Masuma without stopping again as we had to reach there by 6 p.m. (Parks regulations), which we managed to do with 10 minutes to spare.
I had the treat of my life along the way !!! Roughly in the Shumba Pan area, not too far before running out of "tar" road (Mother Nature should have claimed the road back in about another year or 2 if there is a continued lack of maintenance ... not necessarily a bad thing !!), there, in the middle of the road was a LEOPARD !! I couldn't stop quick enough so that I could concentrate on getting a good look at this beauty !! In all my years visiting the bush and being on the farm, I had yet to see a real "wild" leopard, so this was a first for me. This lovely leopard was not overly concerned by our presence and after stopping to check us out continued on its way - in the middle of the road !! Then it stopped to stalk something it has seen, smelt or heard in the bush on the side of the road and started its hunt without being the least bit concerned about us, so we watched and clicked away with our cameras. At some point it pounced and disappeared into the bush. My heart was thumping and I was grinning from ear to ear as I switched off my camera and put the binos down, wallowing in what I had just seen, to my complete surprise, it popped out back onto the road (without prey !!) and started walking back towards us !!! As I fumbled to get my camera out again, which only resulted in a lot of hurried blurred photos, it veered off and disappeared into the bush. We watched it wandering off for a few seconds, marvelling at its amazing spotty camouflage. After that sighting, I didn't care if I saw another thing the whole weekend, because that was the show of the day and left me on a high for the rest of the day !!
And so we arrived at Masuma Dam which provided us with more treats !! The dam had a lot of water in it and was full up with hippos and birds !! The elephants visited, and other game came and went. Masuma Dam "hide" is awesome as you can sit in safety and comfort and watch the wildlife world go by. I was totally delighted to find that Masuma had running water, flush loos (complete with loo seats !!), and a shower, which, with a little coaxing at the boiler fire (firewood was chopped and stacked nearby for us !!) gave us a steamy hot shower every day. The "main road" runs through the middle of the designated camping area, but at 6 p.m. the resident campers have to close the 2 gates so that there are no unwanted visitors in the night. The sum total of 2 cars passed through whilst we were there, and both of them stopped so that we could have a chat with the occupants - very friendly place this !!
That night was bright and starry, but I can't exactly say I slept "well" ..... man are those hippo noisy in the night !! Splashing, sploshing, grunting and groaning !! Earlier on we had heard lion and hyena calling in the distance, but otherwise the night did not hold any surprises for us.
