We’re back out with the game catching team today so we’re suited, booted and in the saddle by 6am. It turns out we could have had an extra half hour in our beds. When they haven’t shown at the rendezvous point by 7am, Barry gives them a call and finds out they’ve decided to use the catching boma today. We head off that way and arrive just as they are getting there .It doesn’t take long to get organised and the first animals (Blue Wildebeest) are getting pushed in by the chopper before 8am. Then come Zebra, then come Gemsbok, then come Zebra, then come Red Hartebeest, then a few more Red Hartebeest and so on

Today promises to be a good one. We have a lion to catch. I’m picked up before 7am and after a whistle-stop tour picking up people and equipment, we head to Legkaba- The Predator Section!. By this time I’ve been told it’s not one lion we’re after but three. Better and better (and better.)

I never sleep on planes and this one is no different. Despite the acres of legroom preventing achers of legs. Despite a flyers fly dram. Despite the horrible herbal sleeping pills. Despite eye-masks and ear-plugs, Handel and Faure, I never once make a foray into The Land of Nod. The border is closed.

Today’s tactics are going to be different. The team are after bull Black Widebeest and bull Waterbuck and they’re going to be darting them from the air. As we sit sipping our coffees we watch the boss, Ikey, filling the darts with a heady blend of neuro-toxin and sedative. Apparently the contents of each dart could kill a hundred men. Mind you, so could an angry bull Waterbuck.

The alarm goes off at 5am and, struggling to waken, I have a big ‘Where the hell am I ?’ moment. This is closely followed by a bigger ‘Och, just another half hour’ moment that I resist. But only just.

I’m not long in kitchen before I’m joined by the others. It’s like a scene from ‘Return of the Living Dead’. In the back of my befuddled brain, I become aware that everyone looks…well…bigger and it dawns on me (at about the speed of a real dawn) that they’re all wearing LOTS of clothes. Unbeknown to me, I then save my own life by going and putting a jersey on.

I’m sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5 awaiting my evening departure to Jo’burg. My planned return to Tswalu is becoming reality. And how do I feel? Strange. Very strange.

We start our long journey home today, but not until 3pm. Foolishly perhaps, I volunteer to go on the morning count so 6.30am sees us once more taking to the air. It’s a beautiful morning and my only regret is that I can’t bottle it and take it home. The count picks up where we left off yesterday, and before long we are cross-eyed with the amount of game around us

Another game counting day, and as before, we’re getting airborne at 6.30am. It’s a new day and I’ve a new headset; the Daleks have been vanquished.
There’s not a lot more to say about the game counts. It’s a fantastic experience that would take me a long,long time to tire of. That’s not to say it doesn’t tire me, though.
I also thought that seeing Tswalu from the air like this would ‘shrink’ the place. However I was mistaken, it still appears vast. We have a good morning and manage to pick up on a few of the less seen species here- Aardwolf , African Wildcat and Klipspringer.

Anyway, this was the day we travelled by helicopter back to Tswalu and MOST enjoyable it was too, though I have to say I’ve rather got a taste for having the doors open. Perhaps not with Jack present, however.

The preparations take very little time and we’re in the air at 6.30am. Whilst I’m feeling a little bit more confident than yesterday, I’m only too aware of being as green as the grass waving far below me. I concentrate harder.

We’re up at 6am and busy with final preparations and when Ants arrives for us at 7am we find ourselves in uncharted waters; we’re actually ready. Ants, on the other hand, informs us that we have to stop off at her house on the way past as she’s forgotten her purse. Somehow during the night we must have slipped into a parallel universe…....

In no time at all we’re on the road and making for Kuruman where we have a leisurely stop for breakfast. Very civilized. (The breakfast, that is!) However, my parallel universe theory is confirmed when Jack refuses ice cream on his waffles.

Dylan and I leave the house at 7am. First on the agenda is to get something for the cheetah so we pick up the rifle and start cruising. I’m just beginning to think I’m a total jinx when it comes to this caper when an opportunity presents

It’s 7am and I’m sitting on the steep side of a koppie with the game scouts. Stretched out before me is a small, secluded valley thick with vegetation. The day hasn’t long dawned and it’s still quite cool even though there isn’t a breath of wind . You could hear a pin drop- if it wasn’t for all the noise coming from the lions over the back of the koppie somewhere and all the birds down in the valley. There’s another rather eerie sound, barely audible (and only when the rest put a sock in it) that I can only describe as a very soft, low hoot.

The scouts and I have a special mission today; we have to locate one particular White Rhino bull and we have to find him by 10am. The reason for this is that he’s gone lame, his leg isn’t getting any better and we have a helicopter and vet booked for then to dart and treat him. The scouts pick me up and we head out as daylight is coming in.

I really enjoyed yesterday so wasn’t at all disappointed to be told that I was going with the trackers again today. (Although yesterdays chance near-encounter with a Black Rhino bull has played on my mind once or twice in the interim.) So I was up, dressed and up for it in good time for our 6.30am start.

As I’ve already said, we’re becoming aware of the fact that the red sands of our Kalahari time are fast running out. And not just out of our shoes.
Louise tells me that she really wants to see a wild rhino before we go home. “Your wish is my command!” I say genially. (Har har)

I’m up at 6am, ready for 7am, nail-biting by 7.30 then the scouts arrive. We head off for the far horizon and after half an hour of driving arrive in this mornings search area. The story goes that the scouts have to account for each and every rhino on Tswalu, each and every month. To the uninitiated like me, it seems like a tall order. We’ve come to this area to find a particular Black Rhino bull that they haven’t yet seen this month.

I’m full of anticipation. Dylan left early in the cruiser but has organised that Louise and I go out with the Scouts, tracking rhino. Scary. Louise has organised a babysitter for the afternoon and is hoping to be picked up later by us after he’s gone to school. It’s all been planned like a military campaign.

A visit to the kraal and a very pleasant forenoon swimming, sleeping and catching up on the world. (Either there is not a lot happening out there or it’s happening between our visits to the kraal!)