My first tour

It's not my first tour. I have been guiding for more than 10 years now. But it is my first since leaving Sossusvlei Mountain Lodge. This trip was done freelance for another company and it was a camping trip with four clients.

We did Sossusvlei area (staying Desert Camp, a very simple lodge;) Swakopmund (in a b&b;) and then it was camping all the way - Spitzkoppe, Palmwag lodge area, two different locations in the Palmwag concession (on of the wildest places in Namibia;) Opuwo to see Himbas; Hobatere; and then we drove through Otchiwasondo gate in Etosha to Halali were we camped our final two nights before returning to Windhoek.

It was a very busy tour and changing camps every day and driving long distances didn't leave much time for exploring the areas.

None the less, we saw great things: A sick male lion, an un-sexed leopard, and two black rhinos (mom and daughter) in the Palmwag consession and we saw loads of elephants, several male lions, a white rhino, and on our last day, a great sighting of a female leopard! One leopard on tour in Namibia is a great sighting. Two is just special!!! It brings my leopard count up to twelve for the year. Nothing shabby about that!

And I saw one new bird! It's a cheep one. It's the result of a split. But hey, it brings my South African List up to a nice round 530 birds. With some Caprivi action, we could be somewhere near the 550 mark by the end of the year?? That's nothing special in birding cirlces, but for me it's great. I have been just ticking (excuse the pun) along over the last few years, sitting in the desert. Now it's time to let the inner birder go wild and rack up some great numbers on my South African and life-list.

I enjoyed the trip and learned a lot. I have three more camping trips lined up and one rather odd accomodated trip. In between I am doing some day tours in Swakop and the coast. My first is tomorrow with a birding trip to Walvis Bay.

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