Day Twenty- Sani Pass 15/06/2017 Got another stamp in our passports today. Yep that's right, we day tripped to another country. At 7:00am we met our two local guides for the day. We traded our VW minivan in for two Toyota Prados and set off to traverse the Drakensburg Mountains, ascending the Sani Pass into Lesotho, the Kingdom in the Sky. Lesotho (Le-soo-too) is entirely landlocked and has the highest average elevation of any country in the world at 1600m. Underberg where we began sits at about 1700m. By the time we got to the top of the pass and Africa's highest pub we had reached 2874m. The Drakensberg mountains were formed about 160 million years ago by lava flows when Australia broke away from Gondwanaland. The Sani Pass which climbs this mountain range is a narrow, unsealed road snaking along the edge of the mountain slopes. Of course we birded along the way, finding Guerney's Sugarbird feeding on a protea, the only plant it feeds on. The top section of the pass is the steepest, a series of inclines and hairpin turns. Snow lays beside the road in the shadows, and we even passed a frozen waterfall. The boarder between the two countries is at the top of the pass, it is defined by watershed. Wherever the water flows east to the Indian Ocean, the land belongs to South Africa. Where it flows west to the Atlantic is Lesotho. At the top of the pass we entered Lesotho. The wind was belting across the mountain tops so strongly it nearly blew us over but we did manage to spot a couple of Sloggett's Vlei Rats, hamster-like creatures, perched at the entrances to their burrows. Our main target for this day was Drakensberg Rockjumper, the bird the tour company we are travelling with is named after. We checked around the pub for them but with the gale force wind we didn't have any luck. We ventured on further into the mountains, stopping and trekking a short way up the hillside to where some birds were sheltering by a stone wall. Here we found a few of the mountain birds like Drakensberg Siskin and Ground Woodpecker. Lesotho is quite a poor country, especially the people on this eastern side in the highlands. They are mainly shepherds, tending flocks of merino sheep and angora goats, which they shear in isolated shearing sheds scattered throughout the mountains and then send the wool to China for processing. We saw a few of these shepherds wandering the mountainside, wrapped in traditional blankets and accompanied by hunting dogs. We continued until we reached the top of the range, reaching a maximum altitude of 3240 metres, the highest I've ever been. Up here we were well above the tree line, dark green, grey and gold heath vegetation covers the mountains, there was patchy snow on the ground, and dotted on the slopes are motebos, round stone huts with grass roofs. Once we'd made it over the top of the range we headed down the western slopes to find some shelter from the wind and have some lunch. We ate quiche and samosas and bread with cheese whilst gazing up at the sheer, rocky peaks and clear blue sky. The whole day we stopped off at various locations, scanning for rockjumpers, but the wind was making it almost impossible so we weren't having any luck. The guides were starting to get a little nervous, Rockjumper the tour company have a 100% success rate with finding this species, and as their logo it would have been pretty embarrassing to dip out. We headed back to the pub, hoping that the wind may have eased off or that the birds might be sheltering from it by the buildings. We wandered around for a bit, braving the windy clifftops, and still nothing. I knew this was where Noah had found Drakensberg Rockjumper when he did his big year, and I mentioned it to our guide. He then looked across at a sheltered spot at the cliff base below the pub and told me that spot was where he'd seen his first ever rockjumper, then he wandered off to look for them. Very soon after there was a shout of 'rockjumper!' and everyone was leaning over the balcony of the pub to see them. I was already halfway down, so I climbed down to where he was and the birds came popping up out of the rocks and jumped towards us, yay! There was a whole family of them, a male with his grey back, orange belly, rufous rump, and white brow, the paler females, and all of them with brilliant red eyes. They hopped right on by us, no binoculars necessary for great views, and then up the cliff, and by the time we'd climbed back up they were on the deck of the pub. Back through the border check point and down the Sani Pass again, stopping off to look at a few antelope; Mountain Reedbuck, Grey Rhebok and Eland. Back in Underberg, our local guides had one last bird to show us; a roosting Spotted Eagle Owl. Then we headed back out to our guesthouse, which is surrounded by fields, and saw our last new birds of the tour, a gathering of about 150 Grey Crowned-Cranes, dancing in the light of dusk. If there is one bird that is an iconic symbol of African birds, it's this one, and it's one I've wanted to see since before I can remember. Not a bad way to end an intense whirlwind birding tour of South Africa!
Epilogue 16/06/2017 For our last morning in Africa we went for one last session of birding. The temperature was the coldest we've experienced yet (-4°C) and there was a heavy frost, turning all the surrounding fields crisp white. We didn't see many birds, they weren't as silly as us, but we did get much closer views of a pair of Grey Crowned-Crane. We stopped off for a quick look at the river, hoping to spot a kingfisher, and while we had no luck with the birds we did manage to add a final mammal species to our list; Cape Clawless Otter. Two of them bobbed about in the chilly water below us. Seeing my first wild otters was an awesome and unexpected treat for the end of this trip. Back to the guest house for our final African breakfast, followed by a three-hour drive to Durban to catch our flight home. Safari! An epic tick off the bucket list. For me, a big part of this trip was adding animal species to my life lists. So I guess the question is; how did I go? Well, I ended up with 365 birds for South Africa (including Cape Town). 345 of those were new for my world life list. My Australian life list is 355, so it turns out that I have now seen more African birds than Aussie ones! My world life list is now at 791, so my next goal is tracking down 9 more Aussie lifers to crack the 800 mark. As for reptiles, I added 10 to my life list, ranging from the tiny, elusive Setaro's Dwarf Chameleon to Africa's largest freshwater predator, the Nile Crocodile, bringing the list to a grand total of 32. Africa of course, is renowned for its mammal watching and I added 50 new species to my life list in just 3 weeks, taking it from 59 to 109. Incredible! Being able to tick species such as African Lion and Blue Wildebeest is so much more than a mark on a piece of paper, it means that I have seen that animal in the wild. I have had to travel to do it, go into unfamiliar environments, put in a real effort to find them. It means I have experienced these amazing creatures in their natural habitat, behaving just like they are supposed to, I will certainly never look at captive rhinos the same way again. For a little while I have been lucky enough to share their world with them. There were no guarantees (as we found out with Leopard), and the 'thrill of the hunt' so to speak is an incomparable feeling, one I am addicted to, and one that continues to push me in the pursuit of thrilling encounters in awe-inspiring places.
Well, there it is. I hope people might find something entertaining/informative among all this. I know it's light on photos and that's because, perhaps foolishly, I didn't take a camera. The ones I've posted here I took on my phone. My travel companion did bring a camera, so there are photos of a lot more of the wildlife that I saw. I just didn't post them here because they aren't mine to post. I have however used them in my travel blog and credited her. If you want to check them out, click here. I've also done a post on the blog about the practicalities of travelling to South Africa, because when I was planning my trip there were a few questions I had, and now that I've been I think this post answers them for anyone else with the same concerns. There's also a bunch of other diaries on there from my NZ and Aussie trips, wildlife watching included, and bit of stuff about birding
