Namibia - Day Sixteen, Seventeen & Eighteen

Day 16
Unfortunately I was ill for a day which can I tell you is not cool in any way shape or form when you are in a foreign country! In the afternoon, we went out with Matt to complete some footprinting tasks which was interesting and saw so many leopard prints!

Solitaire II
This way my second trip to Solitaire so I knew what to expect this time. I had to sit in the back of the truck as there wasnt enough room inside and it was certainly a little chilly even with sleeping bags to keep us warm. Once we arrived we prepped all the meat and went into the enclosure. Laura and Rusty were waiting for us and so they were given the crocodile we had made for enrichment which they destroyed easily. Just as we were feeding them though Teddy and Illa decided to show up which caused a little bit of tension as had to get the meat out really quickly so not to have a bit of a cat war on our hands.
After that we found Sparticus who disappeared as quickly as he came and then it took us AGES to find Pepper. Pepper is really interesting in the fact that she always places her meat on branches of some sort so that the food doesn't get dirty and covered in dust.
After feeding we picked up some old bones in the enclosure and filled up their water.
Once back at the lodge I got to call my Mum which was lovely. We then headed Solitaire where we stocked up on cakes and snack food. On the way back 2 kids hitched a ride with us which was an entertaining experience!
After a shower to remove the layer of dust I had aquired we then all went for a Sundowner and came back for tea. As it was Alice's birthday Moose had made her a huge brownie which we all got to eat some of! Being at Solitaire is such a great experience from the Cheetahs to the pack of dogs that live there its like a family that captures your heart.

Finding Sites
After breakfast we dropped the boys of to start their Eco Challenge. All the girls then went with Matt to help find some new possible camera sites for the second half of his study. We drove to the first site which had a promising area which looked like it had plenty of leopard tracks from the past 2 weeks which was good. The second site we visited sadly wasn't as good due to being very wide and so we walked for an hour to see if there were any other possible places. Sadly we found nothing bar a dead lizard and a dead Kudu which smelt horrific!

Once we got back we had lunch and then went on a game drive which was cold due to it being so windy! We did get to see lots of Zebra though and the herd had 4 babies in which were so cute. Its hard to really capture the beauty of the animals here. All of them have something which makes you in awe. Whether its Kudu horns or Zebras soft faces everything is beautiful.

Namibia - Day Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen

Solitaire
It took an hour and a half to get to Solitaire from Neuras and it was a beautiful resort with the sweetest dogs around especially the two puppies called Socks and Bear and then a really fat terrier called Jackie who's belly practically drags along the floor! Then there was the huge ridgeback called Butch and a really ugly bull dog called Spike. All of them were crazy too.
For enrichment we had made an elephant and a dinosaur and after placing meat in them we went into the massive enclosure. The two boys called Teddy and Illa met us and they were given the dinosaur. Teddy managed to get his head stuck in a box due to not being the brightest of cats but it did give an incredible comedy moment when he stuck his head up with the box on it. After feeding them we went and found Laura the mother and Rusty her daughter and they were given the elephant. They seemed to struggle to find all the meat but at least they didn't seam to get their heads stuck in the box.
Next we tracked Sparticus then Pepper using the Radio Tracker which was good fun listening to the beeps and learning how they work. After finding and feeding them huge chunks on meat we headed back to Solitaire where we had lunch before heading to the actual town of Solitaire homed to an amazing bakery called Moose McGregors Desert Bakery which apple pie has become famous due to Ewan McGregor talking about how its the best he ever had in his program which he biked through Africa. I do have to say the apple pie is amazing but then so are their chocolate chip muffins as well! Solitaire is such a quaint little town with really just a petrol service station and the bakery but all makes a very quaint and quirky stop when travelling.
After travelling back to Neuras we went for a lovely sun downer and watched the lion king. At 8pm we went on a short night drive where were got to see a very elusive African Wild Cat, Kudu, Jackels, Hares, Zebra and Steembok so was quite successful even if I was falling asleep due to being so tired!

The first group leave Neuras :(
Whilst everyone else was waiting to head back to the animal sancuary Kathryn, Alice and I went with Matt to do some Leopard footprinting. The idea of footprinting started with trying to identify Rhino by their footprints as the collars that they wore seemed to have an effect on their mating success. Since then the company are trying to come up with algarithms for cheetahs and leopards so that each individual cat can be identified by their paw print and for unidentified animals it will let you know  things like whether the animal is male/ female, the weight and the age of the animal as well. When we got near the sight which was where the footprints were we discovered that the leopard that had been in the area was right where we were trying to go and so we had to come back instead. We did get to use the radio signal tracker though which was cool and to here the beep out in the wild does give you a bigger surge of adrenaline than you are expecting! On the way back we spotted a Crested Eagle, I never knew that they were that big until I saw one in the sky. They are enormous!! 
he rest of the morning was spent relaxing and going through Camera trap pictures until the new group arrived.

At lunch we heard some loud grunting noise which was very close. We thought it was just cattle until Kate came over and told us that she thought it was the male leopard that stays close to the farm that they have been trying to collar and it was probably only 50-100m away!!
After lunch we all headed out in search of the leopard that we had been close to in the morning. We tracked her to the top of a hill but by the time we reached the top she had already disappeared into a river bed so we didn't see her which was a shame especially as we were so close in the morning. 
We had a braie again for dinner but I concluded that I prefer Springbok meat to Kudu as its not as tough.

Camera Traps

So on Sunday we did more camera trap work visiting 5 sites. The first 2 we could drive to, one was a water site and another dry. The 3rd was a natural water site which we watched 1.5km to get to. There were signs of leopards there and a tree which Matt things the leopard may use as a hide out. He also explained about Ostrich's getting stuck in the fence and dying from the heat or being killed. The 4th site was a digging site where animals find their own water. On the way we saw really fresh hyena track but they unfortunately didnt go past the camera.
After lunch we went on a game drive but we didnt really see anything var Kudu and Springbok but we did see some ground squirrels which are cute.

The Apple pie

leopard tracking

Hyena Track

Leopard Footprinting