Cheetah Tracking Walk - (Mountain Zebra National Park, Craddock)

This short walk documents our group's route to track a Cheetah named Mike. After starting out at about 8am we headed for the open vehicle where our guide Andrew took us towards the main entrance gate, there he turned on his radio receiver for the first time below a hill over the plains to look for the first radio signals from the four Cheetah in the game reserve. After receiving a strong signal from Lions nearby we headed down to the dams below to scout the area. After a bit of offroad driving we spotted the Lioness on the ridge of the dam and then two others quickly came into view. A good clear sighting albeit a bit far, luckily my camera has a good zoom to be able to capture them. We moved off from the Lions in the direction of the Saltpeterskop mountain (a large Mesa visible from the Northern area of the park and a hike for another time). Quite abrubtly in the thorn thickits a Rhino was spotted, a male Black Rhino which naturally moved at pace through the thorn thickets to a safe distance so he could stop and have a good look and hear us. Shortly after as with most Black Rhino sightings he was gone deep into the cover of the bush. On we went until we reached near to the Northern boundry of the park close to Salpeterskop. Andrew our guide got out to check and picked up a strong signal from one of the parks Cheetahs he called us from the open vehicle and that is where this trail recording began. After a short 750m walk through the Karoo veld we spotted our young male Cheetah Mike, who was calm with our presence and continued to sleep while propping his head up every now and then to yawn and check his surroundings. After enough time with Mike we headed to the vehicle for a drive back to main camp where we got good general game sightings and interesting birds. Although this trail is not official nor if one does Cheetah Tracking at Mountain Zebra will it ever be the same. The animals move so no two experiences will be the same. Recorded this for the experience and to highly recommend this activity if you are ever visiting Mountain Zebra National Park in the Eastern Cape.