There are animals other than birds on the farm that are not so easily found but can be with a bit of luck or skill. Dassies, or hyraxes, rest on the ridges above the farm and along the road leading into the accommodation, and there is a family of ground squirrels in the field beside the (future) campsite. At night, kangaroo-like springhares as well as normal hares hop about in the fields and regularly visit the yard. The dams, a short distance away, sometimes have otters hunting in them during the day – for freshwater crabs, in the summer – and the surrounding veld is home to tortoises.
The Gatsrivier canyon hike is likely to yield something if you look around carefully. The last sheep field before reaching the canyon itself is a good place to look as a pair of steenbok, another family of ground squirrels and tiny elephant shrews have taken up residence there. It is also thought that Bubbles, our rehabilitated mongoose, may be living here. The canyon contains klipspringer and baboons, and our nomadic family of meerkats will sometimes settle here.
The aardvark is also known to live around the farm, and although it is difficult to see one there are plenty of termite mounds in the veld that bear their destructive mark. Generally they only come out when it’s pitch black and move around a huge area, though we did once have a memorable day when one was spotted in the fields in broad daylight!
For larger game, you are better off visiting nearby Camdeboo and Mountain Zebra National Park – at MZNP you can even track cheetah with a ranger on foot! However, we do get kudu passing through on occasion and we have a small herd of black wildebeest and springbok in the hills along trail no. 4.
