Boiling

Normal seasonal conditions have resumed. After a late night with the lions, we generally sleep until about 9am, that's when the tent, which has been sealed carefully against the cold, becomes an oven as the Kalahari sun fries the exterior. Outside it’s deliciously warm with a gentle breeze wafting through the camp. Smoke from the mopane (pronounced mopanee) wood that we burn on the camp fire drifts around as breakfast (porridge and coffee) is prepared. Hornbills cluck. All the lions are asleep.

The arduous bit of film making (well, modern film making) is the transfer and logging of all the digital files we recorded the day before onto something more permanent. Here we have a total of six computers, three for recording imagery, one for controlling a camera, and two for copying files from one drive to another. We also have to charge all the car batteries we used in the night – which means that the delicate and varied birdsong all around is wrecked by the sound of one, or even two generators.

The shower is water heated on the camp fire, put in a canvas bucket and then suspended from a tree. It always seems such a good idea, so refreshing. But every day, it’s a disappointment. As the hot water touches skin, the extremely dry air evaporates the water quickly, cooling it to 'cold setting’ in a matter of seconds. It’s a hot and cold shower.

Freezing

We have seen two lionesses in particular who are great characters, we watched these girls last night, not quite fully adult, clearly lacking much real experience in getting dinner for themselves. They had most of the right moves, but lacked any strategy – they spent the evening chasing a bunch of savvy oryx around in circles while we did our best to keep up. After a few hours, they wore themselves out, and we left them in deep sleep at about midnight, we drove the hour-long, bitterly cold journey back to camp.

An open top car may seem an odd choice for filming lions, but it gives us greater flexibility with cameras and visibility – even though it is a problem in rain and cold. (There’s no danger from the lions, they just treat us like a part of the landscape, the only ones who ever chase us are cocky cubs out for a bit of fun – although we are constantly vigilant with infra red scopes and thermal cameras.





It is really really cold
Winter in the Kalahari is usually 25 degrees during the day and 2 degrees at night. After the warm weather that brought the rain, an 'Antarctic front’ has returned, and even the days aren’t hot anymore. Driving in an open topped vehicle, in this dry cold air increases the wind chill factor enormously. Without even a windscreen to protect us from cold, we are wearing 6 or 7 layers of clothing, gloves, balaclavas and blankets.

A warming fire and a large whisky soon compensate

Today is re-supply day – it must be Friday. Still no replacement battery charger for the one that exploded during the storms two weeks ago, but we should get fresh veggies, new car radio, whisky and most importantly, water. This is the Kalahari, and it is a desert.