25th - Kruger, part 2

Today we were picked up in the morning by two safari vehicles. While the wildlife watching from the truck yesterday was good, we were limited by the fact that it is only allowed to drive on paved roads. These specialized safari vehicles (similar to those in the Serengeti, just slightly bigger) are able to drive on any road, paved or not, giving us more chances to get closer to the animals.

The day was to be a mixed experience, though.

Our driver/guide had from the beginning been informed that lions were the only one of the bug five we hadn’t seen yet (in the wild), so focus was to be on those. Also, having seen so many elephants already, we wouldn’t need to stop every time we saw a new group wandering about.

Up until lunch we had a good drive; saw quite a few animals, no new ones, unfortunately. We even stopped for a break for half an hour. While there was a nice view of the area from the seating area in the café that also was there, it all felt more like a way of getting us to do some shopping in the souvenir shop. But we kept driving around, until we at lunchtime parked at another site in the park after which the driver left us – without any plans or arrangements of when we were leaving again. Slightly confusing, but we ended up relaxing on a patch of grass for an hour while having lunch before returning to the cars.

At the various sites in the park there are large maps of wildlife sightings the last couple of days. We had seen that the last couple of days lions had been spotted daily in an area a couple of km east of our lunch spot. We pointed this out to our driver, and therefore he did the sensible th… no he didn’t. He drove west. We started complaining about this, and the only real reaction was to circle around, look at some elephants (yes, you do get tired of looking at them in the end, especially when you know there might be lions nearby) and continue west.

Later, we had another clash with the driver; someone spotted a leopard in the bushes and told him to stop. Being on the phone he had a very long reaction time, so we all ended up yelling at him to stop before he reacted – after which we yelled at us for scaring the animals away. He reversed quite a bit, and we did just manage to see the leopard disappear deeper into the thicket.

Not too happy about the afternoon’s drive, we exited the park and drove to our last camp site before Johannesburg.

The site was almost like a small amphitheatre where we set up the tents on the top level. After setting up camp Jaco pulled out a sling and played around with that for a while before showing off his whipping skills again. No twigs in mouths this time, but still very entertaining.

After dinner a group of locals came by and danced and sang for us. A little like when we were in the Delta, but not quite as frivolous.

Giraffes always run in slow motion.

Bateleur eagle.

Greater blue-eared starling.

Turtles.

Elephant (again!).

An eagle of some kind.

Zebras and wildebeast.

Kudus.

Ground hornbill.

A.... bird.

Leopard tail.

The rest of the leopard.

23rd-24th - Kruger, part 1

The 23^rd was eventless. We had a 7 hour drive getting into South Africa and our next camp site. As usual the long drives on the trip were eventless and even crossing the border this time wasn’t a big hassle. Or we are just getting used to it. In any case, nothing to report.

The 24^th we had our first full day in Kruger. The day was spent in the truck, going from a northern entrance into the park and getting quite a bit south into the park to get to the site where we would be spending the night. While the drive was interesting enough in the sense that there was wildlife to look at and look for, the drive itself was just, well… driving.

The sightings today were quite a big mix of various animals. We saw plenty of elephants – many more than I would have expected. While in some areas the elephants are threatened, they are apparently have so many in Kruger that there are discussions on whether or not they should be culling some of the families. They are reaching a point where the number of elephants is reaching an amount where the areas will not be able to sustain the large number of herds walking around. It is quite interesting, especially considering what you usually hear about elephants in Africa.

We saw two small hyena cubs lying in small hole. Despite not being very pretty when grown up, the two cubs still managed to get some awww’s from the truck.

And we saw a cat today, more precisely a leopard. Not very visible, but it was definitely there! The 5 five was thereby crossed off for the trip (even though I would have preferred seeing lions in the wild and not just in the sanctuary).

Getting to the camp site – big fenced in area with supermarket and good toilet facilities – we had an early dinner as we would be leaving again at 1930 to go on a night drive trying to find animals that tend to be more active during the night than day. We were given two projectors which would then be used to light up surrounding areas in an attempt to spot anything that wasn’t a rock. Yes, we saw plenty of impalas. And a bunch of elephants. No cats, but a group of hyenas playing around. Generally the drive could be considered a success.

Zebras.

Saddle-billed stork.

Yellow-billed hornbill.

Buffalo.

Two hyena cubs.

You might not be able to see the leopard, but the leopard has definately seen you!

The leopard got tired of the attention and got up to walk away.

Elephant under the moon.

Hyena.