Africa Wild

Page 7!

What an extraordinary dog sighting, Bushy!

A privilege for such a clear and close view of the action!

Yuck, a vulture eyeing their poo there...

Nice leopard spotting, sorry about the other car, but!

I wonder what carcass that is, also can't work it out?

We've stayed at that unit with the lapa before due to a booking mixup, it is larney!

Pumbaa wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 5:00 pm As always leopard overload, Bushcraft,

and this time also wild dogs overloaded

Love the bathing hyena and the gymnogene as well as the black chested snake eagle

Thanks Pumbaa We have been lucky with leopard sightings over the years

Yes, this was a crazy wild dog trip The pack moved in on the low level bridge with the pups the day we arrived at Skukuza and moved from there the day we left Skukuza for Biyamiti, so we were just in the correct camp at the right time

Richprins wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 6:35 pm Page 7!

What an extraordinary dog sighting, Bushy!

A privilege for such a clear and close view of the action!

Yuck, a vulture eyeing their poo there...

Nice leopard spotting, sorry about the other car, but!

I wonder what carcass that is, also can't work it out?

We've stayed at that unit with the lapa before due to a booking mixup, it is larney!

A few more pages of dogs still to come RP We had wild dog action in the same place for the entire time we were at Skukuza, just lucky The vultures chow the turd

Ja, a leopard even if shared is still cool.

I have zoomed in on that carcass and can't work it out

That GC6 is the same price as all the other 4 plus bed units with the exception of the safari tents. We have stayed in the tents, GC4V & GC6D and the GC6 is smaller than the GC6D's, but larger than the GC4V's, so it's now our 1st choice when 4 or more people. The proximity to Moni can be an issue due to the location of Moni's braai area

8th October Skukuza to Biyamiti Continued

This was a great “leopard in a tree” sighting because it was close to the road and the leopard was clearly visible, so I switched off to observe. It was another hot day and the leopard was battling with the heat like we were.

After half an hour the leopard stopped observing it’s surroundings, turned in the tree to face the river and went to sleep. We were frying in the sun, so decided shortly thereafter to continue on towards the S119/S114/Biyamiti weir, stopping to enjoy the odd ellie herd with sleeping junior, giraffe junior, etc, sighting on the way.


It was roasting hot by the time we reached Biyamiti view point, so we were glad to get out the car and stand in the small amount of shade. A large herd of buffalo kept us entertained below while we made cheese and tomato rolls on the tail gate of the bakkie.


At 1:45pm we cruised into Biyamiti camp and were stoked when we were given unit 7, which we feel is the best unit in camp from a location point of view, especially since we were only there for 1 night.

After unpacking we took a walk around camp, first through the bush paths behind the units where we found a few female nyala and then along the fence line and captured some pics on route.

We normally don’t do an afternoon drive when staying at Biyamiti on our last night in the park, but I had a “bee in my bonnet” about a leopard that I know hangs around the S25/S26 intersection, so at the last minute I conned everybody for a quick half an hour drive down the road and back to camp.

We only made it 1km down the S25 from the S139 though as 3 young male and 3 female lions approached and parked off next to the road. Another luck was that it was already after 5pm so the normal S25 traffic had already made their way to Croc Bridge and it seemed that nobody from Biyamiti had done a late afternoon drive.

They were almost on the road so I pulled over on the opposite side of the road to the sighting as I didn’t want to scare or impose on them.


Bushpig was also hanging her teeth with selfies on her cell phone.

The one young male then got up and moved even closer to us.


The lions then started to look more intently at something on the other side of us, but we initially couldn’t see what they were looking at and also couldn’t hear anything, however when they started checking up the road the Cow worked it out.

“There’s an elephant herd in the road right behind us! We need to move!”

“NO”

“$%&*, I can’t look!”

Seconds later the elephant herd also spotted the lion which gave us no choice but to move as I didn’t want to be jammed between charging female ellies and the lions. The lions also took the hint and quickly moved off.

I turned the car and we relocated 2 of the young male lions checking the ellies out.


As soon as we got back to camp, I started our traditional last night large wood fire/braai and the clan sat on the bench in front of our unit watching the locals in the fading light.

We had to drive to Mpila camp, Imfolozi at 1st light in the morning so we didn’t have a late night, but I went through to the kitchen later that evening and spotted a movement outside through the chicken mesh door and called the Cow with a torch.

A genet was sniffing around on our veranda, so we snapped a quick pic and then left it in peace.


To be continued