Day 5
As the Park was busy, we decided to try to stay on dirt roads as much as possible. Trying to pack the car with all the necessary snacks for the day, in the dark as I didn’t want to bother our neighbours so early in the morning, I had a wee-bit of an accident… One moment I was looking at my mum through my cardoor and then she didn’t see me anymore. I had slipped and bought myself a piece of land in Lower Sabie. At least I was very ladylike as mum didn’t even notice me plundering over the dirt. I recovered very quickly and with my tail between my legs I got in the car. We started with the Salitjie road and then take the H1-2 to Skuks, from there we would take the S112 then the H5 to Mpondo dam, and then the S26 to Croc Bridge and then make our way back up to Lower Sabie.
The road were quiet, car and animal wise with a glimpse of a jackal and then some general game…
Bobbies,
A red crested korhaan,
As we wanted to turn unto the H3, we saw a few cars at Klipspringer koppies and just drove on to check out what was going on. There were actually a loooong row forming from the cars facing us, and we were 3 cars coming from SKuks side. A car took off, and we passed the two cars to take its place. Still not seeing what the fuss were about, then as I looked to my side, I saw one lioness chilling on a rock almost right next to us. We just took a few pics and then turned around to stick to our planned route.
The road was bumpy and uninteresting till we reached Mpondo dam. There were some zebs and impala drinking water and we stayed till they left the dam.
And some waterbuck,
Just as we left the dam, there were a few turns towards the S26, and mum said stop. I had to reverse, and then I saw what she spotted. It was a lifer for us and we were super excited about this sighting. A double barred owlet…
Closer to Croc Bridge we got to see some ellies, first we got a family crossing the road…
And then we got a loner drinking water at Vurhami Bridge.
When we got the North entrance to the S28, it was time to look closely into the acacias next to the road. About 500m towards Lower Sabie we spotted the boomslang from the night before, it was great to move forward and backward trying to get the best pics. And all the cars were just passing us not worrying about what we were checking out.
We left the snake in peace and went to camp to relax. Mum had a snooze whilst I had a few refreshing KPA’s and enjoyed the company of the acacia and collared barbets, black-capped bulbuls, grey louries and starlings. Just before 15:30 it was time to wake mum up for our afternoon drive, we always have to drive the s29 at least once with every trip to Lower Sabie. So it was our go-to road as this was our last night at Lower Sabie.
We saw a lot of steenbokkies, and some general game,
We were on the H10 about 4km from the low water bridge when mum just shouted ‘STOP’ and what do we see lying under a bushes about 100m from the road…
We were the first car there and sat with this cat for about 20 minutes and four more cars arrived when he thought it best to stand up and walk towards the road…
All our cars scared him off and he soon retreated towards the bush away from us. But we were very happy with our sighting. It was now just past 17:00 and with smiles on our faces we moved towards camp. Our last sighting for the day was this green backed heron in the Sabie River,
We got to camp and started packing the car as we were moving to Tsendze the next day and it was a long drive. So after we packed most of our things, I started a fire, popped a KPA and we enjoyed our last night in Lower Sabie.
To be continued…