Flavour of the Month May & June 2018- S126 Sweni Drive

[Flutterby]

Good for the kudu, bad for the lion!

[leachy]

the old man was not impressed....

[Flutterby]

Well then he should have given it a go!

[Lisbeth]

He looks well fed

Nice to see a lion looking so healthy

[Richprins]

This was near the first windmill, hey leachy?

[leachy]

This was near the first windmill, hey leachy?

correct answer.....

bc and cow and offspring were also there before the failed hunt but they got bored after waiting for 5 minutes

so they left

[Dindingwe]

I wonder if I have ever taken this road all the way down to the S36. I often enter the road to see what is along the river, but make a u-turn to continue to Satara.

Just before the road, from the bridge over the Sweni River : Elephants and Buffaloes.

Just after the entrance of the road : Elephant

[Richprins]

From a 2012 ossendryver report (night drive):

And then we got the Sweni Lion Pride on the S126





Shame, the male was very, very injured and was limping terribly.
A sad day for lions that day was.





But the sightings still made up for it.

Especially an African Wild Cat

https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... =46&t=1285

[Richprins]

We thought that the hyena might still be at the Sweni Waterhole for my dad.
It wasn't
But out second lion sighting for the day was.



But what happened next was an experience we all will never ever forget.

At the waterhole was a huge herd of elephants.
Suddenly they all stopped drinking and started running towards us.
Wasn't a charge but just their daily route.

But the sight of having a herd of 100+ elephants running towards you is quite unbelievable.

[Richprins]

About three quarters of the way to the west along the road one gets Welverdiend waterhole.

Now this place, which seems long-closed now, is strangely remote, if that makes sense, and the archetypal African Experience, IMO. Perhaps because there were/are huge umbrella thorns, or certainly big acacias of some sort, someone must go and look?

It is a turnoff to the Sweni river area, but the river is feeble there:

I hope this is right... one gets to a circular little parking lot around one of the thorniest bushes on earth. DON't veer off, or you will get a puncture, no matter how desperately you seek shade!

There is a long view of a generally barren area, it is always barren, with a trough.

A 2016 pic from Bushcraft:







Anyway, in the early 1990's I spent a LOT of time alone at this place over a couple of years when I had a holiday invitation to Orpen. I enjoyed it, but had terrible luck, arriving just after hearing of death and destruction there the day before sort of thing, or hearing about same once I had left.

Memory fades, but I remember lots of vultures drinking all the time!

On my last day-sitting trip, I was slumbering off not expecting anything after another disappointing day, when in the afternoon I looked up to see one of those sights that takes a while to register in your mind as appearing to be impossible!


From the right side appeared an eland cow!


I think it was an escaped animal from the bunch of game farms around the Timbavati area, and they travel huge distances. The nearest population may have been in the mopani area north of Houtboschrand - Red Gorten?


Nobody believed me, but a rare sighting!