Day 3… searching for some dogs
13 Dec
Now some background information:
I had been very lucky in the past when it came to wild dogs, I have seen them with every trip to Kruger, even if it was only for a weekend so it was very strange for me that I had no luck with them on my July and September trip this year… So I had them high on my wishlist for this trip together with a high priority cat… the SERVAL. If I had one sighting of both of them then my trip would have been worthwhile so I was on the lookout for these two species. Firstly I have done some digging about the serval and it seems that there have been numerous sightings of this cat on the S90, H10 and H5 so I made sure if I was in the vicinity of these roads I would drive them and the dogs you guys know are everywhere you just have to be on the right time in the right place. There have been some sightings of the dogs on the H1-2 near Leeupan the past few days after checking our map, Wendy and I decided to drive the H10 to Tshokwane and then H1-2 back to the highwater bridge and the H4-1 to camp this morning.
After the rain last night I was so glad that nothing in my tent was wet but unfortunately Wendy couldn’t say the same, it rained in at the back of her tent and her towel was outside, I couldn’t save it on time so we had to hang a few things to dry and then we were on the road.
It was very dark so we only started seeing things very later this morning on our drive.
A rhino family
And more of my pooh-shrooms
Then a three banded plover posed a bit for me (don’t you think she has sexy legs?)
Also which was very strange for me, is the fact that I’ve had more sightings of the southern reedbuck, I have seen them now in the last three trips and not one sighting but a few. Don’t know where they were hiding the last few years but they are here now to stay.
And I also had a close encounter with a red crested korhaan, she didn’t look very happy
I know that you guys are wondering where are the baby impis, I just didn’t get them to pose nicely and they are very skittish, was the first time that whenever you would park next to them that they would just scamper of. But not to worry I did get one pic of a baba
We had a refreshment break at Tshokwane and then it was time to get on the road again, on our way back we had the following sightings.
Warno, they are getting bigger by the visit
At leeupan we had a woolly necked stork
Wahlberg Eagle
And a saddle billed stork
I still dream of the day that they have a birdhide here, it is a magical place with a lot of birds.
Then back on the main road I heard the loud screeching of our Kruger pet, the brown headed parrot. I always hear them first and then just look where the sound come from…
We got to Eloff street with no luck on our side as the doggies where not seen that day. Eish we just need to try another day…
But we did see a lot of impala, and here one was having a late brunch
And then we were back at camp, it was very hot and it was decided that only KPA would cool us down so we popped a few bottles and chilled in camp. I brought a few books to the Park as I was way behind with my reading, and Wendy also brought Tony Parks’ –dark heart for me. It was time to chillax with a good book and an ice cold refreshment… so we busied ourselves till 15:30 when it was time to go on another drive. Our plan was to do the H4-2->enter the S28 N entrance->S137->S130 back to camp.
First sighting for me was the fish eagle, it is about 5km from LS, you will see this beautiful bird almost every day in the same dead tree…
Then an ellie with a crooked tooth
A baby steenbokkie
Some zebra
And a tawny eagle right next to the road
More rhinos, we had 16 rhinos that day… it was such a beautiful day for these amazing beasts
Then I don’t know if you guys do it as well, but I would stop and think I saw something then everybody in the car would ask me what I saw whilst I’m busy with the binocs and then I would put them down and start driving again as it was a rockbuck or a bushcat… Yes, 9/10 times I see absolutely nothing but I do stop every time still. And today the same happened, I stopped and was checking out the rocks on the other side of the Sabie river with my binocs when the one looked a bit more like a cat. I have never been so excited as I spotted my own lions, and they weren’t in the road, they were about 400m from me!!!! I waved Wendy down and with joy and excitement pointed out the lioness to her and another surprise was that there was a male lion just lying under the tree behind her.
We stayed a while and was awarded with them standing up… they walked next to the riverbed for about 1km and we were now 4 cars following them… they had a drink and roared and it was amazing even though they were so far from us.
Then came the bushes on our side so we lost them along the way, but it is a good thing otherwise we would’ve been late. It was starting to get cloudy and I just had to stop, this holiday I had a thing about the clouds and sky and there is many more pics taken of the heaven…
And my last sighting for the day is these thick knees
We got home and heated some goulash that Wendy made for us at home. It was delish, we added some cous-cous and corn. We had a bit more food than space in the freezer so all the veg that could go vrot we tried to consume early in our trip. That night we could go to bed early and I passed out, at least there was no rain that night. But I have to add that I was afraid that we would get so I took a bit of initiative and took an axe to make us a trench… not a lot of fun…
To be continued…
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