On the S41 the mammal sightings improved.
I kept a close eye on this lone Buffalo in case he was a cranky old unit. Not sure if his left eye was faulty or if he just had it closed due to the sun?
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Fortunately he did not care about our presence.
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Some Waterbuck and Kudu popped up close enough to the road for photos in the beautiful morning light.
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As this Baboon troop foraged beside the road one individual seemed to be suspicious of the occupants of the car in front of us and kept a close eye on them as he moved on.
At Gudzani East a Buffalo was drinking from the waterhole and an Elephant herd turned up to quench their thirst from the tank. The scene was very peaceful so we parked off for a few minutes to grab a nibble and observe the drinking technique of the Elephants.
As we left we stopped to share info with a nice couple who informed us there were Lions a little further south. This got me very excited as I knew this area was the territory of the pride containing the white male! He had been seen quite regularly in the preceding weeks so I thought we were a reasonable chance to find him. Thanking the couple very much for their info we proceeded with purpose to the sighting. Quickly the gathering of cars came into view and we were able to determine that the Lions were on the eastern side of the road (not great for photos) and were lying flat (even worse). I slowly moved along the line of cars surveying the scene and assessing where would be suitable for pics. As it was now 9.30 it seemed probable that the most action we would see was if they decided to move from the sun to shade, so there was no rush to get into position. I pulled a u-turn and parked at the southern end of the queue as the view there seemed almost as good as anywhere else, and the angle meant that we wouldn't be staring straight into the sun. Focusing our binoculars on the pride it was still difficult to determine exactly how many Lions there were. We had been told it was about 15, but we could see no more than perhaps 8. I assume they had already started moving off into the shade. Suddenly Lyca commented that the Lion on the right was quite pale. I located the one she was talking about and my heart raced - surely that is him! Soon after he sat up and we were left in no doubt that this was in fact the famous white male!!
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The back-lighting meant that his pale colouration was hard to capture in photos but he soon stood up and moved to a shady position, giving us an even better opportunity to observe his colouration.
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What an amazing way to start our Kruger adventure! And we had only just made it in time. If we had spent much longer meandering to this point the white male would have already moved to the shade and we wouldn't really have been able to see him.