The Great Escape

[Mel]

What a beautiful ellie sighting And large herds of buffs are always impressing

Very crisp photos all around again

[PJL]

That is a lovely area of the park, Peej! We were there at the pan on Monday and it was buzzing!

Sharp eyes from the kids!

Nice ellies indeed.

And a huge buff herd!

Stunning baboon!

No leopard?

Sorry no leopard... that pan is a good one for parking off at for a while

The buffalo herds are always enormous.......when they are crossing the road

Haha yes.... we were lucky that most of them had already crossed

What a beautiful ellie sighting And large herds of buffs are always impressing

Very crisp photos all around again

Thanks Mel. Those ellies were a good size!

[PJL]

Sunday July 11th contd

The afternoon at Lower Sabie was nice and chilled. We had booked for a sunset drive and so only got ourselves together at about 4pm to go meet up with the guide and vehicle. For some reason the guide never appeared, but another off-duty guide called Michelle noticed that we were all hanging around in the carpark looking lost and raced into action to figure out what was going on. A short while later the vehicle arrived with Michelle at the wheel! We’re still not sure where the original guide disappeared to, but well done Michelle for stepping in.

Of course, we started out by calling in at sunset dam





Lions had moved into the riverbed further up the road, and there was a big herd of buffalo approaching them





We wondered if there might be some hunting action, but a tiny head popped out from behind one of the lionesses which showed the reason behind their hesitancy





Heading up the H4-1 there was a martial eagle close to the road, and we also stopped for the sunset







The leopard from earlier in the day was still just about visible in a hollow near the road, but he wasn’t interested in looking our direction



With darkness falling, the rest of the photos were very much just ‘proof’ pics. We travelled up to the Nwatimhiri causeway and back, with sightings of hyena, lion (I think the same male we had seen in the morning), genet and a large number of civet that the kids kept on spotting.

[Pumbaa]

WoW PJL,

simply incredible leopard with porcupine kill shots and on top lots of lions and what a night drive Great to having spot civet and what massive crocodiles

Thanks so much for such wonderful shots

[Lisbeth]

I still have not seen a civet, but then again I never go on sunset/night drives

[PJL]

WoW PJL,

simply incredible leopard with porcupine kill shots and on top lots of lions and what a night drive Great to having spot civet and what massive crocodiles

Thanks so much for such wonderful shots

Thanks Pumbaa, that leopard with the kill was a big highlight for us

I still have not seen a civet, but then again I never go on sunset/night drives

It was amazing to see how many of them came out! I think we saw 6 in total, but they seem to be strictly nocturnal and not willing to be out first thing in the morning when it's still dark, but too cold perhaps.

[PJL]

Monday July 12th

After a week in the park, we were running low on food options so we decided to combine a drive across the park with a trip out to Malelane for supplies. We travelled up the H4-1 and then across the S21 where the sun started to rise





We found a hyena that looked to have been busy eating overnight



Cruising along we rounded a corner to find a lioness just moving off the road. We lost visibility of her very quickly, but she was being followed by two youngsters





We had a few more glimpses of the lioness - they were part of a pride as we saw at least 3 other adults moving off into the distance. The cubs fairly quickly moved off into the long grass to follow the others







Once across the other side of the S21 we ducked south and tried our luck on the S26 to see if there was any sign of the young male leopard who had been so chilled with us. Unfortunately he wasn’t around, but we did have a great sighting of a martial eagle fluffing itself up for warmth

[Richprins]

You really have a knack for parking with the best light for your shots, Peej!

All the night life was superb there, and thank heavens for Michelle, hope she gave the other guide

The lion cubs are to die for, plus the bird shots all!

[Lisbeth]

Sunrise

Cute lion cubs and the light gives a something more

Also the martial eagle is not bad

[RogerFraser]

Lovely pics of the Lion cubs in the morning light.