Thanks Flutts, Lisbeth, RP and Mel for posting
Ya, while posting I see it wasn't such a bad trip sighting wise, so the fever thing definitely put a damper on the holiday
6th Lower Sabie continued and then home
Later that afternoon we had a family debate about whether we should go on another drive or not, but as it was our last afternoon we decided to all chow a few more pills and drive to the causeway and back.
The Lubyelubye pride was back again on the other side of the river about 300m from the rocks and they were plotting a buffalo herd. It was almost exactly the same as the previous day right down to the gang of cars, so I stopped for a quick pic and moved on.
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As we went past the little loop next to the rocks Bushpig chirped “LEOPARD!” which caused me to hit a wobble
“Where!”
“There on the rock!”
I glanced backwards and a leopard was busy getting comfortable on the rock, so while trying to remain calm I slowly reversed back into the loop and expected to find numerous cars already checking the leopard out, but much to my surprise there was only one car in the loop and they hadn’t see the leopard yet because they were parked on the wrong side of the loop.
We have seen a leopard on these rocks a couple of times before so we have learnt that there’s a particular spot with the best view and it’s not an obvious spot because it’s slightly back from the closet part of the loop to the rocks, so I immediately pulled into that spot and switched off.
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In seconds the other car in the loop picked up that we were on to something and they came driving up and 5 minutes later the entire loop and bridge was choked and we were totally parked in which didn’t bother me that much because we had a leopard in front of us, but the crowd was starting to make the leopard restless as plenty people were now hanging out of sun roofs and windows to try and get a view.
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Minutes later I heard shouting from behind us and at the same time the leopard jumped up and ran down the back of the rocks. I looked around in anger and a Sanparks ranger was out of his car and shouting at people. I was mad that he had chased the leopard, but glad that he was taking action because his book was out and he was issuing all the rule breakers with fines.
While this was going on the leopard had charged down the riverbed, under the bridge and into deep bush, so minutes later the gang had cleared enough for us to move on.
As we reached our normal S79 “100m section” I slowed to a snails pace and checked out all our normal spots, but no luck, however as we started to exit the section Albert casually said
“Don’t you want to stop!”
So I stopped slightly confused and Albert continued
“I think there was a tail hanging down from a tree back there.”
To appease the situation I agreed to reverse with Albert providing the stop/start details.
“Stop……..there…….LEOPARD!”
I couldn’t believe my eyes as there was a small gap in the bush only as wide as 2 windows of a car and there was a leopard sleeping in a tree in the middle of the gap.
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Albert had a massive cheesy as Bushpig had found 2 leopards on the trip now so she needed this 1 to equal Bushpig. I tried some forwards and backwards manoeuvring to see if there was perhaps a better spot up or down the road, but eventually ended up back in the same place and switched off.
“There’s nobody here so I’m going to switch off and just “park” until it’s time to go back to camp”
Around 15 minutes later the leopard started to stir and check us out a little, but each time curled up again, so we just waited and chatted about other things.
A few cars came past during this time and everybody slowed but nobody stopped, so my teeth were secretly hanging out, however an elderly couple had arrived and they were going backwards and forwards all around us, so the Cow looked pleadingly at me and then shouted instructions to them which didn’t work until she gave a long detailed speech about the gap in the bush, the tree, etc.
The leopard had woken up while this was going on and it caught us by surprise so some camera juggling started. Something had gotten the leopard’s attention and it looked like a plot was developing so I was getting hyped up, however it turned and curled up again 5 minutes later.
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2 more cars arrived so we decided to continue on and waved a lady with a combi full of kids into our spot.
Just as we exiting the S79 a young couple waved us down and starting jabbering about the lack of sightings for the day, so I told them about the leopard and lion up the road and the leopard caused the couple an overexcited semi panic because they hadn’t seen a leopard on their trip yet, so the questions started flying and I soon realised that this detailed explanation would take too long, therefore I stopped talking and said “I will turn around and take you there”
The young lady driving must have been afraid of losing sight of us because she was sticking to the back of our car and I got a little nervous that she was going to drive into us, so I slowed gradually as we neared the leopard spot and pointed out the leopard without totally stopping.
Just after exiting the S79, on the way to Lower Sabie, the road gets fairly close to the riverbed for a section and the Cow spotted some new arrivals which weren’t around on the way up to the causeway.
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We were rather “wobbly” upon arriving in camp and the fever story was on the go again, so nobody was really keen on sitting around a braai, however the energetic lesser bush baby pulled in again which resulted in a more co-ordinated camera attack, but I still only got 1 pic as it jumped.
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But sightingwise... oh, my gosh! Cats, cats and then some more cats. Even with a
But you had great sightings and can remember it through the pics! 
) - you really know Kruger, inch by inch. 
