SO's Surprise trip to Mkhuze & Daytrip to Hluhluwe 2013

[Toko]

Loveley view there from the radio tower and grey skies

[RogerFraser]

Hey all thanx for the kind words and joining me on the TR .As we fortunate enough to be going back in time on the forums and I for some reason saved the next 3 installments in a text file we going to jump back through those post rather quickly so hang on to your binocs the bus is going to shoot along now .....


Further down the road we found some Zeebras with youngsters in tow



A Kudu doe was not keen to get a picture without her makeup on ....


We found this YBK but could not get a nice pic


A bit further on I think arround the Sand forest area we found some herd animals with young GNU



there was also some young Zeebras having an early morning sand bath :




This GNU was on alert :


A Nyala Doe was happy to pose for her picture :


We carried on to the first hide at the Pan...

[RogerFraser]

At the first hide there was plenty of water but little else apart from some pretty lillies



We sat for a while but nothing moved or arrived so we moved on.
There was a considerable amount of spider webs all along side all the roads and we took some pics of some of the owners







On the drive between the hides we found some Impala



At the next hide we found a fisherman in the rough water but nothing else was around



We left and drove on towards the picnic spot to have breakfast .....

[RogerFraser]

To be fair there were a number of birds far off over the lake but they were too far to see even with Binoculars .I

imagine when there is less water it must be a true birding paradise at these hides .

After breakfast we planned to do the Fig Tree walk but it was closed so we carried on the big loop.
We had this guest at breakfast


A mongoose watched out the grass.

and these Piggies were not going to market


We found a opening to the lake and saw this Fish Eagle in the distance


Further on an Impi in a bachelor herd watched out



And this chap tried to outrun us but we caught up





This little fellow was hard at work collecting his grub.



We then drove to the cultural village but there was nothing there it was abandoned as was the road leading there

so we stopped off at camp for Lunch.

[RogerFraser]

After lunch we decided to drive to the KwaMalibala hide on the way there we met another tortoise


A herd of Impies was enjoying the grass.



We found a huge flock of Cattle Egrets with some GNU



A glossy starling was waiting for lunch to appear.




We found some Zeebras


And the cutest pack of Piggies having their lunch



In the grass a stepped Buzzard ? was walking arround rather than flying .



We carried on to the hide...

[Lisbeth]

Lovely water lilies and the piggies are sweet I like the steppe eagle in the grass and the zebbies are always decorative in their pajamas

[Toko]

Roger, this is going quickly here

I had posted already some nice comments on the warthogs, the spider and the water lily and now I am happy to tell you, that you found a new thingie for our AW books. the first tortoise is not the usual leopard tortoise

This rocks

[Pumbaa]

Thanks a lot Roger,

what a very entertaining trip allover with all the impalas, the cute warthogs and lots of birdies

[Richprins]

So why were your feet wet on the lookout?

[RogerFraser]

Hi
Thanx Lisbeth was allot of youngsters in the herds
Toko ok thought the tortoise looked slightly different to the ones we have seen in KNP.
Pumba glad you enjoying the ride
Rp dejavu here ... yes was a bit showery in the morning with some drizzle about

Further along we found more Pajama clad Zeebras


An umentioned was in the bushes and this was the only one we saw


and some GNU with babies .


We watched some Yellow Hornbills that seemed to be playing a game of tag






This little Impi was very vigilant



We got to the end of the road and left the vehicle to walk to the hide ....
After about 100m of not finding any walkway or tunnel we started to wonder if we were mabye on the wrong place.
Then finally a little further we got to the hide entrance tunnel and gate not sure why they had such a long open walk .I believe the hides are now
closed for renovations .I am hoping as there are now Lions in thispark they are making the road closer to the hide a bit ... also once it the
tunnel there was huge missing sections so definately did need some repairs .

At the hide we found a bee eater.




Some starlings walked the bank


A legavaan swam in the water



On a little Island some terrapins soaked up some sun


after a while some GNU came for some water


And when they left we did too


We decided to go back to the tower to see if there was any activity there ...