The Great Escape

[Lisbeth]

Satara is not my cup of tea either

[PJL]

........ there were some problems at the camp which I won’t go into in detail about, but might well have made it illegal in these covid times.

Now you have made me terribly curious

I like the bateleur take off a lot and the koris are also great

Yeah... I know it raises curiosity but let's just say the facilities weren't maintained/cleaned sufficiently. From chatting to other friends, this seems to be something of an ongoing issue

Great to having spotted these lions, PJL

plus stunning hyena, kudu and kori shots

Thanks Pumbaa, I don't think anyone else had seen them that day and there were a few other cars around. Lots of Kori Bustards close to the road going from Satara north!

Ja the cold can make the aminals vanish, Peej!

But not bad sightings!

The Timbavati road can often be long and boring, as can the H1-4....or not!

I am also very curious about Satara...not exactly the most famous camp for control of late...

Lovely jacana!

Camp management seems to be the issue. I have heard that they lost some of their cleaning staff and have been struggling to replace them... not sure why that would be difficult but perhaps due to the location of the camp well within the park
H1-4 was really good to us last time... also around Timbavati. But I was more surprised by the lack of anything along the H7 & S100... supposedly prime roads those

I've never like Satara in the first place. Probably because it was an extremely unkempt camp when I visited it for the first time.
And we know what it is with first impressions.

Although your sightings were quite nice, I can see why the days may have appeared a bit slow. Especially compared to your sightings around Skuks.

So, awaiting leopard number umpteen.

Funny because we always enjoyed our previous trips to Satara so first impressions made us want to go back
The pics might make the day appear less slow than it was... I think we travelled about 160km that morning - equivalent of what I would normally attempt in 3 drives
No more leopards.... on this day

Love the Hyenas & Bateleur takeoff .

Curious to hear about the issues at Satara but good to be flexible .I will be staying in Orpen in two weeks time for a few days so hopefully the game has returned a bit . I have only ever stayed at Satara once and found it a bit too busy and we also had a run in with an OSV camping outfit that refused to allow us to camp by the fence as they had "booked" it even though they were not there when we arrived .Those were the early days would have given them a different answer now days .My daughters fiancé also had issues at Satara a couple of years ago with noise levels of the APU activities . Now days we prefer the smaller camps like Orpen/Tamboti Malelane etc .

Hope that Orpen is good to you Roger
I see dogs are being seen a bit more around that area of late. The issues at Satara were very much maintenance/cleaning related which is a shame as it used to be such a good camp.

[PJL]

Thursday July 15th contd

Heading back down the H1-3 was a bit surreal, but there was a good sense of excitement to our spontaneity.

Just onto the S125 near Kumana dam there was a line-up of cars so we guessed there must be something good to see. It’s really not an ideal road for turning around or trying to weave your way past other vehicles when towing a trailer, but the effort was well worth it with three cheetah hanging out not far from the road









We could see the one cheetah, as well as a hyena lurking around to see if they might hunt. We navigated through some of the cars and found one of the others.



Moving further along we found a nice spot where we had a decent view of them, and luckily they took it in turns to go on a bit of a walkabout.

[PJL]

Thursday July 15th contd

The walkabout continued in our general direction so we had them come quite close by











We didn’t have a huge amount of time to play with what with needing to get to Skukuza, so when they then went and flopped down a bit further from the road we drove up the S125 a bit to find somewhere wide enough to turn. Once back at the cheetahs we couldn’t get past all the cars to the H1-3 but then the cheetahs got up again and started slowly wandering away which was great - it gave us a nice last view of them and helped to then clear the road for our journey

[Lisbeth]

Brilliant photos of the cheetahs

[Richprins]

Maintenance has been a ballsup at Satara for years now....ironically one of AW's camps of the year a couple of years back!

No excuse being deep in the park at all!

Anyway, what a stunning cheetah sighting, Peej!

Must surely be one of your best, despite trailer/time constraints!

[Pumbaa]

WoW PJL,

what incredible cheetah shots

What a more than fantastic sighting

[PJL]

Brilliant photos of the cheetahs

Thanks Lis

Maintenance has been a ballsup at Satara for years now....ironically one of AW's camps of the year a couple of years back!

No excuse being deep in the park at all!

Anyway, what a stunning cheetah sighting, Peej!

Must surely be one of your best, despite trailer/time constraints!

Definitely one of our best cheetah sightings in Kruger RP

WoW PJL,

what incredible cheetah shots

What a more than fantastic sighting

Thanks Pumbaa, we were very fortunate that they got up and moved around a bit... much better than flat cats

[PJL]

Thursday July 15th contd

Once we had extracted ourselves from the cheetah congestion we carried on south. Just before Mazithi Dam there were a number of lions totally flat out





We then came across yet more areas in the process of being burned.



At some points you could feel the heat from inside the car





We pulled in briefly at Tshokwane for a break and to get some hot chips as we hadn’t really done lunch what with packing up. It was then a quiet drive down to Skukuza with just a quick stop on the Mutlumuvi bridge where we could see a bunch of vultures and a hyena… presumably there had been a kill earlier in the day nearby.



We had worried that we might struggle to find a decent campsite at Skukuza, but fortunately we found a good spot and had ourselves set up again in good time.

[harrys]

Flat Lions we also saw lots of burnt areas up north

I like your camp set up