Africa Wild

Bushcraft wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2012 1:56 pm August 26th Skukuza

Morning Drive: H4-1 to Lower Sabie and Back

Our first major sighting of the morning was an elephant herd crossing the road halfway to Nkuhlu. You will notice how far back we stopped; Chantal was terrified again, the 2007 elephant charge was still fresh in her memory.




Just before Nkuhlu we found this hippo lying just off the road.




The hippo wasn’t moving and looked as if it had been in a major fight. We spent 15 minutes trying to find a movement, or any sign of life, but nothing.




After a walkie talkie conference, we decided to continue on down to Lower Sabie and visit the hippo on our return.

We stopped at Nkuhlu to stretch the legs and the ladies had a rather nervous toilet break




Just past Nkuhlu we found our first lion for the morning, but he was way off in the river bed.




A few minutes later I saw what looked from a distance like an impala in the road and then the white tail flicked in the air, leopard about 150m away. By the time both vehicles arrived where it had entered the bush there was only time to take 2 photos before he disappeared.






The next stop was Lower Sabie for hot chips on the deck, which has turned into a ritual for the kids. We were a little early for the deli staff, but eventually got the chips. The sighting board didn’t show much happening on the other surrounding roads, so we decided to head back on the H4-1 to check out our “dead” hippo.


About 3km outside Lower Sabie Supernova suddenly shouted “leopard”. The walkie talkie gave me such a fright that I slammed on brakes instead of accelerating; the leopard was in the road in front of us. I couldn’t help laughing at the guy in front of the leopard, because I could see the commotion in his car as he saw the leopard in his rear view mirror.




We managed to get a few more pictures of him as he left the road, but then we lost sight of him in the bush.




We moved slowly forward in the direction that the leopard seemed to be moving when suddenly Melly or Punkaloo spotted him and he was stalking something. About 50m to the left of the leopard was a large rock which had 2 klipspringer sitting on top.




The klipspringer new that something was up and moved around nervously




Without warning he charged the rock, but the klipspringer were wise to what was going on and the distance was too large for the leopard to cover, so in a few hops the lucky klipspringer escaped.

The leopard settled on the rock where the klipspringer had been and decided to suntan. (We now call this leopard rock every time we drive past). After 10 minutes he started sniffing all the holes and cracks in the rock, but found nothing and soon became bored.




After another 5 minutes something caught his eye down in the river bed and he started off down the rock.




We had been watching him from the small bridge opposite the rock, but now I thought that if I ducked down the small dirt loop lookout 20m ahead we would have a better view of him, so off I went smiling to myself that we had got the jump on everyone, but when I arrived a massive tree blocked the entire view and others had followed me, so we were parked in. (Supernova and Melly stayed on the bridge and still had a view of him)

Then the comments started next to me “You have stuffed this up, you always have to move, now I have twigs in front of me”, and the response started “Shut up and film”, “I’m filming twigs, you really messed this one up”.

I won’t repeat what was said after that, but we had to apologize to the kids later and I had to cut that peace out when editing the video.

While the above was going on the leopard moved off into the bush

We moved on to the N’watimhiri causeway, but the mood in the car was still rather tense. Halfway down the causeway road there’s a small loop that allows one to look over the Sabie River bed, but there already was a car parked there and Supernova had continued on past, so we also continued.

2 minutes later a car came rushing up behind me and I remember thinking “Now’s not the time”. I was about to slam my brakes and show them the finger, when they pulled up next to me and signaled me to stop, which I did and said “What”.

I must admit that I felt a little embarrassed when I saw that the occupants were an elderly couple, who also seemed shocked at my reaction and I think that my face was bright red by this stage. They said “Why did you drive past the lions”, I had that same reaction “What”, now completely confused, “There’s a mating lion couple lying in the river bed”

I thanked them profusely, got on the walkie talkie to Supernova, did a u-turn and headed back.

We arrived just in time to see the female disappear into the reeds, who was followed a few seconds later by the male that had been lying on a rock.




When we arrived at our “dead” hippo location he was gone? We fiddled around going forward and backwards, etc. Chantal suddenly spoke again for the first time since the leopard rock incident, “It wasn’t here, you are confused again” and then proceeded to look out the passenger window. I wanted to say “A marked point on the Garmin doesn’t lie you @$%^#^%”, but decided that I should rather let sleeping dogs lie.

Suddenly Chantal shouted “Hippo” and there he was, not dead at all and on the other side of the road.




The drive back to Skukuza was quiet, but at least the mood in the car had improved.

Bushcraft wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2012 10:18 am Afternoon Drive: H4-1 to H12 Bridge and Back

It’s difficult to do long afternoon drives with the current late book in and although we got in a little early through sweet talking from Mel, one still needs time to relax before jumping back in the car, so we ended up leaving late again. We had a small conference before leaving and the plan was to get to the H12 Bridge and if we still had time, to push on until the Garmin shouted turn around.

The first part of the H4-1 produced the usual suspects, but we were looking for something in particular, although at the time I’m not sure if any of us knew what it was. We always drive the N’watimhiri causeway and today was no exception. The resident Malachite Kingfisher which we had found a few days earlier was still there.




When we reached the H12 Bridge things were looking tight on my Garmin, but Garth continued and I followed.

About 2km past the H12 Bridge a small pond of water had formed next to the side of the road, a pond that we had never seen on our previous trips, but good rains had fallen this year. Suddenly Garth stopped ahead of us and all we could see were frantic hand signals through the back window of Garth’s car (The walkie talkie batteries had died).

I realized immediately that this must be important and then I saw them




My senses seem to change at these adrenalin charged sightings, everything seems to happen in slow motion and for some reason I lose my hearing (maybe that happens on purpose). One spends so long looking for something and most times you find it where you least expect it.




Every time they tried to drink, something in the water scared them, but we couldn’t see anything. It seemed as if they were scared of their own reflection.




Eventually Meegan caught one drinking on the other side of the pond.




We spent about 5 minutes with them and gradually, one at a time, they moved off into the bush. I now understood why wild dogs are often difficult to find, because the window of opportunity is so small.

The Garmin by now was having a heart attack, so we did a quick u-turn and headed back to Lower Sabie.

I was in front now and had blinkers on because of the time, but about 20 minutes later, we reached the
N’watimhiri causeway and we seemed to have panicked for nothing, because the Garmin now indicated that we would arrive 20 minutes early, so I indicated to Garth behind me - “Left onto the causeway or straight “, he indicated that we should carry on straight, which I found strange, because we always did the causeway, but I carried on straight.

2km later we came over a blind rise and these guys were in the road right in front of us





It took a few seconds for me to realize what was in the road and then it was our turn to produce the frantic hand signals. (After shouting into a dead walkie talkie). We couldn’t believe our luck, 2 wild dog packs in the space of half an hour and these guys seemed to be on a hunting mission.

We slowly followed them down the road for about 15 minutes. They kept sniffing, looking, stopping, etc and I felt it was only a matter of time before they found an impala or something.




2 members of the pack seemed to forget about the hunting mission and decided to hunt each other, fortunately the kids missed this one (I don’t think that the big bully excuse would have worked here)




The kids caught the next one though and the comments all started at once “It’s weeing on the road, gross, sis, etc” and then to top it off one decided to poo in the road right next to the car, which caused the uproar in the back seat to grow even more.




We were so caught up in the sighting and had forgotten about the time, the Garmin now said that we would arrive 1 minute before gate closing, so once again the mind started juggling, one last photo, they are bound to make a kill, we will apologize nicely, but fortunately sanity prevailed again and we took 1 last photo and left them behind

Katja wrote: ↑Sun May 27, 2012 1:33 pm 05.08.2011

We woke up to a beautiful morning, the usual hippo serenade was going on and I heart a lion roaring in a distance.



It was our last full day in the park and after packing all the staff in the car we were on our way to the final destination ... Biyamiti. As Hayden told us about the leopard kill, we were keen on finding the spot and hoped that the leopard would still be around.

On the way a Grey Heron warmed up in the first sun’s rays.



and some Brown-headed Parrots were having a morning chat in a nearby tree.



Again we saw plenty of usual game, especially Bushbocks seemed to be quite common in this area. We enjoyed every single minute, as we all knew that we had to leave this magical place soon and somehow everything was even more intense that day. Around a corner a breeding ellie herd was on both sides of the road and we admired their rituals. A little one was always close to its mum and played peek-a-boo with us, it was so cute. Meanwhile mummy had a quick snack.





After a while the hide and seek game got boring and the little one had a good scratch.



Other cars had arrived at the scene and kept a good distance to the ellies, except one car. As we looked back, a young ellie was crossing the road just in front of their car and showed his aversion. The woman in the car didn’t look too happy that her SO didn’t reverse. -O Gladly the ellie moved on!
I love the gentle giants a lot and to take pics of their warm eyes.





We could have watched them much longer, but they moved into the thicker bushes and so we continued as well.

After some kilometers we noticed four cars and approached slowly. First we didn’t know what they were looking at, but soon spotted this.





There were no predators in sight and we wondered who had made this kill.