Re: My 2014 Kruger Highlights
Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 6:00 pm
Episode 5 Once in a lifetime sighting (not for the faint-hearted)
Now you guys know how snake crazy I am, if I see one then I am a happy camper, that is another reason why I love going to Kruger in December, as they flourish in the summer. But I wasn’t as lucky this time around, saw a few that has been run over. Got an olive snake at Sabie Park but my camera was charging so I couldn’t take a pic and then one tale as one was fleeing from me. So I was aching for a proper sighting.
It was difficult to get my family to do a day drive with me, and as I had the only car I couldn’t do one either because they would want to do either a morning or afternoon drive. So I proposed a ‘quick’ 6 hour drive doing the Kruger Triangle (H4-1 -> H10 -> H1-2) promising that I won’t stop for every bird/antelope/ellie etc.
So they agreed (how wrong were they to believe me) and we started very early the morning. Yes, I wait in front of Kruger Gate at 4:45 as I want to be the first one in the Park, papers ready and all. Within 5 minutes after gate opening time we are on our way, and even before we get to the H4-1 I tell them that I have a feeling, we should maybe do the S21? Sis jokes that I am constipated and that is what I’m feeling but they go along with my stomach so we do the s114 then s21. We don’t see much, a few ellies, beautiful antelope which will have to wait for a next episode but nothing worth the ‘feeling’ that I had…
The s21 is finished and they started laughing at me, we turn towards Lower Sabie. When we are about 3km from the s21, I stop for baby vervets next to the road, we just loving taking pics of them. The cars drive by no one even slowing down, whilst we enjoy the sighting. And then out of nowhere I just hear a little stampede as about 20 impalas run over the road behind us and they start snorting and barking, then the vervets climbs higher into the bush next to us and look in the opposite side of the road to where we were parking, and they started giving a warning call. Now I know something just happened and started reversing checking outside the window for any predator lurking in the bushes.
But what we find is not something we want to see, through the little bushes about 50m from the road a baby impala is laying on the ground not moving and some impalas are looking at it. The first thing that jumps into my mind is that a car had hit it and with a bit of adrenaline it ran into the bushes before it fell down. My mum says ‘no’ so I grab the binos to get a closer look and you won’t believe what I saw…
My hearts skips a beat and I just say out loud it’s a snake. Mum immediately looks away and pray to God that the baby can get away (She told me at the beginning of our trip that I will be disappointed as we won’t see any kills, she absolutely despise death) but unfortunately for my mum it doesn’t happen. Now I’m just clicking away but I can clearly see that my mum is very upset and I feel for her, so about after 5 minutes I tell her that we can go but she says that it is a once in a lifetime sighting for me so we can stay, so she changes seats with my sister and go lie in the back of the car with her fingers in her ear as she wants nothing to do with this.
So we stay, but it is a difficult sighting as the impala are moving around this scene the whole time and barking at the python. He moves a bit with his kill, so we try to get a good spot…
Then after about 15 minutes the first car arrive, it is very difficult to tell them where this sighting is as we have a small car close to the ground and can see underneath the bushes but most people drive mos bakkies. But they see eventually. You will see with this next kiekie how dense it was, the python with impala is at the bottom right hand side.
A few more cars come and we just say it’s a python that made a kill so most of the cars just drive on. After about 30 minutes the python slithers off the limp body, and then start checking it out.
A few more minutes pass then the python grabs the impala by his mouth and start dragging him further into the bushes. I believe he did this as I read that when they digest they are immobile for hours and then fall prey to other predators. We couldn’t believe how much strength the python had to be able to do this…
We stayed until we could only see the hooves of the impala, then decided to move on. This all happened in 45 minutes. This was one of my best sightings ever, one that will not soon be forgotten and most likely not ever be repeated.
Here is also 2 videos, sorry for the shaking. But it just happened and I wanted to share how the animals behaved. I’m not a videographer. Also sorry for the talking the family didn’t see that I was filming, so you can actually hear that my family wasn’t happy with this sighting.
http://youtu.be/86EtlQwij6Y
http://youtu.be/7FgDnGYAPkM
To be continued…
Now you guys know how snake crazy I am, if I see one then I am a happy camper, that is another reason why I love going to Kruger in December, as they flourish in the summer. But I wasn’t as lucky this time around, saw a few that has been run over. Got an olive snake at Sabie Park but my camera was charging so I couldn’t take a pic and then one tale as one was fleeing from me. So I was aching for a proper sighting.
It was difficult to get my family to do a day drive with me, and as I had the only car I couldn’t do one either because they would want to do either a morning or afternoon drive. So I proposed a ‘quick’ 6 hour drive doing the Kruger Triangle (H4-1 -> H10 -> H1-2) promising that I won’t stop for every bird/antelope/ellie etc.
So they agreed (how wrong were they to believe me) and we started very early the morning. Yes, I wait in front of Kruger Gate at 4:45 as I want to be the first one in the Park, papers ready and all. Within 5 minutes after gate opening time we are on our way, and even before we get to the H4-1 I tell them that I have a feeling, we should maybe do the S21? Sis jokes that I am constipated and that is what I’m feeling but they go along with my stomach so we do the s114 then s21. We don’t see much, a few ellies, beautiful antelope which will have to wait for a next episode but nothing worth the ‘feeling’ that I had…
The s21 is finished and they started laughing at me, we turn towards Lower Sabie. When we are about 3km from the s21, I stop for baby vervets next to the road, we just loving taking pics of them. The cars drive by no one even slowing down, whilst we enjoy the sighting. And then out of nowhere I just hear a little stampede as about 20 impalas run over the road behind us and they start snorting and barking, then the vervets climbs higher into the bush next to us and look in the opposite side of the road to where we were parking, and they started giving a warning call. Now I know something just happened and started reversing checking outside the window for any predator lurking in the bushes.
But what we find is not something we want to see, through the little bushes about 50m from the road a baby impala is laying on the ground not moving and some impalas are looking at it. The first thing that jumps into my mind is that a car had hit it and with a bit of adrenaline it ran into the bushes before it fell down. My mum says ‘no’ so I grab the binos to get a closer look and you won’t believe what I saw…
My hearts skips a beat and I just say out loud it’s a snake. Mum immediately looks away and pray to God that the baby can get away (She told me at the beginning of our trip that I will be disappointed as we won’t see any kills, she absolutely despise death) but unfortunately for my mum it doesn’t happen. Now I’m just clicking away but I can clearly see that my mum is very upset and I feel for her, so about after 5 minutes I tell her that we can go but she says that it is a once in a lifetime sighting for me so we can stay, so she changes seats with my sister and go lie in the back of the car with her fingers in her ear as she wants nothing to do with this.
So we stay, but it is a difficult sighting as the impala are moving around this scene the whole time and barking at the python. He moves a bit with his kill, so we try to get a good spot…
Then after about 15 minutes the first car arrive, it is very difficult to tell them where this sighting is as we have a small car close to the ground and can see underneath the bushes but most people drive mos bakkies. But they see eventually. You will see with this next kiekie how dense it was, the python with impala is at the bottom right hand side.
A few more cars come and we just say it’s a python that made a kill so most of the cars just drive on. After about 30 minutes the python slithers off the limp body, and then start checking it out.
A few more minutes pass then the python grabs the impala by his mouth and start dragging him further into the bushes. I believe he did this as I read that when they digest they are immobile for hours and then fall prey to other predators. We couldn’t believe how much strength the python had to be able to do this…
We stayed until we could only see the hooves of the impala, then decided to move on. This all happened in 45 minutes. This was one of my best sightings ever, one that will not soon be forgotten and most likely not ever be repeated.
Here is also 2 videos, sorry for the shaking. But it just happened and I wanted to share how the animals behaved. I’m not a videographer. Also sorry for the talking the family didn’t see that I was filming, so you can actually hear that my family wasn’t happy with this sighting.
http://youtu.be/86EtlQwij6Y
http://youtu.be/7FgDnGYAPkM
To be continued…
but very 
, but that is the cycle of life. 
Thanks for sharing your amazing pics and videos!! 
RP
After that my sis never believed anything coming from my mouth when time was in the same sentence as Kruger park drive