Africa Wild

*** Travel Tales ***
Trip to Kruger NP October 2019 New series of Stories

01 – A Nice Welcome

Hi all,

It’s been a while but starting a new TR based on our last trip to Kruger NP.

After a long travel , but relaxed one with a A380 from BA we were flying to Nelspruit.
Picked up our car and heading to Numbi gate.

Once near the gate we had this “welcome home” feeling, back in the wild.

Abour our trip: Just a few nights in Skukuza , then going up north to Mopani, Punda Maria and back down to Satara.

Our stay in the north was wonderful. About Satara …. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…. We decided not to go back there anymore. Unless they renovate the accommodation. It’s really bad what you get get for your money. Small hut with bad airco, fridge , hot plate etc… and even more expensive then a good house in Mopani. They don’t care at all in Satara so , they don’t see us there anymore.

Remarkable: We have seen lions almost every day , knowing we did not spend much time in the south. Even in the Mopani area plenty of lions including a kill in Nshawu. In total we have seen 124 lions.

Also a nice number of Leopards, seen Cheetah , Sable , Eland, Roan and even seen Rietbok , haven’t seen them in our last trips. Sharpeys Grysbok was also on the sightings menu.

Another decision we made… next trip will be in the “green” time of the year, so we booked for March 2020. October was too dry and driving along roads with burned grass and trees and bush without green leaves was not that big pleasure.


Well let’s start with the stories.
After Numbi we took the Voortrekkers road to Afsaal and from there the S114 towards Skukuza.

Just towards the S114 we saw a lazy animal laying / sleeping on a big rock… not a rock python but a beautiful Leopard.

I must say, a great welcome by the animals of Kruger.


Whem we were slowly getting closer we could see he was sleeping

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A private leopard so taking our time to watch him

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A bit of changing position

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Moving around


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Last shot of this beautiful Leopard before we went to Skukuza for getting some food and a good sleep too.

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We hope you enjoyed this first story and more to come…


Aat & Elly

Wow what a beautiful animal

Wow 124 lions

And this beautiful leopard

Yeah it's sad about Satara going backwards

For me it's even more busy than Skukuza

A great start to your trip!!

The bush may be dry and ugly but that's why you had such great sightings!

Aat!

Sounds like a great trip!

Not a bad start at all.

No tsessebe?

As Flutts says, March is greener but you will also see less...

Great start to the trip . Not good to hear Satara is still going downhill .Guess all the promises about taking action earlier in the year to improve the camp are not being kept up

We also found it very dry when we were there in July already so by October it must be really dry.

Beautiful Leopard

Oh my goodness what a beautiful creature

I cannot see the photos

Incredible start, Aat,

with a Lion on a rock and stunning shots on top

Thanks for the comments !! Alf, Roger, Pumbaa, Tataruka, Flutterby, RP, Harrys and Lisbeth (I hope you could see the photos?)