Not sure if this should be under gatherings as it’s a short TT and a meet in one.
I met an ex AW and SPF member, Kamadejo, in Kruger last year and the families became instant mates, so when I heard that they were coming back to SA for another Kruger trip and then down to St Lucia at the end of July for a few days, we made a plan to meet up in the St Lucia area.
I had already used up all my leave for Kruger trips, so the best that I could do was to book accommodation in St Lucia for the Saturday night in the same resort as Kamadejo and managed to get the last unit available, so the meet was on.
The plan was to meet up on Saturday morning at the Nyalazi entrance gate to Imfolozi at around 7:30am, spend a few hours in the park and then head down to St Lucia after lunch for a braai and the Cow’s potato bake.
Imfolozi is about three and half hour’s drive from my spot, so the day started rather early for my clan and the normal drama unfolded trying to load the rats in the car, but we were eventually on the road at around 3:30am.
Our first sighting was 2 rhino on the way to the gate, but the cameras were still packed away, so the Cow snapped a pic with her phone.
We arrived at about 7:15am and Kamadejo at 7:30am exactly.
It was great to meet old mates again and after chatting for a few minutes it became apparent that the rats and Kamadejo (Jnr) would develop their own form of sign language.
After a nice chat and the admission out the way, we were on our way into the park.
Our first sighting, although I completely missed it, was 2 lions cooling off in the bush about 70m from the road. Kamadejo’s SO pulled up next to us and shared the information, so we all reversed back up the hill to get a view.
I was fairly keen to pull out my camera, until I spotted Kamadejo’s bazooka pointing out their car, so there are probably way better pics of the sighting then ours below.
Next up were a few of RP’s Kruger cousins cooling off in the KZN bush.
Just before Mpila camp we found a few buffalo next to the road, but the Cow and Hawkeyes only managed pics of their legs, before they ducked into deep cover.
The plan from Mpila was to head down to Mpafa hide, but this turned out to be mistake, because Imfolozi was having some fund raising thing happening and we spent most of our time ducking cars on the way down.
The hide was still fairly busy, but we managed to find a spot to check out the hide locals. The croc was busy eating something, but it was hard to see exactly what it was.
There was a cold wind roaring through the hide, so we decided to continue on towards the famous wild dog area of 25, but no wild dogs and only a few kudu, giraffe and some green bird that got the Cow excited on the way.
We continued up the 21 towards Bhejane hide, but about halfway we found our first elephant of the day and he was parking off in the middle of the road.
Some of the Imfolozi elephants are crazy, so we both stopped a fair distance from him to judge his mood, which seemed cool, so I slowly sneaked forward, which as per usual got the Cow going, but the ellie didn’t seem interested in us and moved off the road, so I continued on and stopped where he had entered the bush.
He hadn’t gone far and immediately turned on us so I had to move off fairly fast, which I’m sure caused Kamadejo and family some amusement.
The ellie was now between us, but after a closer look decided to move off, which allowed us to continue up to the Bhejane hide.
The usual gang were at the hide, but it was sad to see so little water in the dam.
We relaxed for awhile, but the rats soon became bored and start taking pics of each other, so we joined in.
To be continued
