Africa Wild

Hey Guys,

Time for a new TT, although it’s rather late.

I’m going to push it out faster than usual due to work and other commitments.

I got retrenched at the start of Covid, hence I hit a mental wobble and Kruger was put on the backburner while I went into any subcontract type work available with my old boss who also got retrenched, so this was our first Kruger trip in 2 years, therefore we were hanging to go, and Kruger didn’t disappoint.

Government kept changing their tune on when the 2021 school holidays were going to be and a month after we booked, they changed things slightly again, but we decided to just pull the younger kids out of school for a few of the days. Hawkeyes and her boyfriend, Sasquatch, had Varsity commitments so they stayed and looked after the house, Granny and the dogs.

The final trip for the rest of us was as per below with a mix of scally accommodation in the main camps to allow us to financially manage 1 night each in our favourite bush camps.

22nd September Springgrove Cottages, Lothair
23rd Skukuza
24th, 25th and 26th Lower Sabie
27th Talamati
28th, 29th, 30th, 1st Skukuza
2nd Biyamiti
3rd Tugela River Cottage

The rhino population is again a concern as they were missing from many of the usual spots, however I’m going to omit all rhino sightings even though I don’t believe it makes much of a difference.

We found the condition of the accommodation rather sketchy for the price in some camps, but we still prefer staying in the park than putting up with entrance gate chaos each morning.

In summary, the trip was a little different without Hawkeyes, but Kruger is still a special place.

To be continued

22nd Home to Sringgrove Cottages

It was Grannie’s birthday on the 23rd of September, so we only left home after wishing her at around 8am and the plan was to then leave Lothair very early the next day for Kruger.

We normally travel through Swaziland, but due to the Covid test story and the odd political drama within Swaziland, we decided to drive around via the “Ladysmith route” using directions provided by Roger Fraser and cell phone navigation.

I didn’t consider the lack of cell phone reception in a few places and the Cow’s navigation skills, so we took a few wrong turns which resulted in intermittent scraps in the car and a much longer drive, but the stress left as we found Sringgrove, just before 4pm, as it looked like an awesome spot surrounded by plantations.

The 1st shock on arrival was the temperature, it was around 10 degrees which is freezing for Durban locals, and then the 2nd shock, they had forgotten about our arrival, so Cow had to control my pelican while negotiating with the manager. We ended up walking around with chattering teeth while they quickly got our accommodation ready.

The manager mentioned to us while waiting that they have the odd duiker, reedbuck, bushpig, jackal and caracal cruising around, so after unpacking and a brief inspection of the unit at around 5pm, we all went on an exploration walk with the manager’s faulty dog following.

Just before dark we found a suspect hairy turd on a bush path, so I started a jackal/caracal war story, but seconds later something burst out of the grass next to me which resulted in a spontaneous highland fling from me and howls of laughter from the rest of the clan because it was just a scrub hare.

We just made it back to our unit before dark and found a duiker cruising around in front of the veranda, but it ducked at pace after spotting us and later a few more scrub hares also made an appearance.

The plan for supper was to braai a piece of steak and make steak rolls, but they had one of these fancy gas braai things and after turning every knob on the thing and nearly blowing myself up we decided to just fry the thin minute steak on the stove and rather make a fire inside the unit because it was now around 8 degrees outside anyway.

It was early to bed as the plan was to leave in the early hours of the morning for Kruger.

To be continued

23rd Sringgrove Cottages to Skukuza

At 2am it was below zero degrees and we hadn’t prepared for this when packing clothes, so instead of loading the car for our “early Kruger arrival”, I loaded myself with numerous shirts while the Cow scowled from under every blanket in the room.

Even with Kruger on the agenda, we just couldn’t get moving and for the Cow and kids, it was the coldest temperatures they had ever experienced, so the lounge fire was restarted, and numerous coffees planned.

We eventually braved opening the unit door at around 5am to load the car, but the ground was crunchy, and my bare feet went numb and then felt like they were burning. The ground was full of frost, so I roared back into the unit.

I had no shoes in my bag, so the Cow cooked up a plan for me to wear her slippers and then proceeded to shriek with laughter and follow me with a cell phone.


I initially got a shock when approaching the car and shouted, “the windscreen is cracked” and then realised the entire windscreen was covered with solid ice, so the warmish water defrost mission had to happen before we could leave.

The mist for the 1st 100km out of Lothair was an “experience” and we had to drive slowly which made the trip to Malelane and then onto Croc bridge seem much longer, so we were relieved to arrive at our normal “cameras out” spot at Croc Bridge at around 9am.

The drive to Lower Sabie produced all the usual gang and we stopped for the normal “1st zebra”, etc pics, but no predators were around.


We stopped at Lower Sabie for some Mugg & Bean pot pie things and while the Cow queued, I wobbled off to the edge of the restaurant veranda deck and found some faces we hadn’t seen in many years, Flutts and Brat were parking off at a table.

I called the Cow, Bushpig and Albert and we had a brief catchup chat. Flutts also gave us some Lower Sabie leopard information and explained the location of a wild dog den site on the H6 so we banked that for later in the trip.

We had all our meat for the trip in the car and had been up since before 2am, so said our goodbyes to Flutts and Brat, who were unfortunately leaving the next day, and headed for Skukuza which produced more locals and our 1st “bush lion” for the trip.

The Cow managed to con a 20 minute earlier than normal book in when we arrived at Skukuza, so we were quickly unpacked and exploring around camp.

I was soon “edgy” because Flutts had planted a “leopard spot” seed and after a family conference, we decided to head out at around 3:30pm to check the spot out just past the S79 causeway but stopped for some more pics of other animals on the way, including a kudu and buffalo close to the road.


We found Flutts and Brat at the leopard spot, but no leopard, however they pointed out a hyena den just up the road, so we parked off there for some pics of a junior that kept peeking out.



I was starting to get nervous about the time required to make it back to Skukuza, so we turned, said “cheers’ to Flutts and Brat and headed back towards camp.

We stopped again for pics of the boon gang that hangs around north of Nkuhlu and then Bushpig and I spotted a lioness relaxing on a rock.

The lioness started contact calling which got us a little excited as there were no other cars around and we thought some other pride members may pull in, but the gate closing clock was ticking on us, so we decided to move on 5 minutes later, but stopped just around the corner for “kill” in the road.

I wasn’t sure if it was a “kill” or scavenging and sorry, not sure on the bird model, but it was much smaller than a Tawny. The “Tawny cousin” suddenly got a skrik from something we couldn’t see and left the mongoose for a tree, so we sneaked in closer for a pic.


I started to move forward slowly and suddenly the Cow squawked “STOP”, then the hand waving started, but no sound, which is the norm for the Cow, then the words came “LION!”

A large male lion walked out the bush, onto the road and up to the dead mongoose. He parked off checking us out and then went in for a sniff which got Bushpig going

“Is he going to eat it?”

“Probably”

The lion then produced a flehmen response, but to all in the car it looked like he had put his “vomit” face on, so we all cracked up laughing.




The lion didn’t chow the mongoose, much to our surprise and started walking towards us. Since there were still no other cars around, we decided to reverse along with him.

Minutes later another car arrived from behind us and then another, so we stopped reversing and let the lion slowly walk past us.

“He’s going to the lioness on the rock that was calling”, “Yes”

The cars were already backing up with those heading for Kruger gate and Skukuza behind us, so we just continued towards Skukuza.

The 1st braai in Kruger is always cool, but while sitting around the fire I couldn’t help but wonder about my favourite animal, the leopard, because this was the 1st trip in many that we hadn’t found 1 on the day we enter.

To be continued

24th Skukuza to Lower Sabie

I had heard that a leopard had been hanging out around the Skukuza staff village area, so as the gates opened, I watched the gang of cars from the back of the queue as it moved forward and the most turned down towards the H4-1, a few went straight down the H1-1, but none we had seen had turned down the H11 towards the staff village, so I followed my instincts, went against our norm and headed towards Kruger Gate.

About 500m past the entrance to the staff village the Cow, who must have still been waking up because there was no waving of hands first, casually said “There’s a leopard in the road”

I stopped some distance away to check the temperament and mood, but the leopard was relaxed, so I slowly cruised in closer.


The leopard “switched off” to us and started grooming himself, but minutes later I spotted an army vehicle approaching so chirped “Oh no, let’s hope……..”, but didn’t finish as they flew past at top speed 2m from the leopard causing it to move off into the bush quickly.

We could see a further snake of cars approaching, obviously the first of the day visitor gang and I now had the mutters about the inconsiderate “army” crowd that had done the same thing to us before, so we decided to turn and head down the H4-1 while it was still early because I have learnt to be off that road by 10am unless you want to “play” with the crowd.

Our next stop for pics was just before Nkuhlu, another leopard, but this time with a kill. The leopard didn’t hang around long as more cars stopped around us, but we managed a few pics of him.


We stopped again for pics around the Lubyelubye area for mating lions that were stuffing around in the bush and some boons looking very cool perched on a tree branch.