Imfolozi - Browns January 2014 *

[Bushcraft]

Hey Guys

This is just a quickie from the weekend, but first some irrelevant history.

The doc told me around 3 months ago that I need to slow down as my blood pressure was off the charts, so he put me on some tabs, but the main side effect of the tabs was gout, so over Christmas the tabs mixed with the usual Christmas over indulging resulted in gout, which caused me to swallow plenty anti inflammatory tabs, which resulted last week Friday in stomach ulcers and the doc said “no drinking or smoking until the ulcers are gone”, which caused a major pelican.

Therefore on Friday afternoon I put the Cow under massive pressure to find a spot to visit as I needed a “time out”

She managed to con Imfolozi for Saturday night in a tent a Mpila, so after some frantic shopping and a visit to the bottle store we were ready to leave.

We arrived at Nyalazi gate at around 8am on Saturday morning and the rats went looking for “Kos”, the tame wartie, but he was missing.

First up were a few swallows just inside the park and then some boons having a scrap. The older one seemed to be hanging his teeth out which got the rats howling with laughter.

[Bushcraft]

We could only book in at 1pm, so decided to head up towards Bhejane hide and relax until around 11am and then head back to Mpila camp to try and con for an early book in.

Next up were a few buffalo where the chap in the middle seemed happy to see us and then some warties hiding out in the long grass.





All the usual gang made an appearance on the way to the hide, but as we slowed on the low water bridge just before Bhejane Bushpig and I both shouted “Wild Dogs”

[Bushcraft]

Thanks PRWIN

The dogs were all snoozing in the shade, so we spent a few minutes with them and then decided to continue on to the hide



The hide entrance has been redone as per the promise from camp management, but the pump is still broken, so it’s a waste of time still as there’s no water. I will mail management again and post their response.



Because the hide was a stuff up we decided to duck back towards Mpila.

As we arrived at the low water bridge again a surprise was waiting in the grass for us.

[Bushcraft]

Cool Sprocky Doesn't it burn twice though

Another dog was waiting for us on the bridge. Please forgive the front bull bar in the pic.



I’m sure that this was the alpha male as the alpha female has a collar and she seemed interested in his behaviour.

[Bushcraft]

The Cow then got distracted at the wild dog sighting and started taking pics of a kingfisher who was also hanging out at the low water bridge.



After a few chirps from me concentration was back on the dog in the road.



Soon the dog ducked back to his mates in the shade and we continued on towards Mpila camp, but via 25 which is another route to camp.

Just before 25 we found a snake eagle in a dead tree.

[Bushcraft]

About 1km down from 25 towards Mpafa hide we found another herd of buffalo so were slowly cruising along when I suddenly got a feeling that something was watching us and looked out the Cow’s window “LION!”

The Cow jumped in fright and shrieked “Where!!”, which got me going again “It’s right next to you!”



There were 4 lionesses relaxing in the shade about half a meter from the road, but in thick bush.

[Bushcraft]

We slowly approached as I didn’t want to scare them, but wanted to see if we could get a clear view, however the bush was just too thick.

Check the pic out below, is that a tick in the lionesses’ eye.



We spent around 20 minutes with the lion before the next car arrived and the lions went back to sleep mode, so we moved off to give the new arrivals a view.



Just before camp we found our first giraffe

[Bushcraft]

We arrived at Mpila just after 12pm and the Cow went off to con reception for an early book in while I took the rats to the “shop” to buy some cool drinks.

Much to my surprise the Cow pulled it off and we were on our way to our tent for the night.

I wouldn’t call the tents at Mpila “tents” as they are fairly well organized. We were given tent 22, which initially gave me a spoonbill as I wanted 24, because it’s the most secluded 4 sleeper, but 22 worked out ok.



Bushpig had been tormenting Albert that our tent would have a long drop toilet, which she is terrified of because BP told her in Kruger that things live in the long drop and that they would bite her bum, so Albert was stoked to see a normal toilet.

[Bushcraft]

The staff soon arrived to make up an additional bed for Albert (which is something that has only happened once in Kruger, even though one pays for it).

The Cow checked out the kitchen, which is on the walkway between the 2 tents, the rats settled into their tent and I got started with lunch, but was forced to wear shoes much to my horror as the braai was under a thorn tree

[Bushcraft]

The plan was to only leave for our evening drive after 4:30pm as it had been a long day, but the clouds started to pull in and it looked as if it was going to rain later, so we packed up and ducked on our evening drive just after 4pm.

We found more of the usual locals on the way to view point 17, but nothing to get excited about. At 17 I suggested that we did a few km of the Sontuli loop from this end as it’s no longer a one-way and the best part of the loop in our opinion is the last 5km.

It felt strange driving on Sontuli from this side, but around 2km into the loop we spotted plenty vultures and shortly thereafter the Cow shouted “lion”

1 male was cooling off and his 2 brothers were already walking off in the distance.



The last remaining male seemed to be chewing on something in the grass, but soon lost interest and ducked off after his brothers, so we turned and ducked back towards view point 17.



At the view point I spotted another lion cooling off in the riverbed, but he was a long way off and hiding behind reeds, so we continued on towards Bhejane hide.