Africa Wild

Lets get started! Going to Kruger and South Africa for the first time, we decided we would want to stay a week in Kruger. It was already early march when we became aware that we had to book Kruger in advance, woops!

We booked and sadly had to adjust our plans a lot. Some places seemed great but were fully booked, so we had to make lots of adjustments. At the end this was our itinerary:
- 1 night Skukuza
- 2 nights Satara
- 2 nights Balule
- 2 nights Letaba

We would want to enter at the Malelane gate the first day and leave at the phalaborwa gate. We would make our whole trip in a single Toyota Avanza, packed with six Dutchies. A family of five and a friend of one of the teenagers. Leaving Düsseldorf two days before we drove slowly to Malelane gate and enjoyed Africa. Our second time Africa, although the time before it was Morocco, which was totally different.

We had some problems with the car, lost some of our luggage with the aircraft carrier (including our tent, urgh.. ) and had some traffic jams because of roadwork. So after one long day and having cooked for the first time we got up at 7am. We entered Malelane gate only at 10.30am and just had a stretch before entering the park. We looked over the river and saw crocodiles, some nice birds and just enjoyed the sun.
Already here we learned our first lesson: always have your camera ready! We had to get it out and well.. We weren't able to capture our first crocodiles ever.
Of course we saw many more, but the first time seeing them was absolutely the most impressive time.

Photos will come the next episode, for now just a little story:

Entering the Malelane gate we were all extremely excited. What would we see first, what would we see this coming week?
We decided to head straight for Afsaal, at least, with some stops on the way enjoying the scenery and animals. We were discussing what we would see after all. The excitement in the car rose and we said: we are lucky if we see anything. The first kilometers were boring, we were going 45km/h and weren't used to spotting. Then we remembered what friends told us: drive slowly so you can see the most. The slower the better?
So we went at 25 km/h when we could, but due to the hills sometimes we needed to go a little faster.

To be honest, I really didn't know what to do at that moment. Everywhere there was something to be seen. We knew that, I knew that, but well.. Spotting animals here is different in comparison to what I am used to. Having been in a lot of countries around the world, Africa proved to me spotting animals is hard. Not knowing much about the bush was hard, really hard. We talked and talked and talked, while reading everything we could to get to know the bush better. We read about animal behaviour, where they lived and what they eat. (Note: we already did this, but well... It is hard to remember everything )

We got to our first sighting, an impala (no nice photos made) and short after that our first elephant. A lonely bull far off in the riverbed. And soon after that we saw some cars parked off in the distance, so we went over there...
This was our first sighting of something truly magnificent! Something we might just have wished for, but never expected to see....

Yes a TR from a newby on the forum ...wonderful, can't wait for the photos and the rest of the TR

mattie

can't wait to hear more about your first Kruger adventure. Which month was that?

A TT from a new member

Well done mattie010 for taking the leap and sharing your experiences with us

It’s always wonderful to read a TT from a first time visitor

Now, what was that sighting

Always great to read a TT from a newbie!! Can't wait to hear about your fantastic sighting!

all for following! I can't promise the best photos, but hope you'll all like it!

The very beginning of August 2014 it was, except for day 1 which took place in July!

Maybe something really normal for all of you, but we saw...


A spotted hyena with cubs! In total it were 3 cubs, but sadly one stayed in his shelter and only popped his head out once. The photos will show the sighting quite well I guess.





Since we have never seen any big predators. Ok, ok.. In the zoo we saw some of them, but still. This was different. We could hear the cubs and almost smell them, except our windows were closed at that moment. Little did we know that this would truly be an unique sighting, because we would not see any youngsters of any kind anymore. This den was next to the road, so ideal for seeing them. We spent over half an hour with them and after that continued our journey towards Skukuza, where we would sleep first.
Coming closer to afsaal we saw some zebra (our first) and some other creatures roaming around. Sadly no pictures (again) because the sunlight sucked and they were very far off.

At Afsaal we spotted some buffalo, a buck and lots of birds. Some pictures worked out great, some didn't.

(bush?)buck:


Toko's:


Some kind of bird:


Our first buffalo:


Just after afsaal I spotted something in a tree and shouted "STOP". I knew it was an owl. And it was a verreaux eagle owl.


We spotted much more game, such as baboons, a rhino (sadly our only one and a bad sighting)


Rhino - which was really far off and in the bush. We later saw rhino's in hluhluwe and isimangaliso, so no complaints:


And since I thought that 10 pictures was the maximum for a post I will continue somewhere tomorrow. We saw much more on our first day, although no real specials.

Yeah, a beautiful Toko to start with and the other birdie is a southern white-crowned shrike

Great to find a hyena clan with cubs, they are quite cute at that age

Welcome to the madhouse Mattie!

Yes, that is a Bushbuck female.

You were lucky with the Hyaenas (RP will tell you that's the wrong spelling but it's quite correct, so is Hyena), we don't often see them that young!



Nan is the only person who complains about the number of pictures that are posted on a page - she still uses a 15k phone modem to access the internet

Welcome, mattie!

Nice pics...rare to see such young HYENA cubs running so far from the den!

Hi Mattie!

A first time visit to Kruger is special, but the lack of experience often is a handicap. Then of course there is "luck" which helps a lot like that first hyena sighting!!