Africa Wild

Day 2 Part 2
So after booking in we turned around and were off to drive the famous S100. It is one of the most beautiful roads for me, especially the loops around the N’wanetsi river. I love taking this road in the afternoon and this road has been very good to me too.
First we stopped for a baby zebra,



And then a close encounter with a saddle billed stork…





When we got to Gudzani dam we enjoyed a beautiful view of a yellow hornbill right next to the car,



And then it was off to the S41, where we had a strange sighting, a lot of marabous came out of nowhere…



And settled in the riverbed with about 8 juvenile fish eagles and some Tawny eagles… they swooped down into the riverbed between the reed so we didn’t see if there were a kill or anything that caught their interest… we stayed there contemplating for half an hour then decided to move on.
I also spotted a lion spoor-I think in one of the no-entry roads,


And then one of mums kori bustards walked past us…


We drove on quietly, very happy with not seeing any other car on this road and then I had the biggest fright in my life. I just saw this figure next to the road and almost pushed my foot through the car when I braked… Then as I double checked I saw that there were three cheetahs right next to the road and we were the only car there… We were lucky enough to spend almost 30 minutes with them until they decided to move deeper into the bush. Only when they were about 100 meters from us, a car came from the front and as I waved them down, they didn’t even slow down and just zoomed past us. Sorry for all the pics but this was a highlight for the morning…













We turned unto the S90, and the road was a bit slow with some general game and ellies. Then on the H1-4 towards Satara we got a lot of ellies and just as you see Satara there were loads of wildebeest and zebras. We got our key from reception and booked a sunset drive, we then decided to chill in camp until it was time to suite up for our best drive ever.
To be continued…

Great sightings

You can posed as many cheetah pictures as you want, Heksie

What an incredible sighting and you got some magnificent shots of the spotted ones

Nice, Heks!

All's well here, we're on holiday for another week!

Hi Heksie

Looks like the start of another awesome trip for you. Great sightings so far.

Thank you guys for all your comments
RP just a few more days left... Friends of mine are in KNP and I wish I was there too, just so boring staying at home and my internet is sooooo slow that I can't even spend time reading trip reports as it takes me long to load a page

Day 2 Part 3
When we got to reception, there were already a lot of people waiting for then truck to arrive. Lucky for us, we were so many people that booked the drive that after the first truck was full we got to choose if the 10 of us that were left wanted the other big truck or the smaller truck. We asked our driver, Tevin, what he preferred and he said the smaller truck can drive quicker and we would be able to cover more ground so we climbed in the small truck. Mum in front with the guide, she had then best seat as the heater was on and the guide told her a lot of exciting stories whilst we could only hear wind in then back.
Our first stop was about 3km from Satara on th H7 to listen to the rules and check out the sunset…



We got to Nsemani dam an saw an old daggaboy rolling in the mud, we turned unto the little dirt road to check out if there were anything good next to Nsemani and then we got to see a small traffic jam, it was great to know that we were on then sunset drive as everybody had to move to get to camp on time and we could get a great spot to search for whatever the people were seeing. It was a young female leopard playing in the riverbed, there were a lot of bush obscuring the view. But I was able to take a few shoddy pics…





We then moved on and stopped at the rhino carcass, a few more lions joined the party and a big siesta was going on, the lighting was bad so very gagga pics, the lions weren’t happy with each other and there were a lot of growling going around. We enjoyed their antics until when they ripped a part of the rhino from the carcass and the most vicious smell entered my nostril, there were a few gag reflexes going on in the truck and we begged the guide to move on, but he turned around and very mischievously said that we can sit here the whole night and enjoy the lions… When he saw the desperation on our faces he turned around and started the car leaving the big truck to their own device.


We then turned unto the S12 and I was thinking why couldn’t we just do the Sweni road… But the guide knew better. We drove past some ellies and after a few kilometre I saw something dash across the road and immediately uttered ‘HYENA!’ the guide shaking his head just calmly said ‘no, leopard, guys be quiet’ He was waiting for us next to the road and we had an amazing sighting…













He moved off and then we were on our way again, we had a few sighting of civets and a hyena and genet and a rhino, then we parked off next to a chilled out ellie. Our guide just love them and said that he can just sit with them for hours. If I could read them like him, then I would sit next to them as well but I keep my distance so I don’t ever experience them like we did that night. It was truly amazing sitting with such a huge gentle giant and feel at peace…





The bigger truck passed us and when we were almost on the H7 again I got another heart attack as I spotted a lion in the road… First thing said to me was ‘shhhhht’ from the guide, but I have to utter with my loud voice whatever I see… It was two male lions chilling in then road and they weren’t happy being bothered by us…









The clock was ticking and we had to move on to camp so we left the bigger truck with the golden cats…
We got more civets on our way and I was able to take a proper pic of one…



And then about a kilometre from the H1-3 I spotted another leopard sleeping in the grass, we were flabbergasted with the amazing sightings we have seen today…





This male wasn’t happy with the lights and after a few minutes stood up, our guide said that there were a few minutes left and one of the guys on the truck mentioned a mating pair of lions that they saw the afternoon near the H6, we moved south… We didn’t see any mating lions but we did see an AWC



We got to camp just after 20:00 and the truck was bubbling with excitement as we had an amazing drive, we saw the big 5 and then had 3 leopard and 2 lion sightings as well… It was freaking amazeballs.
We got to our bungalow and whilst having a beer and chatting another AWC trotted to us, posed and us not having a camera and just staring at him stunned, lost interest and disappeared into the dark. Satara was so very good to us, we went to bed very happy.

To be continued…

Heksie,

Don't bother about the number of Cheetah pics.... express your heart and feeling by showing the pics of these great and beautiful Cheetah.

Heksie

Excellent civet photo

Amazing sunset drive!