It is 5:30 and we are packed and ready to make our way to Skukuza.   The first creature we see is a waterbuck. And then there he is a male lion in the middle of the road.  I could not ask for better than that he walks to off-road toward a tree and I manage to video him.

Soon after this we find a heap of lionesses asleep on the side of the road.

We think that our lion luck is fulfilled for the day – but no – there in the long grass walking at a rapid pace we see a lion and then another and another.

We are on the H3 and we turn around to follow the lions path through the yellow grass.  We anticipate that they will come out on the S126 and turn down to wait.  We watch them approach.  Other cars have followed and are facing toward the lions.  Earlybird turns around and we have the advantage as we see seven move rapidly to where S126 meets H3.   When they turn left down the road we turn right and leave them to their mission.  Wow!

The warthogs we see next barely get a glance and it takes a yellow-billed hornbill feeding his wife in a hole nest in a baobab tree to get us interested in other things again.

It is overcast and drizzly which is keeping the temperature at a tolerable level – but does nothing for the light needed for good photographs.

It is a bird-productive day and we find green pigeon,

brown-hooded kingfishers and crested barbets

Crested Barbet

On the H1-3 there is an immature bateleur and some marabou storks.

I haven’t seen a rhino yet so am pleased to find one although it is far from the road.

Just soon after this we see a slight traffic jam and ask the people in one of the cars what they’re looking at.  They point out a leopard in a tree about 200m from the road.  Wow – its a stunning sighting.

At first we can’t see her face but then she looks straight at us and we get some great photographs.  I think its a female because she is quite small.  We wonder why some cars are parked so far from the sighting and think they may bet getting an uninterrupted view.  We move slowly forward and a jeep jockey signals us to chat.   Its dirk.v.neethling, a forum member and he’s noticed our yellow ribbon.  He tells us that he’s also been watching a leopard but she’s come down the tree.  He’s heard she has a cub.  “We must be watching the cub,” we conclude.  We look for mom but she’s gone.  Obviously she’s instructed the cub to stay put in his tree – because although he moves he does not come down – obedient child!

It is quarter to ten when we get to Tshokwane Picnic site.  We order breakfast and coffee.   It’s disappointing that the coffee bar in the middle is closed and one has to go to the shop to order ones cuppacino, latte etc But the coffee is still the best in the park.

We cannot pass this area without a quick detour to Orpen Dam lookout.   But all we find of interest is a fish eagle in a distant tree.  On the road out we see a little steenbok – I love steenbok and no matter how many photographs I have I still want one more.

Our lion luck for the day is still not over – we find a single male guarding his kill but no sign of the rest of the pride.

We always get a thrill out of the little things and mongooses are so cute.

Soon after, we find a field full of baboons with babies.  They are so amusing to watch and what doting parents they are.

We look at the giraffe and the zebra, the impala and the common birds and suddenly more excitement – a huge bird flies up in front of us.  We’ve disturbed a white-headed vulture from a very smelly carcass. He flies up into a tree and then another flies over his head and into another tree.

Meanwhile next to the carcass a group of guineafowl are making a fuss – one would think they’d stay clear of such a big bird but they seem to  know they’re safe from the talons of a scavenger.

We arrive at Skukuza at 1:00 wait in a short queue and check in then goes smoothly.   We are assigned  into Cottage 222 with a lovely river view.  The maids are still there and I ask if we are a bit early for them – No problem, came the reply we’re finished and they leave. But I am not satisfied with the cleanliness – the floors had not been swept or mopped so I phone reception who report to housekeeping and within five minutes a supervisor arrives to ask what the problem is.  He then sends somebody back with mop and broom and the cottage is thoroughly cleaned.   .

I have booked 3 days @ Skukuza specially so we can have time at Lake Panic – but I have heard from the forums that it has been closed for maintenance work. I phone reception and ask, “Is Lake Panic open or closed?”   “She seems not to understand so I say it again slowly – Lake Panic – it was closed for repairs – Is it open yet?:  She hesitates then says – it is open.   “Are you sure?”  I can’t believe my luck.  Silence – I repeat – are you sure and the phone clicks – we’ve been cut off.   I am a positive person and like to look on the bright side so I confidently tell everyone that Lake Panic is open – let’s go.

En route we see three tortoises – two males and a female I presume – the two males are fighting the one trying to turn the other onto his back and it is obvious over who gets the female.   She storms off in a huff and leaves them to it.  What the result is I do not know as we pushed on to Lake Panic.

We’re delayed when we see a juvenile bateleur in a tree and a little later in another tree the two adults.

Finally – Lake Panic – and what a bitter blow – hazard tape blocks our way and a sign screams out – closed for maintenance – we apologise for the inconvenience.

So instead we follow the road to Kruger Gate and do not have a very fruitful drive – but after this morning we can’t relain!

We decide to eat out tonight as we’ve run out of braai food and the cooking facilities are not the greatest in the cottage.  But first our friends Jim and Maureen and another couple who are caravanning with them come over for drinks.   We have a lovely time catching up and tell each other about sightings.  Maureen and Jim have been in the park for two weeks and haven’t seen cheetah – they can’t believe our luck – two leopard and two cheetah sightings – indeed we are fortunate.

Dinner is at Silati Train Station.  We’ve always wanted to give it a try but never got round to it.  We are not disappointed.  Earlybird and I have the game hotpot which is served in a little pot with a bed of rice on a separate plate.   It is delicious.  H2’s fillet is good and so it Eec’s rump.  We love the ambience.  It feelss like we are sitting on a real old-fashioned railway station and we dream about days gone by and what it must have been like travelling through Kruger on a train.

By 5:30 we are ready to leave after a quick cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal.   Our first creatures –  wildebeest which we have seen so few of this year.  There are very few of them in the northern part of the park but now they are becoming more plentiful as we go south. Then a big 5 animal – the buffalo – heaps of them here too.  The beautiful waterbuck are about too.

We take the legendary S100 and hope it lives up to its reputation – though many say they’ve never had luck on this famous/infamous road.  It is dry and silent and we begin to have serious doubts then at 6:20 we see a small traffic jam – only two or three cars.   We pull up next to one and the friendly occupant points out the position of a pile of 6 sleeping lioness.  They are so well camouflaged in the dry yellow straw-grass but we get lovely views and they obligingly lift their heads and stare at us.   As more cars arrive we move on satisfied that we have had our chance to see these lovely felines.

The quiet dryness continues but there are waterbuck a-plenty, wildebeest and impala.  Where there are grazers there is a good chance of predators I reason.

Suddenly Eec  says – vultures – and below the road in a ravine we see a scores of them on a kill and then just one jackal.  The vultures are hooded and white-backed and we snap their portraits as we watch the feeding frenzy.

For some reason I look back and a man silently indicates that I look left and there comes a big male lion towards the kill.

I alert the others and at once all the vultures fly up and the jackal makes rapid tracks.   The king does not remain long at the carcass and makes his way back up the slope .   He squats and defecates and the vultures descend upon his leavings making us gasp in horror at their desire for such a delicacy – obviously full of suitable nutrients for a scavenger.  Another lion is waiting for his friend in the bush on the other side of the road and we watch them march off together.

Nothing can be more exciting that this.

We then go to Gudzani water hole and find a hippo out of the water and two fish eagles in dead trees opposite each other.

Vereaux’s Eagle-owls, we usually see in the big leafy trees and its the foliage that presents a photographic challenge. But today we find one on the branch of a dead tree but as it is a dull day it is light that makes it tricky to get a good photograph of a wonderfully obliging subject.

Lions twice in one day have us in a good mood and well-satisfied with all the excitement so when we find another small traffic jam we are over the moon with joy to see two cheetah on a kill.

They are close but the mess of cars and twigs and grass do make photography difficult.  We do our best then manage to manoeuvre out and on to give others a chance to see.  We find this trip, that the traffic jams are mild and the manners much improved compared to past trips.   At this sighting, nobody emerges from their cars.

Earlybird says he can’t hold his breath any longer – “I hope we have some peace for a while now!” But then we spot a Martial Eagle.  Everybody wants the perfect shot.  Earlybird patiently moves the car to everyone’s instructions – just a little bit back –– Now I can’t see – Okay that’s perfect – stop – what part of stop don’t you understand?  Eventually everybody is satisfied and the cameras click away happily.  “May I take a shot now?” asks the only and very patient man in the car.

We just begin to breath again when we sight another raptor in a tree.  This time its an African Hawk Eagle. And what’s with the Vereaux’s Eagle-Owls?  We find another one on a dead tree.

We also stop from time to time to admire the zebra and giraffe and other friendly creatures who never disappoint.

We stop at Nwanetsi Picnic site for coffee and buns and then go to the lookout.  There is nothing too exciting but as we come out we find a mocking chat perched on the thatch.

As we travel on we stop periodically when flocks of little birds swoop down to strip the grass of their seed.   Among them are blue waxbills, firefinch, sometimes golden-breasted buntings and green-winged pytilia.

We find another martial eagle. It is in a tree but takes off and circles round and round giving us lovely views of itself on the wing.

Just before we arrive at Satara I get a call from my vice principal DJ.  Yesterday she asked me for a recorded message to play to my Grade 1s for next year.  Now she is asking if I could video a message and send it to her.  I am chatting and getting details while my companions are getting excited over a yellow-throated longclaw and I am missing the photographic opportunity – but never mind Earlybird and I are one flesh and he gets some beautiful shots and this makes me equally as happy if I got them myself.

For the video request I got Earlybird to record me in front of the waterhole and as luck would have it  there is an obliging elephant who agrees to stay put in the background.   The idea is that the children see me in my environment and understand why I can’t be with them at their welcome party next week.

But – the file is big and I can only reduce it to 15MB.  DJ assures me that if I send via Gmail it will be fine.  I try and after an hour is times out!  I decide to try again and insist the others go for an afternoon drive without me.

The others return and they have seen a rhino – the only one of the big 5 we have not seen this trip.  I am not too disappointed to have missed anything, as I am sure another rhino will soon make an appearance.

(At this time I was sure my video clip had failed to go through – I’d prayed hard and I found out on my home from Kruger that it had indeed gone through so all the effort had been worth while.)

Earlybird notices that the neighbours have an NCW registration and goes to chat to them.  It turns out that they know  our daughter very well. The wife is a teacher and taught with Lauren.  They also know all the other Kokstad relatives.   They invite Earl to come and fish in their dam next time we spend time in Kokstad.

THURSDAY 27 OCTOBER 2011 OLIFANTS TO SATARA
Check in at the camps these days is at 2:00 p.m. so we decided to sleep in a bit later, cook breakfast at Olifants and then slowly make our way to Satara.
We bade farewell to the elephants crossing the Olifants River then set off at 8:35.

This beautiful water buck was just outside the gate.

We then followed the H1-4 and picked up more waterbuck – we found many all over the park – giraffe, kudu and impala before reaching the Ngotso Waterhole. Here we found three elephants and a few zebra having a drink together. But every time the zebra put their heads down to drink they jumped up and started nipping and playing roughly with each other. This happened a few times and we then noticed that it was the elephants were teasing them – it was subtle at first – we noticed a slight disturbance in the water then all of a sudden one elephant got closer and squirted the zebra with water from his trunk! It was hilarious. “It might be funny for you,” the zebra seemed to say, “But its not funny for us!” They withdrew from the waterhole and waited till the Ellies were in a better mood. Waiting nearby were three or four warthogs who did not venture near – there is definitely a pecking order in the animal kingdom
Next we came across yet another group of Ground Hornbills. They were walking along the road as usual at quite a pace but we managed to snap their portraits and noted down the co-ordinates for the research monitors.

At Nyamarki waterhole a lone elephant was quenching his thirst together with some grey-headed sparrows who showed no concern about their huge drinking partner. A lesser striped swallow perched in a tree nearby and we saw a large herd of buffalo on the horizon as we drove further along.
At 10 we turned onto the S124 ticked off Swainson’s Francolin

and Red-crested korhaan then turned onto the S39 and arrived at Ratelpan hide at 11:00. The road took us alongside the river and we stopped to see Great White Egret and many crocodiles and hippo. We looked for the injured one we saw yesterday but he was nowhere to be seen. We found out later from a lady who entered Ratlepan hide with a bang of the door and a very loud voice that he’d gone nearer the river and had last been see lying down in the reeds.
At Ratelpan we saw the same Goliath in the same place as yesterday.

He caught something and then moved his position at last. Near him was a Great White Egret and a spoonbill. In the shallows a single green-backed heron was strutting up and down looking for morsels to eat and then another two flew closely past him but did not stay to chat.

We then followed the S40 to Timbovati Picnic site for a coffee break and to answer nature’s call. I took a photograph of my companions and then a kind young man from Holland who was sitting at the neighbouring table offered to take one with me in it too. Can you spot the elephants in the background?

Back on the S40 we found little steenbok from time to time, zebra and giraffe and then at 12:30 another group of ground hornbills – 2 females and a male. While we were taking photographs an big bull elephant appeared on the scene and got in on the act.

The hornbills totally ignored him. He came straight toward the car and I just kept snapping the camera – he kindly turned to avoid us and instead attacked a nearby tree. He pushed it and shook it and I thought we might watch him push it town but all he wanted was to loosen the bark so he could eat it and then he left the tree in peace.

At quarter to one we turned onto the H7 and went in the opposite direction to Satara as it was still a bit early to check in. From the bridge over Nsemari we observed hippos grunting and snorting, spraying up water and interacting with one another. Are these two fighting or kissing – the latter I thought.

There was a legawaan on the rocks, Egyptian geese paddled and in a dead tree nearby a grey heron surveyed the scene while swallows whizzed past his head.

Moving on we found a coucal in a tree – a very leafy tree but we still managed to digitally capture his image.

Large areas of land was still recovering from fire yet we found zebra grazing on the new grass beginning to shoot.

We decided not to take the long way round via the S36 as the road was very corrugated and Earlybird was tired and did not feel like suffering the pain of a rough ride!

We arrived at Satara just after 2 o’clock. Check in was smooth and we were assigned Cottage D86. We unpacked and settled in. Earlybird took a nap, Eec settled down with a book and H2 and I started downloading our photographs.

At four o’clock we went for an quick afternoon drive on the famous/notorious S100 in the hope of seeing the much reported lions, leopards and rhino – no luck for us — but we did see a pair of saddle-billed storks, a single wildebeest, several waterbuck, some kudu, a terrapin out of water, two or three steenbok, a troop of mischieveous baboons, a tawny eagle and a juvenile bateleur.


But what was the final and most unexpected sighting of the day. As we drove round to our cottage we passed the caravan park. Eec said – hey there’s a cat – what’s a cat doing in the camp? H2 said “I know lots of people who take their cats caravanning.” “But this is Kruger – I said, Pets aren’t allowed – it must be an African Wild Cat. So Earlybird reversed and there he was sitting just like your pet at home in front of the ablution block. It was getting dark and our cameras wouldn’t focus so I hopped out of the car. He spooked and ran so I ran around the other way and managed to find him but the light was really poor and I was shaking so the pic is just not good enough to post here. Wasn’t that a turn up for the books! An African Wild Cat right there in Satara Camp!
It was great to sit outdoors and enjoy the sounds of the night while we enjoyed an alfresco supper.

Today we made it out of the gate by quarter to six.  It was considerably cooler than yesterday with the temperature starting at 22 degrees C.  It was overcast and there was a breeze blowing.  We turned the aircon temperature up to 21 and I even put on a jersey!

This trip our first creatures of the day have not been the expected impala but today they are the first to greet us.   Buffalo seemed to have increased greatly in number because we have seen heaps every day and today they’re second on the list.   Then we found the cubs from the pride we saw yesterday.  They were hidden in the yellow straw-grass and were looking anxiously into the bush.  Mom must have communicated a strict instruction for them to stay put because they lay low and we were lucky to see them at all.

We turned onto the H1-5 and found some beautiful white-fronted bee-eaters on the other side of the bridge.

We then turned onto the S39, which we found to be very corrugated.   I hope that there is not going to be a general deterioration of roads in Kruger. We have found that it’s usually staff and service vans that do the speeding and only now and then a deviant tourist.

Homo Sapiens dressed in Sanparks uniforms, on foot and carrying rifles appeared and we stopped to chat.   They told us they were checking conditions like water availability and how much game was in the area.   We also wondered if they were on the look out for poachers but they did not admit to this.

We continued and found a juvenile martial eagle perched in a tree.

There was nothing much happening and we were our attention was waning when Eec yelled out – Fish Eagle –  and there we saw a lovely a pair in the fork of a tree.

Quite a few times today we saw my favourite little antelope – the steenbok and no matter how often I see him I have to take a photograph.  Sometimes he is shy and runs off but usually he is very obliging.

Just before we reached Ratelpan Hide we found a hippo standing perfectly still and leaning against a tree.  He was clearly not well, was full of scratches and deep wound in his neck which we guessed was caused from a fight with another of his species.   I don’t think this creature will be long for this world.  He will probably be taken by a predator quite soon.  We took photos but I don’t want to post something so upsetting.

From the hide we could see a troop of elephants drinking down the river

and later we saw them all trooping past behind the hide.  We were alerted to this by a toot from a car hooter as one of a group of people already in the hide was still in the car and hooted to alert their attention to the elephants.

We also saw a goliath heron, a greenshank, threebanded plover and Egyptian geese but little else.

At lunch time we stopped at Satara and as H2 and I went to find a table we spotted our friend Jim and Maureen who we knew were caravanning at Satara but we had not planned to meet till we were all in Skukuza in a few days time.  So we joined them for lunch and had a lovely time catching up on each others experiences.

Puppy and Eec

H2 and Maureen

After lunch we decided to take the tar road back to Olifants and not to stop for anything but the most exciting creatures as we’d been out since early morning and it was a long way to go.

The first thing to capture our attention and interfere with our averages was a Burchell’s coucal.  Then some noisy and amorous magpie shrikes making love in the trees.

A small group of reed buck on one side of the road hid behind trees while on the other a family of ground hornbills needed to be recorded for reporting to the research monitors.

Then while we were enjoying a small flock of chestnut backed sparrow-finches Scipio pulled up beside us to say hullo.  Nice meeting you Scipio.

When we saw a group of cars stopped on a road parallel to the tar we decided to make a quicke detour to see what they were looking at.   It was a juvenile martial at the top of the tree.  Hiding in and under another one opposite were some noisy and nervous guineafowl and a few yellow-billed hornbills. When the eagle flew up the hornbill broke into a strange whistle of an alarm call and the guineafowl gathered closer together shrieking nervously.   A carload of ladies asked us to help with I.D and then told us that there was also a jackal frightening the birds.   We caught up with said jackal and watched him try without success to catch a bird before trotting off into the veld.

At the beginning of the dirt road we’d seen some European bee-eaters and stopped at the tree when we retraced our steps – one or two bee-eaters were about but the rest of the group had gone.  While trying to find said birds I said – I think there’s an owl in this tree – and there was – a Vereaux’s but very well hidden. My companions couldn’t believe I’d spotted yet another of these well camouflaged birds.

Next we found a tree-full of vultures.   One was a lappet-faced which was lovely to see.  Looking into the bush we saw a few of them on the carcass of a buffalo.  People in another car told us that lions had made the kill the day before.

And just before returning to camp we found the elegant giraffes in conflict and having a friendly battle. Quite fascinating to watch them take turns to whack each other with their necks.   Eec said – they’re giving each other a chiropractic treatment for stiff necks – they’re not fighting at all!

We decided to braai tonight but did not have any lamb chops left so we went to see what we could get from the shop.  Earlybird returned with what looked like a fillet of Wildebeest which we could braai and cut into slices but it was actually a huge kebab with enough pieces for the four of us to share and have with ostrich sausage, sweet potatoes done in foil in the fire and accompanied by Greek salad, three bean salad and beetroot.  All guilt of eating the wild life disappeared the minute that succulent meat melted in my mouth – it was delicious. No wonder the lions like it.  Hope this does not offend the vegetarians amongst us.

Earlybird and Eec