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Some of Nhongo Safaris Fleet of Open Safari Vehicles

The photo shows some of our fleet of Open Safari Vehicles used while on safari in the Kruger National and Hwange National Parks. These ve...

Thursday 2 July 2015

On Safari With Karen 1 June 2015

1 June 2015

This morning we slept a bit longer and had some breakfast before we set off. As we were getting on the vehicle we had a tip about some lions so we set off to find them.

On our way we saw our first elephants of this safari! It was a pretty cool sighting of this mother elephant just walking slowly to the next tree when suddenly out of the bushes comes her calf running across to keep up with her. Her whole body language was screaming "mommmmmyyyyy waaiiiiittt!!" It was funny to see her calm down as soon as mum was near and they started feeding off some bushes. More and more they disappeared into the bush until it was obvious that even big grey elephants can completely disappear behind trees. 

We did get a glimpse of those lions further, twice for about 5 seconds. They had made a kill but were already full, so they were just sleeping it off close by.

Unfortunately that close by meant in the high grass and in between many bushes, so getting a visual when they were lying down was impossible. But when one and then another stood we could see the shape of them quite nicely. Upon returning to the site later we didn't see any lions but we did get a good look at the buffalo they had recently killed and half eaten. Until the smell got the better of us and we went back for lunch!

Our second highlight was a visit to Shitlhave Dam where we sat and watched the world go by. To start it was a small group of waterbucks, some woolly-necked storks and a hippo. The hippo was quite funny as he was standing out of the water but was still too sleepy to do anything. So he had fallen back asleep still standing, with his mouth drooped down on the ground. A couple of times he woke up and walked a couple of steps before going back to snooze. It looked like he had been in a fight as he had some big wounds on his side and face. A red-billed oxpecker was picking at his wounds. 

More and more waterbucks were coming and some males started to pick a fight with other males. Other woolly-necked storks were also flying in and a juvenile fish eagle was flying over. A crocodile came on shore to sun itself and zebras came down to drink too. 


Other interesting sightings: impalas, kudus, steenboks, warthog, more zebras and a herd of elephants. 

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