On Safari With Amanda 6 January 2016

6 January 2016

Incredibly hot today in the park. My guests were very reluctantly leaving after a great trip. We said our goodbyes except for 2 guests who were flying from skukuza.

After a lovely bush walk and breakfast we headed out. Elephants greeted us, along with kudu and zebras. Again we saw a few European rollers perched close to the road.

Just past shithave dam on the right hand side stands a marula tree roughly 200m from the road and there resting hanging in the tree was a leopard! We sat and watched as he tried to get in a comfortable position eventually he perched very comfortably and slept. Always amazing to see these elusive animals.

Beautiful giraffe walked along the road and we followed until they turned to eat from the knob thorn trees. 

We stopped to watch male impalas challenging each other very entertaining to see.

So another safari is over and my guests leave very happy and ready for their next adventure.

On Safari With Karen 6 January 2016

6 January 2016

Another day, another chance of seeing animals. Despite the heat that was there early on, we had a great day! Our highlight was our leopard sighting. Stumbled upon it by accident, we were happy to see a glimpse of a leopard. The guests had not expected to see one so they were pretty excited. Then suddenly she walked out of the bush for three second and disappeared again. Where some of us had trouble locating her before, now for sure all of us had seen her. 

But it got better. After being mostly hidden in the bush, she suddenly decided to lie down in the riverbed below the bush. This gave us a beautiful view. She was still young and playful and every sound of a bird got her attention. As we were the only vehicle at the sighting we could thoroughly enjoy it as long as we wanted. 

But it got better as she was not alone. After a while her mum came down too. They greeted each other like cats do by rubbing their heads together, which was cute. And then mum started washing her cub. We had watched her groom herself while she was still half hidden in the bush, and apparently now it was the cub's turn. She let it happen but she looked at us as if she was really embarrassed by her mum's behavior. So the fun didn't last long as the cub decided to go on an adventure a little further away. She got up and walked away from mum and out of side for us. Mum stayed in the riverbed a little while longer but then got up and went back into the bush where we first spotted her. It was our cue to leave, but what a great sighting!

Our second highlight of today was sitting at Transport Dam and watching the animal traffic. It appeared we had arrived at rush hour as it was crazy busy around the dam with lots of impalas all around the dam having a drink. There were pretty kudu bulls, lots of waterbucks and some males were fighting. A herd of blue wildebeests came down to drink and rub their faces in the mud and then roll in it while their babies were chasing each other around and made weird jumps. Zebras came and went. An elephant bull came by and had a mouthful of water. It looked like he wanted to go swimming, but while walking through the dam he found out it was too shallow and he just walked across (chasing some impalas on the go). And a lone buffalo who couldn't care less about all the others and walked down to the mud to have a good soak. The hippos in the dam decided to stay away from the busy corner and kept snoozing on the other end. 

Other interesting sightings: steenboks, elephants, a chameleon pretending to be a leaf, waterbucks, blue wildebeests, zebras, kudus, giraffes, white rhinos up close, hyenas, baboons with bulging cheeks as they snacked on marula fruit and let's not forget the impalas.

On safari With Curtis 6 January 2016

6 January 2016

The final day of this tour and we set off on one final drive.

The highlight was our sighting of baboons,  not that they were doing anything out of the ordinary. Just their daily routine of foraging for food.

But what made this special was the reaction of one of the guests. She had been told she would see loads of them as she travelled but no luck, until today!!! I think the screams and whoops of delight confirmed her enjoyment.

We had final sightings of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, warthogs, kudu, waterbuck, crocodile, hippo, Vervet monkey, elephant, cape buffalo, Impala, klipspringer and hyena.

Then time to say farewell to Barbara and David, Kathy, Gerd and Erica.

Been great having all you guys on tour!!!

On Safari With Gert 5 January 2016

5 January 2016

After an early breakfast at camp, we started our morning game drive at 06:00. The day started off pretty well, when we saw a heard of 8 young male elephants having an early morning swim and mud bath at a nearby waterhole. We found most of them half- submerged in the water, splashing around while some of the others were using their trunks to cover their sides and backs with the mud - a very effective sunblock and also an indication that they were expecting a rather hot and sunny day! One or two of the Bulls also found convenient scratching posts to sort out a few itches and get rid of some ticks in the process.

It was also a good morning for buffalo sighting as first up we saw a very large herd, sleeping a bit late, all lying down and huddled together in tall grass. In addition to that we saw many quite old Buffalo bulls, one of them a real old boy with 2 broken and significantly worn down horns.

A little further on we spotted a herd of Sable Antelope, by the looks of it all females and young. It is always special to find these majestic animals and we watched them for a few minutes until they also decided to lie down in fairly tall grass which meant we couldn't see them that well anymore.

Next up was a colony of one of my personal favorites; Dwarf Mongoose, all hiding in a hollow, fallen over tree trunk. Although they were quite shy, we could see some of their heads popping out through holes on the log, curiosity getting the better of them.

On our way back to camp we responded to a report of a Leopard in the area. We found it exactly where it was reported from - lying on a granite slab in the thick shade of overhanging trees. It appeared to be an adult male and we watched in lazy grooming and cleaning itself for about 15 minutes before getting up and off the rock into a more private spot with the heat of the day approaching, us losing visual and moving on, back to camp for lunch and a relaxing afternoon to bring an end to another great safari!

On Safari With Karen 5 January 2016

5 January 2016

Our morning drive was short but sweet as we sat and watched a herd of buffalos passing by. There was lots of action as some buffalos were eating, there was a lot of moo-ing and animals crossed in front and behind us. One cow decided to take a break and have a short mud bath while the rest passed her by and only getting up just when the herd was leaving. We were watched by plenty of buffalo which stopped chewing mid-chew just to check us out. And we even saw mating buffalos (although she wasn't too keen and didn't want to stand still). 

The fact that there was a white rhino watching close by made it even more interesting. She looked like she was protecting a youngster that was still snoozing and therefore lying down. She didn't waver far from the other rhino, but kept a close watch on the passing herd of buffalo. They came within 5 meters of each other but they just passed by. 

In the afternoon we saw the first giraffe for some guests and it was high on their "want-to-see"-list. It was a small group of 5 giraffes with four of them hiding in the bush, and 1 standing in the road. This young lady decided to pose and then make some room on the road and stand in the shade under a tree for a while. It was thoroughly enjoyed as she gave us many great pictures!

Other interesting sightings: a crocodile, a hippo head, impalas, waterbucks, elephants, zebras, kudus, a sable bull, tsessebe and vervet monkeys. 

Birds included a tawny eagle, blacksmith lapwings, yellow-billed kite, European rollers, African fish eagles, grey heron, white-breasted cormorants, yellow-billed stork, wooly necked stork and goliath heron.