Kruger National Park Day Safari with Mr Collopy 23rd January 2010

As we drove through the Numbi gate at 05h40, I found my self thinking “What’s the line up for today”. One good thing is holidays are over and everything is back to “normal” in the park. This can be seen by the amount of cars on the road. No queue this morning, it couldn’t have taken me more than 10min to get our gate pass and prep the Open Safari Vehicle. After a client briefing of the do’s and don’ts we were on our way.

Weather was awesome, we had 100% cloud base in our African sky and temperatures must have been approximately 15deg.

Time and time again our first animal sighting is the common Impala antelope, however not today.

Approximately 700m from the Shebeni Link junction, walking towards us was a Majestic black manned male Lion. As he approached us, we turned off the Open Vehicle engine and enjoyed the sighting. He approached the vehicle with eyes fixed on us as though to say Good morning.

Obviously he was a “male on a mission” as our presence didn’t bother him in anyway. He got to our vehicle; sniffed at the grill and walked to the side of the road where he politely sent marked the small Silver cluster leaf tree. My guests were overjoyed as this was literally the first animal sighting for the day.   

We moved off and decided to drive down Napi road as we planned to have breakfast at Skakuza rest camp. I turned onto Napi boulders gravel road and traveled approximately 1.6Kms were we came across a female White rhino and her calf lying sleeping approximately 6m off the road. Pictures were taken and we left them while you could still hear her snoring. Just goes to show how irrelevant we are out in the bush. Onto Skakuza for breakfast. While on my way, Jaun (college) gave me a call and informed me of a cheetah sighting near the Transport dam entrance, no luck though.

After breakfast we headed in the direction of Tshokwane. While crossing over the low level bridge I stopped for a Nile croc approximately 4 meters in length, just drifting in the water to the right of us. As I was about to move off, I glanced across to the left of the bridge and saw laying on top of a rock my favorite cat…. Leopard.  A beautiful Tom cat. Words can’t describe the satisfaction you get when seen your favorite cat.   Till next time my best friend…..

We cut across to the high level bridge which would take us back over the Sabie river onto Nkuklu. At this stage the cloud base was disappearing rapidly. On crossing over the high level bridge we found a herd of Cape buffalo lying in the water. No wonder people mistakenly call them “Water buffalo”. 

Once we turned onto Eloff street heading in a Easterly direction, a herd of African elephant crossed over the road, providing us with brilliant side views of the largest land mammal. There must have been 30 or so crossing over, making their way down to the river, for a much needed drink. As the last female disappeared into the bush, I heard a voice on my vehicle say “ That’s the BIG 5 in less than 5 hours”. 

With my clients extremely satisfied and the fact that they could wear the “Big 5” T-shirt we decided to spend the rest of our day observing the general game and bird life the park has to offer. By the time we got back to Numbi gate to leave the park, we had long lists of animal / bird sightings.

All credit given to the animals as they were in the right place at the right time.

Thanks once again my friends, till we meet again…….

Goodnight, GodBless and Goodbye

Mark

 Senior Guide Nhongo Safaris

Kruger National Park Safari with Rolf Everhardus 18th - 21nd January 2010

After an early morning pickup from Emerald Guesthouse in Kempton park, we made our way in the direction of Nelspruit and the Kruger National Park. Upon arrival in Nelspruit, we changed our vehicle from the nice air-conditioned microbus and into one of our open safari vehicles for our short journey to the the Kruger National Park. After arriving at the Numbi gate, we checked in and made our way to the camp of Pretoriuskop were we checked into the accommodation and gave the guess time to enjoy some lunch, prior to them leaving on their first game drive. We took a drive down the Napi road, getting good sightings of Rhino, Elephant and the general plains Game.


After some good tea and Coffee, it was off and out of camp to see what we could find. We took a drive down the Napi road on route to Skukuza and then on to Tshokwane for breakfast. While on route we had good sightings of rhino, buffalo, elephant Zebra, Kudu and impala. After breakfast we decided to take the H10 down to Lower Sabie, a road that had proved to be very good on the last safari. As we turned right onto the H10, we were met by a lioness leading her three small cubs over the road. While standing there, one of the cubs became tired, and the female then proceeded to pick it up in her mouth and carry it over the road. This was really good to see. We carried on with the H10 picking up some really large Elephant bulls and some good Rhino and Buffalo. We stopped at lower Sabie for a well deserved break,l before making our way up Eloff Street running parallel with the Sabie River back to the camp of Skukuza. On route back, we stopped of at Sunset Dam, having a chance to see the Hippos, and Crocodiles together with the prolific bird life found around this dam. After arriving back at Skukuza, it was time to have a lunch break, after which it was time to start making our way back to camp. After a good day of game viewing and some good dinner, it was off to bed for a good rest before we started again the next day.

I woke up the clients at 04h30, had tea and coffee at 05h00 and then we were out on our merry way. Something said to me to take the same road as the day before and then take a different route late closer to the camp of Skukuza. The morning started off slowly, until at about 7,1 Km's from the Napi Boulders exit on the Napi road it's self, we came upon quite a nice sighting of Wldebeest with there calves, Zebra, Impala and Giraffe. While watching these guys to our left hand side, my head turned to the right from something moving in my field of vision, and to our surprise it was a cheetah standing right next to my vehicle using it as cover from the potential prey. We watched this for around5 -10 minutes, we also called it in over the radio, and heard that there were other vehicles on the way to us. After a while the cheetah moved passed the front pf the vehicle keeping very low and went to lie down on the ground 6 to 7 meters from the vehicle right behind a termite mound. By this time other vehicles had arrived and many of the Wildebeest, Zebra, Impala and Giraffe knew that something was up. it was at this time sensing that time was not on it's side, the cheetah broke cover and started it's charge bringing down a wildebeest calf around 80 - 100 meters in front of us. Visuals were lost at this point due to the long grass being encountered at this time of year due to the large amount of rain that has been experienced over the last 2 - 3 months.
After this wonderful sighting and with the guests on a high, we made our way down to the Nkulu picnic spot for breakfast. After a well deserved breakfast, we found out that there were some lions lying on the road that we had taken the previous day to breakfast, so we decided to take a drive in this direction and we could maybe get lucky in seeing them. We made our way to the N'walindlopfu River bridge, where we found the two large male lions lying out to the right hand side right in the middle of the dry river bed. As if the lions were waiting for us, one of them got up and started coming closer to the bridge in order for us to get some better photos of him. He was making his way closer to the water in order to take a drink. This proved to be a wonderful sighting and as we took our leave, it was good to finally see some of the larder males in the lion species doing so well.
The day seemed to speed past with many other sightings, and soon it was time to make our way back to the Pretoriuskop camp, as the clients were going out on there night drive.
The clients left at 17h00 on their night drive and returned at around 20h30, having seen some good animals and also seeing more lion walking on the road.

on the morning of the 21st January, we left camp early again for our final game drive before coming back to the camp for breakfast and time to packup, before climbing back onto the road in the direction of Nelspruit were we changed our vehicles and then took to the road in the direction of Johannesburg.
Guests feedback was that they had the time of their life, and certainly want to come back and enjoy another safari to the Kruger National Park. The highlight of the trip was seeing the cheetah hunting and using our vehicle as cover to stick away from the plains game it was trying to hunt. 

Kruger National Park Safari with the Pavan Family from Italy 26th - 30th December 2009

We had the pleasure of hosting the Pavan family during the holidays in December from the 26th through to the 30th of the month. We arrived at the Numbi gate, checked in and took a ride down to the camp of Pretoriuskop which would be our camp for the night. After checking in, the guests had a chance for some lunch and then at 15h30 it was time to get out and see some animals. The afternoon started off quietly, but soon  came across some elephant and Rhino, together with quite a lot of plains game.

The next morning it was time to packup the luggage, have some tea and coffee, and start making our way towards Skukuza, our next camp for the following two nights. After leaving camp at 05h30, we came across elephant, rhino, and a number of plains game en route to breakfast. We made our way down to breakfast at the Nkulu Picnic spot, where the guests enjoyed an english breakfast before continuing on to view other animals. Soon after breakfast, we got a call on the radio that there were lions lying right next to the Doispane road that leads into the park from the Phabeni Gate. We decided to make our way in that direction. En route to the lions, some rhino and elephant were encountered. We eventually came onto the sighting of two male lions lying 4 meters off the road, and as it was an overcast day, they were quite happy lying there and were not going to look for cover in the long grass soon. After a good sighting of the lions, and some good photos got while at the scene, we decided to make our way back to the Sabie river to see if we could get some sightings of crocodile and hippo.
As the group had been going from early morning, they decided to go into camp for a midday siesta, before going out again late afternoon.
The drive that we took in the afternoon did not yield anything new, but were able to find more hippos and quite a few plains game.

The following day turned out to be a quite day with few animals encountered as it was getting closer to the New Year Festivities, and the animals needed  to prepare for a new years party!!! After a reasonably quite day, clients enjoyed dinner at the Selati Restaurant in the camp of Skukuza.

On the 29th December, we decided to take a drive northwards in the direction of the Tshokwane Picnic spot, where we were going to have breakfast. En route as we crossed over the Sand River Bridge, we came across some wild dogs walking in the road looking very hungry. We followed them for a while until they must have got a scent of someting and ran into the bush looking for it. We made our way to breakfast at Tshokwane, after which we made our way down the H10 towards Lower Sabie. About one Kilometer from turning onto the H10 we came across a large male and female lion lying around fifty metered off the road. When we stopped to view them, they suddenly got up and moved closer. It became evident that this was a breading pair, who had separated themselves from the rest of the pride. After a good viewing, we made our way down the H10 finding quite a number of Elephant, Rhino, and Plains Game. Around 25 Km's down the H10, we came across 5 Lion Cubs that had been hidden under a Magic Gwarri Tree, there were no adults present, although i think they were not far away, but we had a wonderful sighting of one of the cubs trying it's best to climb the branch of the tree. Soon it was back on the road for a welcome stop at Lower Sabie Camp. After a welcome stop, we made a turn at Sunset Dam were we all enjoyed some good sightings of Hippo, Crocodile, Impala and a large number of different birds.
it was then off back to the camp of Pretoriuskop, as the clients were going on theur night drive.
The night drive was enjoyed by all with numerous sightings being enjoyed.

The following morning was time for the groups last game drive before leaving the park, and making their way back to Johannesburg in order for them to catch their early flight to Cape Town to enjoy the rest of their holiday while in South Africa. The group thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and some have booked to come back and enjoy a nine day safari with us in July which starts in the far Northern Section of the park, and makes it's way down to the Southern Side of the park.

We look forward to hosting you guys again upon your return to South Africa. 

                                                                     Above Photos were taken by Reena Pavan Gervasi