On Safari from the 14 May 2013 With Mark

14 May 2013

Route: Napi - Napi boulders - Napi - back to Nkambeni

Not much happening out there. Very little general game seen.  1 very nice elephant bull on the road just before Napi boulders entrance. Good photo's taken by the guests. Many different sightings of rhino's throughout the drive with the largest crash of 7 together.

15 May 2013

Route: Napi - S65 - Tshokwane tar - Doispan - Albaseni - Nkambeni road

First animal seen was a large rhino bull lying sleeping 5m off the road. Napi was rather quiet this morning with only Kudu, warthog, impala, giraffe and waterbuck seen all the way along to the S65. A college informed me of wild dog 3.1km from napi on S65. We got to the sighting just for them to move right into the road and all 13 lie down 5m from our open safari vehicle. Fantastic photos taken. Received another call for a leopard at transport dam but no luck. While down there we had a brilliant sighting of a female hippo with a calf in the shallow water. This calf couldn't of been older than a couple of days. After stopping at skakuza, we drove up to marola exit and on the way got 2 lioness and 1 male lying in the river bed. Also very nice to sit and watch this for a while. Good general birding during the drive, with secretary bird, and southern ground hornbills been some of the species seen. No elephant or buffalo spotted on our trip until we got closer to camp where we at least got a small herd of elephant just before concluding the game drive for the day.

Guests are out on a sundown drive this afternoon and so we'll pick up with them again in the morning.

16 May 2013

Route: Albaseni - Doispan - S65 - Napi - S114 - little jock - H3 - Napi

At numbi gate we got a buffalo bull just lying enjoying the morning sun. Great hippo's at mestal dam. Just before mestal we got a small herd of elephant approx 50m off the road. Many different sightings of general game on Doispan - giraffe, kudu, impala, diulkers, warthog and zebra. Got a call regarding a pride of lions lying on the rock 8.3km down the S65 we took a drive and found the male, 2 female and 4 cubs. I know they part of the pride of 13 in total. Sure they were all there, just couldn't see them. We then heard about a male leopard lying on a termite mound approx 4kms from transport access road on the napi. On our way there Dean and Frank informed me that they have a leopard on the road and we got good visuals of that. We went down to the second leopard and also had good visuals of that. It moved of the termite mound and lay in the shade of a tree.  After skakuza we went down the S114 not much seen on the road just a couple of elephant , and general game. After lunch we headed up the H3 and at the S113 junction we found 4 cheetah lying under the shade of a gwari bush. Spent some time with them and then headed on towards camp. Distant visuals of herds of elephants near shithave dam and further to this it was rather quiet.