12 September 2014
This morning
we started our day without breakfast as we left before the restaurant had
opened. We drove north on the H1-6 towards Engelhard Dam. It was the morning of
crossing animals as we had impalas crossing in front of us multiple times as
well as guineafowls. Two elephants looked like they were going to cross, but
while one old bull was happily munching the accacia on the side of the road,
the other decided he didn't want to cross after all and turned around. We also
spotted some nice kori bustards not far from the gate as well as hippos lounging
in the river. We also spend some time looking at various tracks in the
riverbed, like hippo paths and elephant tracks.
On the bridge
over the Letaba river we enjoyed the view as we noticed a crocodile walking
from the sandbank into the river and swim off. Waterbucks were coming to drink,
a male kudu was standing along the waterline and a giraffe was hiding in the
bush not far away. Swallows were flying around and there were Egyptian geese as
well as another sadlebilled stork. Tree nice nyala bulls crossed the road just
off the bridge. We then turned off onto the S62 towards the Longwe Lookout.
Jus around the
corner we saw a baboon cross in front of us. And suddenly they were crossing
all around us. More and more were coming from the bush as if it was a never-ending
stream of baboons! They were funny though, climbing trees to get to seed pods,
trees that were thin and started to hang towards the ground with the weight of
the baboons. They were digging for roots and the young ones didn't care as they
were just playing around. It was great watching.
The drive was
a great change of scenery from the south, flanked on both sides by plenty of
bushwillows. The views were amazing and we did a lot of bird watching:
whitefronted bee eaters (making little whitefronted bee eaters ), golden
breasted bunting, sandgrouse, crested and natal francolins, brubru, fish eagle,
bateleur, a great soaring yellow-billed kite that was plainly showing off his acrobatics,
and still beautiful lilac breasted rollers. At a little causeway we enjoyed
watching two little crocodiles sunning themselves and move around on the rocks
and into the water. They tried to get the best spot, but one of them went to
lie down in a dent in the rocks, his back all bend the wrong way, we thought it
was everything but comfortable! There were also some hamerkops and a giant
kingfisher.
On the way
back we stopped at the Matambeni bird hide which overlooks Engelhard Dam. There
weren't many birds around, surprisingly for a bird hide, but some cape glossy starlings
were begging in the parking lot, hadeda ibisses flew by and darkcapped bulbuls
made such a racket they most likely had chased away any other birds. Then we
made our way back to Letaba for some breakfast and not to forget: well-needed
coffee! During breakfast we had great view of the Letaba river. We sat in the
same spot last night, but everything being dark and all we didn't appreciate
the view. Right now we were enjoying it immensely with marabou storks,
redwinged starlings, impalas, zebras, bushbucks and elephants coming to show
themselves.
As it was
already hot again, we decided to take some rest. Some walked around, seeing
more birds and other went to the elephant museum. When it cooled down we set
off for our lovely drive to Mopani Restcamp.
Up the H1-6 we
went. It was a lovely drive with sightings of kudu, three elephants butt to
butt to butt under a tree in the shade, giraffes, lots of zebras, plenty of
elephant herds, multiple steenboks, more kori bustards, waterbucks, lilac
breasted rollers (of which we all tried and failed to get an action shot of it
flying away), the always present impalas, a lone wildebeest, warthogs, brown
hooded parrots, magpie shrikes and up to now we haven't had a day without
buffalos. This herd was lying spread out, occupying the shade of every
bushwillow close by. As they were lying down their bodies were just as high as
the grass so all we saw was shade with horns. Until we stopped too long and one
of them got up to give us a nasty look. They did not want to be disturbed
during resting hour!
Speaking of
hour, we spend an hour sitting at Middelvlei where herd after herd of elephants
came to have a drink. A couple of bulls were standing in one little dam
snoozing with their feet in the water. Except for their flapping ears they
looked like statues. Others were drinking, or trying to, from one of the high
walled watertanks leftover from the old farm days. That elephants are smart was
proven by the fact that some of them used a little stepping stone to get their
trunks further over the wall to reach the water. They stretched and stretched,
balancing on three legs even, and some managed while others were too small. One
cow was sweet and helped her herd with water by spraying them when she had her
fill to drink. It was all so wonderful it was like watching a movie!
Then time came
to continue to Mopani. Here we watched a gorgeous sunset from the deck of the
cottage before having a well earned shower! It was the end of another great
day!
13 September 2014
We welcomed
the overcast this morning and decided to go and have breakfast at Shingwedzi.
We drove up the H1-6 and just on the corner with camp road we saw a herd of
elephants. As a matter of fact, first kilometer of the drive was pumping with
animal sightings: whitebacked vultures, whiteheaded vulture, giraffes, zebras,
buffalos, impalas, brown snake eagles, nyalas, and a steenbok.
Then it went
quiet...
We saw nothing
for many kilometers except for Mopani savannah. Not even impalas! So we took
out luck down to Olifantsbad to see if anything was there. Well, the bath was
dry, so no luck. We did see an elephant skull and shoulderblade, so maybe he
had been waiting for the bath to fill a little too long.
Just before
Shingwedzi it got interesting again when wanting to see animals. We saw lots of
waterbuck, elephants and the impalas were back on. We stopped at the bridge
over the Shingwedzi to enjoy the view before breakfast with an elephant
drinking down below. Breakfast finished and ready to go, we noticed a large water
monitor hanging around the car. He seemed quite relaxed, so we hang around,
taking lots of pictures.
The first
kilometers we saw plenty of birds again: crested barbet (until now he was
heard, but unseen), an openbill, a sadlebilled stork (by now the guests have
stopped believing this guy is actually rare) and a little bee eater to name a
few.
At one point
we noticed some buffalo coming from the bushes and walking towards the river.
More and more and more came out. And not just at one exit, but many! We started
counting them, but well over 50 they always started moving again and we lost
count. But the small but we could count this herd was well over 250 buffalos
big! Everywhere we looked was being covered with buffalos and lots more out of
sight. This mega herd of buffalos didn't even fit in pictures. Amazed with the
size of it and the constant stream of buffalos still coming from the bushes, we
noticed a little sharpe's grysbok in trouble. He probably was lying under a
bush when disturbed by a buffalo grazing nearby. When trying to get out of his
way, he bumped into another. And another. And another. We could almost see the panic
on his face now seeing all these big black animals and no way out! He luckily
found a gap and ran off, very fast, with the buffalos hardly taking notice.
Then we were entertained by this little tree squirrel up in a flimsy tree.
Trying to find food he showed the climbing skills of an acrobat hanging upside
down and sideways, hanging on for dear life!
We had watched
this great show for a long time, but as it all calmed down we decided to move
on. Bad choice as from now until the next 45km it went all quiet again. The
dull monotone of mopani after mopani tree was then broken by baboons feeding,
two sable bulls hanging out with impalas, some more zebras multiple times, a
herd of wildebeest going crazy in the distance and a small family of warthogs.
And to look at something else than mopanis, we stopped at a nice baobab to take
pictures too :-).
The afternoon
is spent relaxing on the deck of one of the cottages as it has a brilliant view
over the Pioneer Dam (with swimming elephants at the moment). Hoping for a
brilliant sunset (luckily the clouds are starting to move aside now) we are
celebrating the guests' 40th wedding anniversary! We'll drink to that!
14 September 2014
Today was our
last day up north and we decided to use it well. We got up early and stood
smiling in front of the baobab in Mopani camp to take pictures before the camp
gates were even open! We had decided to visit the Pioneer Dam Hide before
breakfast so as soon as the gates were open, we were out. We started with a
lovely sighting of two buffalos just around the corner. One was already up, the
second one lay in a sunny patch in the grass chewing his cud. He looked so
content! Then we also saw some elephants hiding in the bush and some hippos and
waterbucks before we got to the hide.
At the hide we
slowly started waking up, just like the bush. It was a cacaphony of sounds:
Egyptian geese, blacksmit lapwings, water thicknees, brown hooded kingfishers,
chinspot batisses, spoonbills, fish eagles, blackbacked puffback, crested
francolins, hippos, and most of all (what made my personal morning great) a
giant territorial woop from a hyena just across the water. It was an awesome
wake up call!
Ok, to be
fair, we didn't see everything we heard, but most of it we did. Not to mention,
the great view over Pioneer Dam is not too bad either so we spend quite some
time there. On our way back the buffalo snoozing in the sun hadn't moved, while
his buddy was on a 6 paces per hour speed. We also saw the hippos again, a
black crake and a crested francolin drinking water with her 4 chicks. A herd of
elephants was almost completely obscured by Mopani bush and was making its way
to the water. By the time we were back at our huts, we saw them drinking from
the dam as well as some other buffalos.
Personally I
got greeted back at the hut by a giant plated lizard on my porch. Beautiful
animal, but he didn't hang around and hid under a big rock when he spotted me.
After breakfast we packed up and set sail to Olifants restcamp. It was a nice
slow drive with now and then some animals popping up. We came across loads of
elephants, some giraffe, lots of birds that still deserve attention and we added
a new rule of at least 1 picture of an impala a day as they are being
outnumbered in the picture load but are so beautiful that they deserve more
pictures.
At Middelvlei
the elephants we saw last time around had moved off. Just two bulls were
drinking and showering, one lone zebra stood in the bushes nearby and a ostrich
pair was having themselves a dustbath judging by the clouds of dust coming from
their direction. Oh and we almost overlooked the warthogs that were grazing
just one meter from the car!
Down the H1-6
to Letaba we drove, seeing lots of nice elephants in the river, some impalas
and waterbuck too, as well as our first lot of vervet monkeys. A quick stop at
Letabe to empty our bladders and buy a cool drink to refill them and then we
went down the S46 and S93 along the river. It was getting really hot again
already and we were hoping some the animals thought so too and would like to
cool down in the river at the same time as we drove by. We saw a nice elephant
herd and some bull buffalos, but except for some nice views the animals had
found other ways to cool down.
We arrived at
Olifants Camp not too late as the guest will have their sundowner drive tonight.
Sundowner
drive:
The guests
returned from their sundowner all happy as they could check some more animals
in book. They were lucky to see some night animals like a porcupine, two separate
civet sightings, a large spotted genet and a spotted eagle owl. As the sun
started setting however they also admired a young male lion who posed willingly
for pictures. And during the drive they also came across giraffes (now during
this tour also known as "camels" as in only the first bit of the
Afrikaans word for giraffe), an elephant bull, a spring hare, zebras,
wildebeest, a kori bustard, a big fat crocodile, waterbucks and a red crested
korhaan. On top of all that they also heard a leopard as well as hyenas! I
think we can say this sundowner was a great success!
15 September 2014
Today we went
from north to south, leaving Olifants restcamp behind us and looking forward to
Nkambeni Safari Camp's buffet. We set off early morning with a walk to the
viewing deck to watch the sunrise. Then back into the car and down the H1-5. It
was going to be giraffe day today as we saw loads of giraffe at the start today
and during the drive they kept on popping up in between bushes and under trees
in the shade.
And this
wouldn't be a good day if we hadn't seen any buffalo, but we covered these
pretty early too. The early bit of the morning we spend pointing out groups of
zebras and wildebeest and impalas. There were so many we didn't bother stopping
in the end. Elephants were many too, but somehow these always got our attention
as they were playing with water or branches.
We stopped
briefly at Ngotso Dam where zebras were coming down to drink. We saw some
waterbirds, but nothing else was thirsty.
Then down and
down it went. As it was already getting hot we decided to push it past Satara
and go for breakfast at Tshokwane as we had noticed the animals like to hide
away in the shade. This was a good call as we saw our first lioness just past
Satara on the bridge over the Sweni. We saw her lying down and getting up twice
to walk away. When she lay down again and was barely visibly, it was pointed
out by nice passers-by two others were lying just a bit further down the road.
When we stopped we saw another male and female lying in the shade and the third
one came to join them. She gave them both a cuddle and lay down as well. One by
one they went flat and that was our cue to leave the sighting.
We saw another
pair of lions just by luck not far from Tshokwane. We saw some cars grouped
together, but they were all moving around. Then a small herd of impalas came
running by... chased by a lioness. Where she had come from she chased them for
about 50meters before giving up. Her two companions had already given up a
while back.
On the last
stretch of the route down to Tshokwane we added a martial eagle to our sightings
list, three white rhinos, lots of elephants, a couple of steenboks, brown snake
eagle, plenty of bateleurs, and baboons.
We had a
lengthy brunch before getting up again. Vervets had tried to steal our food,
but without a chance. Lots of cape glossy starlings were begging for it, also
without a chance. Back in the car we turned the air-conditionditioning back on
full by driving down to Skukuza. We were right this morning, it was already
hot.
Down the H1-2
we came across more buffalo as a nice herd was all spread out among the trees
in the shady bits. A nice herd of elephant was cooling down in the river.
Apparently their arrival in the riverbed had chased off a leopard that was
lying in that riverbed just before we arrived at the spot. So we couldn't have
all the luck in the world. Nonetheless we enjoyed the elephant sighting a lot!
Furthermore we
saw three marabous and warthogs before we stopped on high level bridge over the
Sabie river where the hippos were little islands in the stream. Ellooff was a
quiet road except for impalas and after a quick stop at Skukuza we went
straight to Transport Dam.
Here the hippos
were bobbing up and down and we had some nice red-billed hornbill, burchell's
starling and natal francolin sighting. A water thicknee took on a fully grown
grey heron and won. Under loud screaming he chased away the grey heron but
never returned himself after the deed either.
The rest of the
journey to Nkambeni we decided to keep the air-conditioning on. That meant we
just pointed out animals but kept on driving: kudus, zebras, giraffes, ground
hornbills (aircon off, until they flew away, aircon back on), elephant and a
grey duiker. It was 31 degrees when we arrived at our destination, and still it
was another great day!
More coming
soon!!
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