On Safari With Amanda From 29 January 2016

29 January 2016

Amazing day today! Tom and claudia were departing today for cape town...no sign of lions so we left early today in the hope of finding them! 

We left camp at 4:30 it was still dark but we had a mission to find the lions!! Lovely zebras drinking along the road, we checked shihave dam to see if the leopard from yesterday was around but he'd obviously got tired of sleeping all day.. We headed not far to napi boulders where lions had been seen too but still these lions eluded us!

Claudia desperately wanted to see crocodile, so I drove to Transport Dam, not far from skukuza, there was a crocodile, admittedly a small one but still a croc! As we sat there an update came through that there were lions close by pretoriuoskop camp that had made a kill! 3kms from camp, I could kick myself for not going there first thing! I explained to the guests that breakfast plans had changed and we were heading back to camp...i didn’t want to tell them why but left as soon as I could!

Roughly 3kms of driving, sticking to the speed limit and the sun beginning to shine through...were the lions still going to be there????....of course they were, a beautiful young male stood above his buffalo kill no more than 1 meter from the road as well as 3 other young males panting and full from their meal! What an amazing sight and experience for my guests! 

Sadly claudia and Tom left satisfied with their mornings sightings.

After a siesta we headed out to see how the lions were doing...still eating, the kill now under a tree in the shade. 

Word had got out and the cars started to build up so all agreed to head off down circle road. Roughly 800m from the lions was not 1 not 2 but 3 leopards in a marula tree!! Fantastic! They watched us and then decided to leave the tree for the road so we turned around an followed them as they headed in the direction of the lions...fortunately they saw the lions and headed deep into the bush unseen by the lions!

Another great day in the best place on earth.. Kruger National Park

30 January 2016

Early start this morning as it was our last night at pretoriuoskop.  

Tom and Thelma, my Irish guests, enjoyed the scenery along the way to skukuza our next stop. Half an hour into our trip there was an update of lions on shabeni koppies so we did a quick u - turn and headed to shabeni. Lying lazily, as lions do, was a very handsome male, golden in colour from the morning sun and lying next to him was a young female. Occasionally lifting his head we watched them, amazing sight.

After a while we headed off on our journey to skukuza and saw nice European rollers, tawny eagles and heard the monotonous call of the aptly named monotonous Lark! A huge Bull elephant came close to the vehicle and sauntered slowly behind our safari vehicle. 

After breakfast we decided to do a short drive, we went along marula loop and then to high level bridge...on the way back we spotted two lions roughly 150m on the opposite side of the river under a magic guarri bush, cooling off from the heat.

A lovely relaxing day, back to camp for a siesta and Tom and Thelma off to experience the Kruger at night on a sunset drive! 

31 January 2016

Incredible day in the park today! 

Early morning departure for myself Tom and Thelma as we headed off towards afsaal for breakfast as a change of scenery. 

Last night on the night drive my guests were lucky to get sightings of leopard twice!

They saw Rhinos fighting in the bush and their journey home was delayed by a hippo wandering down the road. So hopefully luck will be on our side?

Driving down the 114 I got an update of wild dogs back on the main road, I wanted to show them Stevenson Hamiltons lookout point for the view so we went up there and enjoyed the early morning view. 

So, wild dogs, the update was that they were heading off in the road so I quickly checked delaporte waterhole, no sign of them and then headed back to skukuza and there running ahead of us were at least 15 wild dogs! Incredible. They were on the hunt chased a few impalas but no luck. So we followed then for 3kms where they eventually stopped and lay under a bush. Traffic was building so we headed off to lake panic and the golf club for breakfast as Thelma is a golfer and she was very excited to see the club!

After breakfast we got news of a lion sighting so we went but no joy they'd moved off!

Just before we returned to camp I said we should go and check the wild dogs and there they were still chilling under the same bush! We stayed with them a while then said we should drive for another 10mins then get back to camp...not more than 1km from wild dogs lay a beautiful male leopard completely in the shade, we sat with him for half an hour and watched him jump in the marula tree.. amazing.

We decided to head back to camp as it was getting a bit too hot for comfort and decided to meet at 16:30 for a drive. 

We wanted to see the lions, but, first wanted to check if wild dogs and leopard were still there and yes both were still at their same spots!

Heading towards eloff we were greeted by a lioness wandering down the road followed by lots of cars so I quickly turned around and she walked by our side in front of us before heading into the bush...enough for 1 day?? No the Kruger always comes up trumps.. heading back to camp we saw the wild dogs, this time running determined to get a kill we saw one dog chase an impala ewe with her lamb....the wild dog came out bloodied we can only assume the lamb didn't make it.

The light was fading as we left the dogs and I’m sure they will hunt again throughout the night.  Fantastic way to end a great day!