On Safari With Amanda From 20 May 2016

20 May 2016

This morning greeted us with Rain.. we were not going to let a drop of rain spoil our drive though we headed off after breakfast all kitted out in our matching ponchos into the park determined to enjoy the day!

A slow drive along the Napi and an update of mating lions and another sighting of a big male lion eating an impala...hopefully they would still be there when we arrived.

On the road we were very luck to spot rhinos, zebras, beautiful giraffes and impalas.

Turning into watergat we all looked around expecting the lions to be well hidden, but, there not more than 1 meter from the road were 2 healthy lions. We sat and watched in awe of them as they chilled on the side of the road...amazing. 

After spending some time with the honeymoon couple we went down to the H3 and under a bush lay a magnificent manned lion eating away at an impala ram, gnawing away quite contently unfazed by our presence. We left him in peace to go grab a coffee at skukuza. At the junction I got an update of a leopard about 6 kms away, there a chance he could still be there, and there he was, lying in a drainage line fast asleep! We sat for a good half hour and watched him sit up and look around before flopping back down again to snooze!

Now we're definitely going for coffee and I drive to make a u-turn and get an update of 3 Cheetahs 2kms away! Off we go and basking in the sun were 3 Cheetahs!  What a morning! We eventually had coffee before heading off to camp. What an incredible day and my guests were also so incredibly lucky.

21 May 2016

Last day for my wonderful American guests. After a nice breakfast and we left for a short drive around shabeni, mestle dam and Voortrekker road for a lovely scenic drive. Lovely to get close up to Ship mountain that we generally see from afar. 

And so my guests depart for another new adventure in cape town. An amazing safari with lovely guests.

On Safari With Gert From 20 May 2016

20 May 2016

We started a new Safari today with Anna and Maya from Boston. We were quite lucky with the weather as it was fairly cool and overcast, which assisted with some good animal sightings.

We were exceptionally fortunate to find all of the Big 5 as well as Cheetah within one drive, which is almost unheard of!

The highlights of these sightings were a mother White Rhino with a year old calf grazing close by, Elephant feeding right next to the road!

The best of our cat sightings were undoubtedly the Lions, as these were a mating pair. They were taking a break a when we found them, but male and female were lying close together and about 5 meters off the road when we found them!

Certainly a good introduction to the Park and hopefully just a taste of what's in store the next few days!

21 May 2016

We headed out on our drive this morning after an early breakfast amidst cool but clear conditions. After all the cats and excitement of yesterday, our day belonged to all the animals we haven't seen very well so far! We had very good general game sightings and one of the highlights of the day was one of our many giraffe sightings, where we had a female browsing right next to us and even 2 quite young calves inquisitively staring at us and their surroundings! We had several breeding herds of Elephant cross the road today and could not ask for more or better Elephant sightings!

We also had many different Buffalo sightings including one very large herd with a few youngsters, crossing the road in front of us!

We had a spectacular end to our drive with the full moon rising over the lowveld as we approached camp.

On Safari With Gert From 29 April 2016

29 April 2016

We headed out early for our morning drive and had a fairly quiet morning, the highlight being a visit to a small waterhole where we had a good few hundred Impala congregating in the area. This would have been several herds together and they where quite loud, from the females contact-calling to keep track of the youngsters in the chaos, to the males doing several versions of their rutting-calls and trying to simultaneously chase off rival males while keeping their own herd females in check! A family of Warthog and a lone Giraffe browsing in the background completed the scene.

On our afternoon drive, while watching a few young male Kudu browsing close to the road, a female leopard came trotting out of the bush, crossed the road in front of us and continued into the bush on the other side, disappearing out of sight - a quick but very good sighting. Further on we found 5 very lazy lions, males in their prime, sleeping in a shady spot, obviously bothered by some flies, as they were constantly flicking their ears and tails to get rid of them. 2 of them got up while we were there, but only to change position and get more comfortable again!

In the end, a very successful day and we can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

30 April 2016

After an early breakfast we loaded luggage and departed for our final morning Safari.

While having breakfast we could hear Spotted Hyena calling close-by and about 300 meters into our drive we found 5 of them in a drainage line close to the road. They must have made or found a kill earlier in the morning, as they were feeding on what was left of a male Impala, tugging at the carcass and one trying to claim all of it, carrying the carcass off into a thicket; some good action to start the morning!

Driving along the river front we also found a couple of very large Nile crocodiles basking in the morning sun as well as a young hippo grazing on the bank.

We managed to find another very lazy male Lion sleeping in the shade of a tree and had a quality Elephant sighting at a small waterhole, as a breeding herd of about 30 individuals, joined by 2 very large adult males, drank and splashed around, also having a few mud-baths. They were quite vocal and there was certainly some tension between the 2 large males, spilling over to some of the younger males, all very excitable, chasing each other around, but keeping their distance from the larger males!

We exited the park just before noon, which signaled the end of another successful safari!