5th February – Guests departed from Nkambeni early morning on a Bush Walk until 10h15am, having a very exciting walk with the highlight being an African Rock Python eating a Common Grey Duiker. Great photos were taken and everyone in the group returned happy and ready for a great breakfast. After breakfast some guests departed for Johannesburg with our shuttle and new guests arrived on safari. Dean and Mark then left down Napi and onto the H3 and S112 getting numerous sightings of Elephants , Rhino, Buffalo as well as some lions on the S111, more lions were found on James Stevenson Hamilton that had killed something but due to the grass being so long they could not make out exactly what they had killed. Both Dean and Mark then made their way to Skukuza for lunch. After lunch they took a drive down the Paul Kruger Gate road after hearing about a Leopard close to the Phabeni gate. Along the way more Elephant, Buffalo and Rhino were spotted with lots of general game such as Impala, Zebra, Wildebeeste and Giraffe sightings . We then were able to find the Leopard in a Sycamore Fig tree , but it was not such a great sighting until it eventually moved down the tree and gave us a better view. After lots of photos and a great sighting we departed down Albasini for camp.
6th February – Once again after breakfast it was back on the road going down Napi back onto the H3 with sightings once again of the Big 5. We came across two female Lions with two younger males and watched how a young Elephant Bull tried to chase them away without any success, after this we made our way towards Skukuza with a lovely sighting of a female leopard walking along the road marking her territory, she then decided to climb into a jackalberry tree right next to our Open Safari vehicles, we then stopped off at Skukuza for a break before making our way back to Numbi gate to allow guests to depart back to Johannesburg and Mark to collect three new guests that had been picked up in Pretoria. Mark collected the new guests from Verity and then departed back down Napi towards Skukuza for lunch with a herd of Buffalo crossing the road near boulders. There were many general game sightings along the way . Lunch was enjoyed at Skukuza before departing down the Paul Kruger Gate road to Lake Panic bird hide for some great photo opportunities of birds. After this we departed back to camp with sightings of Impala, and general game.
7th February - This morning Dean left the park with four guests and made his way to the Panorama Route and Mark continued the day with six guests. The route he took for the day was as follows: Numbi tar - circle road - Napi - doispan - watergat - napi - H3 - napi - back to camp. On numbi tar we had 3 large elephants with 2 calf's he then did Circle Road and found a large Buffalo Bull with many different sightings of Rhino during the day. On Stevenson Hamilton road there was a fleeting sight of a female Leopard but she disappeared very quickly in the long grass. We were then told of another Leopard sighting on Napi, so we went to have a look but he was nowhere to be found. By then the general game-viewing had decreased due to the day being quite hot. We continued back to Doispane and then found that Watergat was once again open after the heavy rains but very little was found on this road so we decided to go back on Napi again to look for the male Leopard and found him lying right next to the road. After spending 10 minutes with him he got up and walked across the road next to our Open Safari Vehicle and then back into the bush. After this we made our way onto the H3 where we got two male Lions lying next to the road Sleeping, this was a great sight to see and all the guests enjoyed their day before heading back to camp for the night.
8th February - Today is Marks last day in the Kruger National Park with his three Dutch Ladies before departing back to Nelspruit so that guests can return to Johannesburg, Till meet again next week with our next safari departing on the 12th February have a great weekend!…..
