We decided that given we hadn’t seen cheetah or a leopard in 7 days in the park that we should maximise our chance and drive as much as possible in the park before heading to the airport. We left at 5:30am and headed south to Satara. On route at one of the waterholes we saw hyena (with a piece of meat/skin). They kept looking in one direction and then finally took off with their skin/meat and then out came a black backed jackal. Another predator we hadn’t seen yet on the trip so we were pleased to add that to our sightings.

We had breakfast at Satara and then headed east to exit out the Orpen gate and then onto to Hoedspruit airport. Unfortunately we didn’t see either leopard or cheetah on the way out and we also didn’t add to our bird trip list so that stayed at 128 birds and 1 lifer for me. Don’t know exactly how many birds B & S added but it was quite a few. Their birding skills improved significantly over the week to point that they identified a bird of prey this morning without the aid of the birding app.

Unfortunately we all couldn’t get onto the same flight as B&S seemingly took the last seats on the earlier flight back to Cape Town. Their flight left at 12:30pm and H & I had to wait until 1:55pm. Not much to do at Hoedspruit airport but we managed to have some lunch and we had somewhere to sit at least. Both of our flights were on time.

Highlights for us were the lion sightings – first one of the pride of 10 (they were active and walked right past the car) and then the ones at Leeupan (and their interaction with hyenas/giraffe). It was a really relaxing time and we all wished we could stay another week.

Until next time …

P, H, B & S