We were up and out at 5:30am this morning again. We headed south east on the old Voortrekker road. It was the first ‘official’ road in the Kruger Park and has arguably the most historical significance. It was a road used by traders at the end of the 1800s. It connected the Mozambique (then called Portuguese East Africa) ports to the goldfields to the west of Pretoriuskop. Game was wiped out by the traders in the area and by 1902 Hamilton Stevenson noted in one account that he saw only one Reedbuck between Pretoriuskop and Skukuza. In 1961, white rhino was reintroduced along this road and it is one of the reasons why generally you see far more rhino in around Pretoriuskop than anywhere else in the park (though we still haven’t seen any). On this road, Jock of the Bushveld was also born and there is a plaque commemorating the spot. Jock’s story was written by Percy Fitzpatrick who himself a former trader before he became a politician, businessman and writer.

It is a dirt road and generally not favored by visitors to the park which makes it more attractive to me. We saw a lot of game along the road including at least 5 sightings of elephant and numerous raptors. The highlight was when we spotted a single male lion walking and he crossed the road in front of us and vanished in the bush. No other car in sight – just us and the male lion. Further down the road we saw another male lion do the same thing though this time we were with other cars. We also saw two Verreaux Eagle Owl’s sitting in a tree right next to the road. They are largest owls found in Africa at around 60-70cms.

We stopped for breakfast at Afsaal which is a picnic spot. We had taken our own eggs & bacon to make breakfast on a gas skottel (foreigners might need to Google that!). After breakfast we headed north and then back west to Pretoriuskop. The tar road back yielded far less game sightings. Part of the issue was that at 9:15am it was already 31 C. It got up to 37 C today and is currently 35 C at 5pm while I am typing this.

We have a long drive tomorrow (as we change camps) and so we decided to spend the rest of the day in the camp just relaxing. We didn’t add many new birds today and so we are currently on 107 for the trip. With the long drive tomorrow and different terrain we hope to add a few more. We are also hoping to see leopard, cheetah & rhino which remain elusive.

Until tomorrow

P, S (she saw the lion first), H & B