We were packed and ready to leave at 5:30am. We had a long drive – 211kms – to Letaba which is our next (and last) camp. We decided to go north first on a dirt road and then head east on the tar road to Skukuza where we would have breakfast. It was a good call as there was plenty of game to be seen on the dirt road including elephant, impala, kudu, zebra, wildebeest, waterbuck, giraffe, warthog etc. What we did see though when we turned onto the tar road was something I haven’t seen before in the Kruger – a road block! Not sure what they were checking for but they clearly weren’t interested in us and just smiled and waved at us. We saw another one when we joined the road to the Kruger Gate – with army in attendance with automatic rifles. Maybe they were looking for poachers?
The road heading from Phabeni gate was both rewarding and frustrating. Again, lots of wildlife to be seen but the downside is every tour operator and his cousin was coming in the gate just when we turned onto the road. They are incredibly selfish and block the road without a care in the world for anyone else in the park. They drive from sighting to sighting. They are clearly only interested in tips from their foreign clientele and want to ensure that have the best views of everything. We stopped for coffee at a dam and it felt a little like a train station at one point given so many comings and goings (and point out the hippo while stationary for a few moments). The reward was wild dog lying right next to the road though. Also incredibly rare in the park and usually hard to see as they are generally on the move. But given the quantity of vultures around it seemed they had recently eaten and were just relaxing in the shade of the trees. It seems foreign tourists don’t come to the park to see wild dog though as they just moved on quickly from the sighting.
We had breakfast at Skukuza and then headed up to north as we headed to Letaba. On route we planned to stop at Leeupan. I am a member of rare bird sighting group and they had posted that a rare bird was seen at Leeupan on Friday and was rumored to still be there early this week. We did not see the bird. Though the 2 hyena, journey of giraffe trying to drink, baboon troop alarm calling & wildebeest might have had something to do with why we didn’t see it. Or it could have been the giraffe all suddenly frozen looking right and then a lioness coming down to drink that was the reason for us not seeing it. Or maybe it was the other 7 lions lying under the tree and then another 2 coming down to drink. Or maybe all of the above! What an incredible sighting. H says she reckons in the Top 10 game experiences she has had. Add to that the amazed look on the neighboring vehicles occupants faces when another car just pulled in front of them and blocked their view and turned off their ignition and it was a sighting that had every element of entertainment possible.
By this point the temperature was well over 30 C and heading into the high 30s. We thought that would be the end of the game sighting as everything would be under a tree shortly. We stopped briefly at Tshokwane for the toilet and continued north to Satara. The game was again plentiful and at one point I reckon we just went from zebra to giraffe to elephant to wildebeest to impala to steenbuck to zebra (and so the cycle continued). Add in a smattering of new birds for the trip (including an African Hawk Eagle and Black-chested Snake Eagle (which I hadn’t seen since early 2020), it was a pretty good game sighting day. Bird list for trip up to 120 birds and we didn’t really try to bird today given the length of the drive.
We arrived at Letaba at just after 3pm and it was 38 C at that point. It is now 32 C at 8:30pm. Tomorrow is meant to be over 40 C. It is HOT … VERY HOT.
Until tomorrow …
P, S, H & B (B complained that he should have moved up as he cooked breakfast yesterday … I agree – I moved him up one spot for that and then moved him down again because he complained)