Gates now open at 5:30am and we were out slightly after that (5:35am). We thought everyone would be out by then but of the cars in our section (about 10 or so), we were the first to leave. At 10:50am, our one set of neighbours have not been seen. Not sure where they are but car hasn’t moved. And it never moved the entire day. I saw them once when they came back from the shop but otherwise they were indoors the whole day (honeymoon?). The other neighbour (lets call him big neighbour), went to breakfast at 10am. They don’t seem to be in a rush to go anywhere. When they walked back after brunch, big neighbour said to his wife “This is just the perfect life” – yes we share the sentiment.
H and I decided to head down to Nkuhlu Picnic site. It is as far as you can go down that particular road as the road further down is washed away in more than one place. I think it will be some time before that one is open. At the moment there is only one way out of the camp and that is by driving north over Sand River, then east following the river and then cross back over heading south. The lower road on the southern side of the Sand River is also damaged and not driveable at the moment.
It was obvious straightaway that so much more game is visible around Skukuza. We saw loads of impala almost right outside the camp. And then on the one junction we had hyena lying nicely on the side of the road for us to view. Once we crossed the Sand River (the river is almost still going over the bridge), we headed east and a few kilometers along we found two lions mating right on the road. They did it once just in front of us and then after a few minutes the lionness got up and male lion followed and they walked right past me … car off so couldn’t put window up and I thought “better keep straight on walking and focus on your business lions” which they fortunately did do otherwise I wouldn’t be typing this! Then just as they got past us, they repeated the act again. When we came back an hour or so later, they were on the side of the road in the bush and no doubt will continue to entertain the whole day.
On the drive this morning we could see the devastation the flooding rivers have caused. H described it as ‘Eden after the Fall’ this time! The picture below probably doesn’t do it justice. The debris from trees and roots and even concrete & tar from bridges and roads was visible. Even now the river is running powerfully. You can hear it when you cross a bridge. I haven’t mentioned this in the posts before but the quantity of water everywhere is amazing. The bush just oozes water. When we have stopped at times to look at an animal or bird, we notice that the bushveld is actually marshy from the rain. In places there are little streams running across the road and you just wonder where the water is coming from but it is literally just running out of the bush.
The birding continues to amaze us. We are past 200 birds now. Obviously it is slowing down as we already have a lot of the obvious birds though incredibly we still have some relatively standard ones to see. It took us until yesterday (for example) to see a crested francolin. They are usually all over the place but we have hardly seen any ground birds. We can only think it is because of the flooding and they have moved to higher ground or something. We did however see another two Ospreys today. That makes 4 in 2 days. Prior to yesterday, I had only see 2 in my life and now I have seen 6 and 4 in the last 24 hours. It is a rare Kruger bird though right now you wouldn’t believe it.
We got back around 9am, had breakfast and then spent the rest of the day in the camp until around 4pm. I had to do some work today (unfortunately) so it was helpful to just be in the camp. Around 4pm we headed to the Selati Restaurant which has been entirely redone since we were last here. It is now a coffee shop, restaurant and small shop. Really nicely done with a children’s playground. H wanted a lime milkshake and I had a coke float. After that we headed to the Lake Panic bird hide for one more look to see if there was anything interesting.
Braai for dinner though through that process I feel like I lost a kilogram. It is incredibly hot but also humid (the humidity is what is unusual). You do nothing and sweat so you can imagine what it was like braaiing tonight. While getting the braai ready, I dropped the braai grid on the floor (couldn’t hold it) and it made a pretty loud noise. H was concerned I had damaged myself somehow (fortunately hadn’t besides bruising my thumb). Very impressed though that big neighbour came over to check whether all was OK. Honeymoon couple – still haven’t ventured out. When it was cooked, it was another lovely meal of rib-eye steak (thinking of my son-in-law while I ate that) salad and potato done in the braai.
Until tomorrow …
P & H