We had one last full day in Lower Sabie.  It had rained on and off throughout the night and it was still heavily overcast.  It was also the coolest morning we have had (21 degrees at 6am). Unfortunately game wise the morning drive was unproductive except for the standard things we had already seen. The bird life though was incredible. It seems all the birds were out to play after the rain. And they were pretty...

The kids were heading home today and so we drove with them down to Skukuza before heading to Lower Sabie where Helen and I will spend our last 2 nights. It was really good having the kids with us for the 3 days even though the game viewing while they were here was not as good as we would have liked. Unfortunately this morning was no exception to that. We left around 6:15am and drove down...

Today was a significant day in our family's life - 25 years of marriage. And Helen managed to do something she has not done in the 26 years I have known her until today. We went on our usual morning drive. We went to the Sweni Bird Hide. On route we saw 3 separate sightings of hyena and a variety of other game. While sitting at the hide and watching crocodile (out of the water) and...

I was pretty tired last night (entertaining the kids took it out of me it seems) and so that is why no blog last night. Just didn't have the energy to do it last night. Not that it was a particularly busy day. We did our usual morning drive (though it took some effort to get the 4 young ones up so we could leave at 5:30am). We went down to the N'wanetsi picnic & viewing...

Another long drive today from Shingwedzi down to Satara (about 170kms). We decided to set out earlier rather than later so that we could get the majority of the drive done in the cooler part of the day. We woke up at 5am and were on the road at around 5:45am. At the junction of the road running from the camp with the north/south road were a clan of hyena (or a cackle of hyena). They...

We didn't have high expectations after yesterday as we could not possibly see how we could have had another day like yesterday. As far as game & bird viewing were concerned we were right. It was very much a low-key day but then we also didn't spend much time out game viewing today but spent more time in the camp. Helen wanted to get another run in and she did that before we headed out this...

We have a book called Kruger Park Drives (recently published) and it rates each of the roads in the KNP. The road we planned to take this AM was rated 5-stars. And they were spot on.  We headed north toward Punda Maria and then took the dirt road (S56) that runs along the river (though only patches of water). The game was consistently spread over the course of the travel north. It started with the usual...

We changed camps today going further north to Shingwedzi which is 108 kms from Letaba. Helen wanted to fit in one more run this week so she decided to do it before we left today. We also figured that leaving early is better than leaving late even though we would probably arrive well before the 2pm check in time. The early mornings are much better for game viewing. We headed out at 6:15am and the temperature...

It was predicted to be the hottest day today since we arrived and it didn't fail to deliver. Helen went for a run at before 5:30am and it was already well into the 20s at that point.  We went out for a morning game drive at about 6am and by the time we climbed into the car it was 24 degrees already. At one stage today my weather app said 37 degrees but feels like 43...

We decided today to drive down to Olifants and breakfast there. The dirt road down follows the river all the way to Olifants.  Unfortunately the game was not co-operating this morning (or for that matter the whole day).  We saw very little and in fact concluded the day with having seen only one of the Big 5 - buffalo.  It is not often that I can remember a day in the Kruger Park without seeing an...