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

Today was somewhat disappointing in terms of game and we only added another 6 birds to the trip list taking us to 128. I was targeting 150 for the trip so unless we do spectacularly tomorrow on the way out, it seems we will be short of that target. Most of the migrants don’t seem to have returned yet – in fact the only migrant we have seen was the European Bee-Eater.

We did our usual morning game drive – leaving at 5:30am; heading north along the river and then following the river to the Engelhart Dam for our morning coffee. We stopped at the bird hide on the way back to camp and picked up a few more trippers (3 of the 6 actually). B and S both passed over 200 lifers on the trip so this visit has boosted their birding quite a lot.

It was much cooler today and much more pleasant both in the camp and on the game drives. It only got to 31 C today but it really didn’t ever feel that hot as their was a wind blowing most of the day that made it feel much cooler. We did an evening drive to the north and then west and back to camp (again along the river much of the way). While there was the usual game in the river bed – elephant, waterbuck, impala, vervet monkeys etc – we never saw any predators. We did another Verreaux’s (Giant) Eagle Owl (our 3rd of the trip which is quite remarkable given we often come and never seen any).

We had a braai for our last meal here. It was a good call to braai tonight and not last night as the weather was much cooler and very pleasant sitting outside actually.

We are disappointed not to have seen either leopard or cheetah in the 7 days we have been here so far. We have big anticipation for tomorrow. We are taking the longer route out of the park to ensure we give ourselves maximum opportunity to see what we haven’t seen and to add to the bird list for the trip.

Until tomorrow when we should be home when I type this …

P, S, H & B (he deserves his last spot today given all the chirping he did today)

Today was going to be a scorcher. Weather service was predicting a ‘heat wave’ for the area and 41 C. Fortunately it ‘only’ got to 39 C. When we left on our 5:30am drive it was already 22 C. It was a short drive as I had a meeting I needed to do at 8am and wanted to have some breakfast before we started. There are some very good game spotting roads that run along the Olifants River. We took those and saw a lot of standard game – elephant, giraffe, waterbuck, kudu and a huge herd of buffalo. Early morning coffee overlooking the Engelhart Dam and then back to camp so I could do my meeting. B, S & H headed out for another drive to the other side of the dam. I gave them strict instructions to not see anything good and fortunately they didn’t!

They got back mid-morning while I was still doing my meeting. The cellphone reception is very erratic and so that made contributing to my meeting quite difficult. I had to type my points or questions into the chat box as they couldn’t hear me when I tried to speak. The connection kept dropping so I had to constantly reconnect. The hardship of trying to work from a game park!

We decided to go out late afternoon and do drinks at the dam. B, S & H all had a G&T and I acted the designated driver and responsibly didn’t drink. We just for around 30 minutes at the dam. We had one mammal on the evening drive and that was a Common Duiker. First one for the trip. We also added only very few birds today – only 2 to the trip list taking my total to 122.

We ate in the restaurant tonight as we didn’t feel like doing a braai when the temperature was 36 C at 6pm. Even now as I type this (at 9:20pm) it is 31 C. Besides the meeting which consumed some of my day, it was a relaxed and chilled day.

Until tomorrow …

P, S, H & B

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)

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

We were up to go out as the gates opened this morning. The plan was to head north to Mestel Dam for our morning coffee and rusks and then do the loop south again back towards Pretoriuskop and then do the Fayi Loop to the south of the camp and then back to camp for breakfast. It was again overcast in the morning and so birding was sparse (birds like the sun in the morning). Game was also sparse and we didn’t really see much on the north loop. On the southern loop, we did have the best sighting of the day and that was a herd of Sable Antelope. They are quite rare – there are 280 of them in the whole of the Kruger Park. We saw a herd of 14 which means we managed to see 5% of the population of the KNP. They are quite majestic. We had the added benefit of them being right on the side of the road and were quite relaxed. We did experience our, now seemingly usually problem, of an elephant bull in the middle of the road and planning on not going anywhere. It meant we had to turn around and find another route back to camp.

We spent the rest of the day in the camp and did some birding in camp adding quite a few birds to our trip list (and B & S added some to the life lists). The clouds burnt off and it warmed up considerably (getting to around 32 C). We headed out again for an evening drive at 4:30pm. We did the Fayi Loop again and unfortunately for the first 30 minutes or so we saw no game at all. We did manage to see some birds and got B to his 200th lifer on the drive. We also saw an excellent sighting of a Little Sparrowhawk right next to the road and then we saw the herd of Sable Antelope again. Not often (if ever) that I can claim to have see such a rare animal twice in one day!

Unfortunately it was a no predator day but the rare sighting of Sable Antelope and B reaching 200 lifers made up for it. We are on 101 birds for the trip so far. My aim was at least 150 so that looks hopeful. Some of the migrants seem to be back – for instance we have seen European Bee-Eaters but then we haven’t some others eg. European Rollers.

We had a braai again for dinner. We would have done it anyway but we would have been forced to do so because loadshedding was from 5-7:30pm. It was a lovely evening with hardly an wind at all and the temperature is currently 24 C (at 9:30pm).

Until tomorrow (with hopefully better predator sightings)

P, H, S & B

It was very hot yesterday and so we decided to do a short evening drive yesterday just to the nearby dam and back. It is only about 10 kms away. As we got near the dam there is a turn just before the dam and there were numerous cars parked off there. We turned off and immediately saw a two male lions lying and sleeping in the shade of the tree. They weren’t going anywhere and I doubt they were going to do anything until the sun went down and we had to be back in the camp. There was no point in hanging around especially since we had a much better sighting earlier in the day with the pride of 10 and they were active. We went to the dam, saw some of the usual game and so headed back to camp.

H went for a walk and came back saying she think she saw an injured Eastern Nicator. It was flapping around the bushes and given it would be a lifer for me, we headed back to have a look and I saw it doing the same thing. H later read that they can pretend to be injured to distract you away from their nest. We aren’t sure if it was genuinely injured or whether it was trying to distract us but either way we saw it and it was a lifer for me so that means I am now on 509 lifers. Braai (chicken wings and sausage) for dinner and then off to bed early.

We left Satara at 6am this morning as we were changing camps and heading for Pretoriouskop for the next 3 nights. It is a relative long drive (140kms) which you would think would only take a short time but given you drive at around 40 km/h and stop for sightings etc, it probably took 6 hours. It was much cooler today and overcast most of the day (though it never rained). More pleasant for driving but not good for bird watching. The birds were very quiet. We saw some hyena on the road (younger ones) and then we saw their parents a little further down the road as well. We saw the standard game – wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, impala, baboons etc. The only new addition to our animal list was that we saw nyala at one of the waterholes.

We stopped for breakfast at Tshokwane (it is a picnic spot as you head south) and then we stopped again at Skukuza for a leg stretch, toilet break and milshakes/ice cream. Our final stop was Pretoriouskop. We arrived just after 2pm (check in time is 2pm) and so we were able to get our chalet (it is actually a 3-bedroom chalet) immediately. Relaxing afternoon catching up on whatsapp and emails and a little birdwatching. We are now up to 82 birds so far for the trip.

B, S & H decided to do a late afternoon run (likely the coolest day for the rest of the week). We skipped the evening drive (given the length of the drive to get here). Chicken schnitzel and mushrooms on braai for dinner and then off to bed.

Until tomorrow!

P, H, S & B (S moved up because she pointed out she had been a help to me … usually asking to move up results in you moving down automatically but she did a worthy thing so I promoted her one spot only)

We left home yesterday just after 7am for 8 days in the Kruger National Park (KNP). Second trip to KNP this year. This time our good friends (B&S) are with us as well. We flew from Cape Town directly to Hoedspruit on CemAir (apparently pronounced Sem not Chem – or at least that is how all the crew said it). Left bang on time and arrived 10 minutes early. After a quick trip into Hoedspruit for provisions for the 8 days and some KFC (our tradition) for lunch, we headed into the park.

It is about 100 kms from Hoedspruit to Satara (the camp we were staying at) – about half outside the park and half inside the park. The left side of the road is game reserve though and we saw elephant, impala, kudu, zebra, buffalo and warthog just on drive before we entered the park. It is very dry here at the moment with the summer rains yet to start. It is also very hot – yesterday was 30 C degrees late afternoon and today but 10am it was 38 degrees already. It is projected to get to 43 C later today!

Once we were through the park gate we continued to see game regularly including impala, kudu, wildebees, zebra, giraffe, steenbok, elephant and numerous birds. By the time we arrived at the camp (just before 5pm), we had seen 28 bird species already. We had the mandatory braai for dinner (steak) and then we headed early to bed as we were tired after the days travels.

This morning we were up just after 5am and headed out on our morning game drive at 5:30am. Game was sparse to begin with but then we came across a pride of 10 lion. They were pretty playful and active. They were mainly on the right side of the car but then they got up and walked across to the left – one male lion was so close to the car (in fact he sniffed the front bumper) that Helen could have put her hand out and touch him (and lost her hand if she had!). It really was a great sighting. A little further down the road we saw a massive herd of buffalo (probably over 500) and ended up stopping for a morning coffee with the buffalo walking right past our car.

We stopped for another coffee (and rusks) at the Nwanetsi picnic spot and then another stop at the Sweni birdhide before heading back to the camp. On route back we spotted a spotted hyena walking along and then it went into a culvert under the road and never re-emerged – we assume that was its den. We got back to the camp at just before 11am and I said it was 38 C at that point. You can only survive outside for short bursts of time and then you have to get back into the chalet with aircon. We are currently at 53 birds for the trip.

It makes no sense to be on a game drive until much later today so we will just relax in the camp and go out for a drive much later today – hopefully when things have started to cool off a little – though I suspect that is hopeful!

Until tomorrow P, H, B & S