We woke up fairly late in our Pestana lodge deluxe room…..very comfortable…only the coffee maker didn’t work and the aircon after a while turned into pneumatic drill ….
Looking over the river it lived up to its name because on the opposite bank was a crocodile.
We wandered up for breakfast..word was obviously out “ awkward customer alert” because we were treated like royalty. The food was much improved from our previous stay….everything was hot, nothing had run out. There was a good selection of cooked and continental style food and we enjoyed what we had.
Heading into Kruger we were pleased we had booked in the previous day because after a 20 minute wait to get to the front of the queue we were dealt with rapidly……..there were two receptionists on duty,…..part of the problem is that the entry forms haven’t changed for the past 37 years, except for the fact they used to be on A4 paper so there was space to write the information they want…now they are on A5 paper…half the size and impossible to fit the answers to the questions in the boxes….so everyone misses bits out which means it takes twice as long at the counter because they have to fill it in there….its all a bit pointless as it would be much quicker to do away with the paper and the counter staff just scan your id and put the info into their computer…they do that anyway by looking at the paper copy you give them and you still have to show them your id……anyway having finally got the permit we drove to security…nice chap he looked inside the car and in the bags in the boot…i light heartedly said the only thing we had which we shouldn’t have was 3 weeks of Kruger dust….unsmilingly he replied he could see that….oh dear sense of humour failure..
At last we were in and once again driving the H3…. Ashort while after the gate a mass of cars appeared all jostling for position….yes your right…a leopard had been seen but it had laid down and was no longer visible…..another “almost saw”. On we drove.
Just before the bridge a large breeding herd of Elephant crossed the road.
Further on we realised we were seeing a lot more plains animals than previously. This was probably due to the previous rain, which we’d had a few days ago, bringing through the new sweeter grass…everywhere looked transformed from grey/yellow sun scorched grasses to a green and lush and leafy landscape the transition was very noticeable.
We saw small herds of zebra, a lot more impala and a very large herd of wildebeest.
Past Afsaal we took the first right again…it goes for 3 km and then splits. The day before we had taken the long left hand loop, which took us most the day, so today we took the right hand loop, which we hadn’t driven for a few weeks…….it was quite prolific in game. We saw a small herd of dagger boys. These were the first buffalo we’d seen in several days.
Next we stopped to converse with a very pretty Kudu. There were actually 3 or 4 females browsing but we couldn’t see a male.
A little further on we did come across a huge male kudu of at least 6 years old, he was too shy to pose for a picture… We came across numerous elephants right at the side of the road, having either come up from the river or going down to it….the majority were happy to let us pass by but one or two of them showed attitude towards us which caused me to rapidly move on…I wasn’t going to see whether an elephant could out run a car🤣
We took the next turning left and went across the pontoon bridge below the weir. There was a fish eagle in the tree on the opposite side of the river. Also just a little further along in the shade of a huge tree the swish of a tail alerted us to a lioness sleeping…a difficult spot to say the least, but we also spotted her lifting her paw to rub her face and another tail swish.
We stopped on the pontoon to admire a large elephant drinking above us.
On the edge of the weir red dragon flies were dancing in and out for a drink. A lovely peaceful sight.
We continued on and had a slow drive back to the gate. The drive became more sparse of wildlife. We cleared security at the gate, this was our last self drive of our trip.
Back at the hotel we quickly changed and walked up to reception to wait for the Parks Board Safari vehicle to pick us up for our sunset drive. There were about 12 others waiting. The big truck arrived with Loyd at the wheel….he’s taken us out many times over the past 12 years…we remembered him well.
Back into Kruger we went, he picked up 10 more passengers at the gate making it a full house! He rattled off down the tar, with sightings of a hyena, elephants, a giraffe and of course impala. Loyd was in a hurry…which means he had to have had some animals whereabouts previous intel. Turning on to the dirt we soon came across a fabulous crash of rhino…5 in total. There was a delightful youngster. Loyd explained that it was over 6 months old because it was eating grass as well as still suckling. This evidently is good news because it means it could survive if anything happened to its mum. We enjoyed the magnificence of this prehistoric looking beast for several minutes before moving on.
On we went…Loyd was a man on a mission…we soon found out why…under some bushes were a pack of wild dogs…a fabulous sighting. We sat a long time watching them sleep, get up and lay down again….Loyd explained about their hunting tactics and how they don’t actually kill their prey they rip it apart…we already knew this about them…they may look cute but they are savage killers.
After the wild dogs Loyd drove sedately. He pointed out a chameleon…in the vehicles lights they change colour making them shine out rather than blend in with the bush. We also saw a juvenile bateleur eagle in a tree….then a young bull elephant with attitude…Loyd explained that male elephants only join a herd at mating time. They then mate with the females and then leave the herd again. This is the first time we’d heard this. The younger bulls form bachelor herds where as the older bulls often stay alone.. Loyd clapped his hands and the young bull retreated, his bravado disappearing.
A short while later we saw another rhino.
We continued the drive seeing very little else, our companions didn’t have a great talent for working the torch spotlights into the night. Back on the tar we came across a hyena den with two pups out playing.
Our wildlife count for the day was 99+ impala, 1 crocodile, 1 warthog, 37 zebra, 99+ elephants, 19+ wildebeest, 75 buffalo, 6 girrafe, 1 bushbuck, 1 wahlberg’s eagle, 6 Kudu, 1 lion, 2 bateleur Eagle, 1 African Fish Eagle, 1 grey heron, 4 hyena, 6 rhino, 6 wild dog, 2 scrub hare and 1 chameleon.
Returning to the gate it was pitch black and Loyd dropped of the clients he had picked up…some of the young women started walking across the carpark to the toilets…Loyd shouted at them to get in their car….looking at us out of the darkness next to the toilets was a large hyena.
We were dropped off back at the hotel. Once again we sat on the viewing deck for supper. The floodlight river looked very romantic and we could hear the grunts of hippos. We both had lasagne for supper.
We had had the perfect ending to a wonderful safari. We never know when or if we will be back we can only say…” thank you Kruger you are in our hearts and in our dreams. We hope to see you again.”
We retired to our room and had an earlish night in preparation for tomorrow’s long drive back to Johannesburg/ Pretoria.
2 J's World of Adventure 