South African Safari 2025 Day 8 The day of the Hippo

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We had a full day driving around the Lower Sabi area. A leisurely breakfast took place on our veranda, watching, elephant, hippos and giraffe zig zag across the river munching on the reeds and grasses and cooling off in the water…..what a splendid view…how privileged we are to be able to experience the uninhibited bushlands where gods creatures roam free and all wildlife lives its natural life in its natural habitat.

Our chalet/hut was still delightful although the shower wasn’t quite as good as the previous days….very hot, hard to get cool enough and fairly low pressure…but it sufficed.

We headed up the tar road to Skakuza, because John had ear-wagged our neighbours saying there was a lion kill. We didn’t see any lions but we did see the buffalo carcass with numerous vultures and other raptures feeding on it..near by waiting patiently was a hungry crocodile.

We drove a few more kilometres further down the tar before turning back. We crossed the Sabi on the tar road to Tshokwane and took the first right hand dirt road which loops around.

From the low pontoon bridge we saw numerous hippos, some young, some showing that they needed the dentist, some grazing, some sleeping in large pods and some just wallowing in the water…A hippo can live for an average of 35 years in the wild. A male hippo can weigh up to 4500kg and a female 1600kg. They walk under water and can remain submerged for up to 5 minutes. It is responsible for the most human fatalities and injuries and is therefore known as the most dangerous mammal in Africa. We saw 99+ hippos throughout the day.

Our loop on the dirt road showed us 99+ impala, 20 WBV, 10 crocodile, 99+ elephant, 10 giraffe, 1 African Fish Eagle, 1 yellow-billed hornbill, 2 lilac breasted roller, 9 waterbuck, 55 Wildebeest, 31 zebra, 6 nyala, 3 kori bustard, 1 steenbok, 2 guinea fowl

We stopped at Mlondozi picnic and viewing point. It really is a lovely spot meticulously kept by Sipho who insisted we wrote in his compliments book when I went to thank him for doing such a great job.

We returned to Lower Sabi and ate our cheese sandwiches overlooking the waterhole just outside the camp gates…more hippos were floating around…some people call them a “thunder” of hippos but we prefer the collective noun “a pod of hippos”.

After a rest back at camp we made our way to the car park. We had booked a Parks Board Sunset Drive. It was in the big truck, a 24 seater. I must say we’ve had better drives…there was a group of 11 Finnish men and boys…….we have never been on a Safari truck with such loud, rude people. The youngest child of about 12years of age didn’t know how to talk and shouted the whole time…I shushed him several times. The men stood up most the time. I demanded that the two in front of me sat down stating quite clearly that we had all paid the same and all had the right to view…..grrrr …when one from the back decided to stand at the front I snapped “ sit down we can’t see” he proceeded to squat in the gang way. When he finally went back to his seat I sat sideways with my legs across the gangway so he couldn’t pass by. When we saw a herd of buffalo I stood up so he couldn’t pass or step over my legs…it was not a pleasant experience. We did see a beautiful male nyala I said stop to the driver who had missed it…unfortunately the chi,d decided to repeat my request and his shouting sent the poor bull scarpering, so no opportunity for a picture. Our driver and guide was quite apologetic when we said goodbye. We still tipped him because it wasn’t his fault these rude people had ruined the drive and he would not have been trained in how to deal with loud mouthed Finnish men.

We ate in the restaurant after our drive. It’s a Mug and Bean so John had a jalapeño big burger and I had buttermilk chicken burger…..another nice day ended with us playing cards on our veranda.

South Africa Safari 2025 Day 7- The day of the Giraffe

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We were sad to say goodbye to the so much improved Berg-en-dal…..not only did all the facilities work and the restaurant served good food but more importantly the staff were helpful and charming …so different from the last 2/3 times we visited….this will and can only help to attract the visitors, particularly those who bring large amounts of foreign exchange into the country.

After another breakfast of fruit and yogurt we packed up, left R50 under the kettle for the housekeeper and headed out on our safari drive through to our next camp.

Unlike yesterday we saw absolutely no impala from camp to the main road. We did however see several majestic, skyscrapers, more commonly known as giraffes. So neither of us won the first spot of the morning as I had guessed warthog and John had guessed zebra.

We turned up onto the tar and headed up to the S114 which starts off running parallel to the Crocodile River. When the road branches north we stayed on the Crocodile Bridge Gate Road. We began to see a few impala…infact it was mid afternoon before we counted 99+….the previous day we had seen this number within 10 minutes of leaving the camp…..what a difference a day makes…

It was another grey moody sky, slightly cooler and the drizzle pixelated the windscreen. We were pleased to see the same White-Back Vultures …John now calls them WBV’s….They were once again in a social gathering roosting in tree tops, known as a “committee” of vultures. When there are a lot of them in flight they are often called a “kettle” of vultures….I have no idea why. You often find them in large groups, you can usually tell if they are near a kill because there would be different species of raptures and not all the same. When it’s all the same bird it tends to be a social committee.

We continued along to Crocodile Bridge camp…passing quite a few giraffes. At one point we stayed watching a very young one for ages. It seemed to be all alone and was stood still looking around. Some time later its mother reappeared, much to its and our delight. It galloped across the road obviously delighted to be reunited with its mum.

At Crocodile Bridge camp we used the toilets and stretched our legs in the shop. Unfortunately Crocodile Bridge isn’t in as good order, I couldn’t find a toilet with a lock on the door which actually worked…oh well if someone got an eyeful so be it 🤣🤣. I bought John the obligatory t-shirt…he nearly didn’t get it as I was about to walk out….the shop assistant on the till decided he would serve another person in-front of me even though I had been waiting sometime…I was defiantly made to feel that my skin was the wrong colour. What a shame when Berg-en-dal had really turned a corner and progressed since our last visit.

We didn’t linger at Crocodile Bridge camp and headed up the tar to Lower Sabi. Our animal count was 99+impala, 26 Giraffe, 14 warthog, 68 Elephants, 1 rhino, 2 waterbuck, 29 WBV, 1 African Fish Eagle, 1 Martial Eagle, 5 Kudu, 22 Zebra, 2 Steenbok, 1 wildebeest, 8 vervet monkeys, 3 bushbuck, 27 hippo, 4 terrapins, 1 grey heron, 1 cormorant, 1 crocodile and 2 Quail…..a great variety of wildlife spotting.

On arrival at Lower Sabi we quickly booked in. Our Chalet is No 7 perimeter. It is described as having a kitchenette. The car port is next to the front door and you enter into the bedroom with two singles next to each other, large bathroom with a large shower, a wardroom, two bedside plinths, great air conditioner and a stand for your case. The sliding glass doors open into a room with a table for 4, a fridge, hot plates, microwave , cupboards containing all the required crockery and the third bed. This room has another set of glass sliding doors on to the patio which has a table and seating, a braii stand and it all overlooks the Sabi River. We spent several hours enjoying watching the elephants walk from the far side of the river to graze on the grasses close to our chalets fence.

We lit the braii and this time successfully cooked two sirloin steaks which we ate with salad and rice with an oyster and spring onion sauce. The steak was a little over done but a vast improvement from the cremated sausages 2 nights previously…I gave myself 6/10 although John said he scored it higher….i am determined to have cracked this barbecue malarkey by the time we get home 🤣🤣

South Africa Safari 2025 Day 6 – The Day of The Rhino!

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What can I say ….Berg- en- dal certainly goes against the normal South African trend…in that people perceive things are gradually going down hill….not here in Berg-en-dal…..great chalet …woke up and had a superb shower lovely powerful hot water, my dearest husband made me coffee, then we sat outside eating fresh fruit salad and black cherry yogurt….the bird song and the vervet monkeys thumping on the thatched roof of the chalet along with the squirrels racing up and down near by trees kept us entertained.

As we wanted to head out into the bush we left the dishes from last night and breakfast in the sink. Our wonderful housekeeper had washed them all up and cleaned, made our beds and cleared out the ashes from yesterday’s braii, by the time we got back at midday…what great service.

For our morning drive we decided to head along the tar road and take the gravel road along where we had seen the leopard two nights previously. John got the first spot of the day ..a family of warthogs, digging in the mud for their breakfast…these really are lovely creatures many just call them pigs but their majestic gingery manes and fantastic curled up tusks makes them far more than “just pigs”. They always make me smile…I love the way they kneel down with their front lower legs tucked under them when they forage, very practical and a lesson for short people to follow🤣🤣

We had seen 99+ impalas before reaching the main road. Our drive consisted of seeing the usual array of wildlife. As we traversed the gravel road there was no sign of the leopard or its kill up the tree…however the bush decided to grace us with another spectacular sight. On the far banks of the river were 4 adult rhino and one youngster…WOW!!!! …we so rarely see rhino in the park because poaching has virtually eradicated them. The rangers have worked so hard to try and protect them, they are of course one of the species which is critically endangered . We were so excited, a couple of other cars pulled up and quickly moved on…obviously they didn’t understand the significance of seeing so many of these beautiful creatures all together…we sat along time in awe of these giants.

We continued our circular route around to Afsaal rest area and used the toilets and stretched our legs in the shop. We then drove back to Berg-en-Dal via the tar…suddenly we saw movement in the bushes and low and behold we viewed another large female rhino with her elder calf. This time these had been dehorned so they must have been part of the Parks breeding and protection project….what a great job the rangers are doing.

We got back to our chalet by 12,30 and John made us cheese rolls for lunch. We then had a couple of frustrating hours trying to get on the Internet…..we were not successful for long.

By 3 pm we were frustrated and decided to go for another drive. We stopped at the top of the hill outside the camp and “ping” we had internet…so we loaded some photos and uploaded yesterday’s blog…it was so speedy it took us all of 5 minutes. We drove along the Crocodile River for several kms before cutting up on a different track…again we saw some lovely sights…in particular a couple of giraffe who stood, in the middle of this quiet dirt track, looking at us as if to say “ what right do you have to drive on my track” …..eventually they moved and let us pass. We saw numerous elephants and some very cute youngsters. Our wildlife spotting count for the day was 99+ impala, 39 Elephant, 16 warthog, 4 vervet monkeys , 1 squirrel, 10 guinea fowl, 7 rhino, 6 kudu, 21 zebra, 3 wildebeest, 8 giraffe, 2 common duiker, 27 Chacma baboons, 1 dwarf mongoose, 1 ibis, 1 white backed vulture, 2 red-billed horn bill.

It was a cloudy cool, day with a moody sky which looked like rain clouds, so on returning to camp at 6.00 pm we decided to “ chicken out” of the braii and headed for the restaurant. John had venison pot pie with chips and I had half a grilled chicken and chips. We shared a piece of cake and a portion of ice cream for dessert…naughty but nice… This cost us £22 including our drinks …what a great place Berg- en -dal is.

Tomorrow we head to Lower Sabi Camp.

South Africa Safari 2025. Day 5

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We had a lie in at Pestana Lodge due to the previous day being very tiring from the long drive and the exciting game drive. Unfortunately the longed for shower was rather deflating as although it had a huge rain water sprinkler…sprinkle was all it did with a few large drops from some of the areas of the head…why oh why do people think these showers are great…you have to wash your hair even if you don’t want too and you can’t direct the fine spray to the areas you do want too🤣🤣🤣 After a rather disappointing wetting, we headed for breakfast….the least said about that the better…cold and dried up sums it up….but customer relations promises to do better on our return visit…..if they don’t we will be crossing Pestana Lodge off our places to stay and not recommending them to anyone…the jury is still out and we will see if they perform better at the end of out holiday. One of the reasons we have always stayed here in the past is its tremendous location …..the bridge you see from the deck at Pestana is the one which leads you to the Kruger Malalane Gate ….so we are hoping they improve the quality and quantity of the food by the time we return in 3 weeks time.

We headed into Malalane to pick up our perishable consumables…low and behold just 9 days ago they opened a Woolworths – for those who don’t know Woolworths in South Africa is the same as Marks and Spencer’s in the UK…..(many years ago they couldn’t trade under M&S so they traded under Woolworths and it’s stayed the same since )… Great news, their food is always good and we could buy prepared mixed salads, mixed fruit platters, lovely black cherry yogurts, lurpak butter, mini cheese cakes, pork sausages, sirloin steaks etc etc…We bought a bag of ice and put it in the bottom of the cool box, hey presto we have our own on the go refrigerator …… shopping done we headed to Kruger gate.

Once in Kruger we headed up the tar and looped back along the dirt roads…a 5 hour game viewing drive..

After the evening drive the day before we were not surprised that we didn’t have lots of “big” sightings. We did see 99+ impala, 20 warthog, 14 zebra, 83 elephant, 9 giraffe, 9 kudu, 2 lion, 4 steenbok, 1 bushbuck, 1 squirrel, 12 white backed vulture, 1 bateleur eagle, 2 guinea fowl.

As you can see John is keeping a tally of what we see each day- once we’ve seen 100 they get tallied as 99+🤣🤣…..some wonderful sightings.

We arrived at Berg-en-dal camp just after 5pm. We had been allocated chalet no.10. It’s not a perimeter chalet but it is nice and quiet. The chalet is in excellent condition…with everything working. The camp seems extremely quiet, we haven’t seen many people and we’ve heard none of the usual noise of adults chattering and children playing.

Around 7.00 pm we made a braii- barbecue- It was our first time doing this…..although I’ve had plenty of braii’s I’ve never actually made one or cooked on one myself…..so our first attempt scored about 3 out of 10🤣 and we can only get better🤣….but our sausage and mash was very tasty and neither of us have died from food poisoning- yet🤣🤣…Thank goodness for the berry cheesecake for dessert…. Whilst eating we heard the roaring of a lion a wonderful serenade to our supper….A few games of cards later and we were ready for bed……looking forward to tomorrow.

South Africa Safari -2025 Day 3 & 4

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Tuesday 16th September we got up and breakfasted fairly early with Gill and off we went to get a SA SIM card for our roamer ….we went to Wendywood shopping Centre and called at Vodacom. We’ve used them a lot of times before…but the very unhelpful lady said no we couldn’t buy data sim from her it would have to go in my phone…more fool her…she missed out on a good sale…We walked out and across the walkway to MTN wow what a difference. They couldn’t be more helpfull…we bought 600 gb for just over £60 she set it all up for me assured me it would work all over Kruger and gained much praise and thanks from us…

We then progressed to “pick and pay” for essentials.. 2x braii briquettes, 2 x fire lighters, matches, water, Diet Coke, loo rolls ( I never like the ones provided🤣) kitchen roll, cheese crackers, marmite, eat some more biscuits, crisps, tinned veg, smash, rice and noodles…. That was it, all the nonperishable consumables we needed for 3 weeks in the bush. We are going to pick up the perishables meat, cheese, butter, fresh veg and fruit, yogurts, bread at Malalane on day 5.

The rest of the day we spent back at our friends, playing with the grandchildren.

For supper we went out to Ocean Basket and had the Mega platter between us…it had 3 peices of line fish, calamari rings and tentacles, mussels and 30 Prince Prawns…we had it all grilled. Gill had lashings of chilli on hers and I was very anti-social and smothered mine in garlic…John had his straight..all for the cost of £ 30 with our drinks it was just under £40. I forgot to get a picture until we had nearly finished it 🤣

Wednesday morning we were up bright and early and the car was packed by 8,30. We left Jo’burg at 8.50. Just 30 minutes after leaving the city, we were out in open countryside with significantly less traffic. Our route took us along the N12 which seamlessly becomes the N4 all the way through to Malalane. We travelled past EMalahleni previously called Witbank (10.15 am 145km). Shortly afterwards we paid in cash the toll of R81 at Middelburg Plaza. The next landmark reached is Millys at 11.15- 254 km from Jo’burg- a good place for petrol, toilets or just a leg stretch…they sell super freshly made trout pate. The next toll is a little further on from Millys and cost R122. At this point the N4 splits and you can go either the left or right route they both rejoin some 80 kilometres later…we usually take the lower, right route. This takes you through Water Boven and past the paper mill at Ngodwana ( 11.50am, 314 kms from our start). Nelspruit, now known as Mbombela is the next main town after the N4 becomes one again. We arrived there at 12.25, -355km into our journey….so far so good…it was a great quick trip with a much improved N4. However they haven’t finished the improvements yet and the following 48 km to the next toll at Nkomazi Plaza took us nearly an hour and a half due to road works and the rock blasting required for widening this section of the N4 (R 92 – 13.59) From here to Kruger gate is just over 20 Km….we arrived at 14.05. We quickly purchased our Wild Card and found out we could get on the sunset drive from the gate. We booked into Pestana Lodge, which is about 200 m from the gate. Just had time for a quick wash and brush up before returning to the gate for the National Parks Sunset Drive.

Patrick our ranger, driver and guide picked us up with 7 others. Off we went….wow what a drive….we couldn’t believe on our first drive we saw….wild dog

Quickly followed by a big male leopard who had just finished his impala supper.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement we came across two male lions at the edge of the road, settling down for the night.

We had to laugh when the wild dogs ran along the tarmac, the leader didn’t see the lion until it stood up and the Wild dogs beat a hasty retreat…it was the second sighting we had of them in the one evening

We had several other sightings including a genet and a spitting cobra

What a superb start to our Safari…we returned to our hotel ecstatic, which was just as well because our supper was only mediocre…but we didn’t care….we retired to bed happy and tired….more tomorrow please.