Robert's Travels

The seventh day of our tour started early - we awoke at 4:30, showered, got dressed and left our hotel room shortly before 5:30. We picked up a packed breakfast on our way to the bus, and the bus pulled out of the hotel parking lot at 5:30 sharp. Our destination was Kruger National Park - the site of the full-day safari we were taking. The drive to the Phabeni Gate took about 25 minutes, and we pulled in to Kruger National Park minutes before 6:00. The sun was still down, but the sky was starting to lighten.

The tour group kept the same jeep assignments as our previous safari, and after grabbing some blankets from the ranger we were driving into the park at 6:15. The sun still hadn’t broken the horizon yet, and it was quite chilly. The open-air jeep provided little resistance to the chilly air, and we were all glad for our layers of clothing. We did not have a thermometer but it was probably 15 degrees Celsius before the wind, and the breeze brought that temperature down by at least 5 degrees. The Aussies in our jeep were all quite cold, but Todd and I didn’t find it to be too bad.

As we began driving away from the gate the sun started getting stronger, and shortly after 6:40 we saw the sun clear the horizon. Before the sun broke the horizon we had already seen a herd of impala grazing on the side of the road, as well as several kudus in the bushes beside the road. The ranger told us not to get too excited by the rank of impala - they were some of the most common animals in the park and by the end of the day we would have seen hundreds of them. Shortly after the sun rose we saw several white backed vultures in a tree not far from the road. There was likely a kill on the ground below, unfortunately we didn’t have a good vantage point to see it. As we drove on we were certainly able to smell the kill, however!

We drove on, and several minutes later Todd exclaimed that he could see zebra! The jeep pulled off and the ranger quickly identified the zebras on a ridge a fair distance from the car. The ranger was quite impressed that Todd was able to pick them out, as even he had trouble seeing them! We were not close enough to get great photos, but we were optimistic we’d get a better look at them later in the day. The drive continued - we took a right turn off the paved road and began driving on a dirt road deeper into the bush.

Shortly after leaving the paved road we saw our first elephant in Kruger. The elephant was on his own, and a bit of a distance from the jeep so we were not able to get close-up photos of it. This was the first of our “Big 5” sightings at Kruger - we were hopeful that we would have the opportunity to see all five, however the ranger cautioned us that it had become rare to see rhinos in Kruger. The decline, as he described it, was due to heavy poaching in recent years. It was sad to hear that hunters had managed to make such a dent in the ecosystem in the park, but the ranger explained that recent anti-poaching efforts were beginning to have an impact and the park was not seeing the same rhino population decline that had been common up to about five years ago.

We continued on and saw a kudu right by the road. We got a few photos and moved on. We saw a few impala a short while later. Around this time the ranger received word from another vehicle that they had found an impala carcass in a tree not far from where we were, and they believed that they had seen a leopard in the vicinity. The ranger raced the jeep along the road to get to the site, and a couple freezing cold minutes later we arrived at the site of the kill.

The impala carcass was hanging from a branch about 15 feet off the ground. Its legs were danging towards the earth, and it looked like it had been torn open along the stomach. We heard from another jeep already at the site that there was a leopard in the area, so we parked our jeep and waited with baited breath. Several moments after parking someone in our vehicle whispered that they could see the head of a leopard, and we all tried to get a look. Belinda was warning us that the leopard was very sensitive to noise, and loud talking could scare it off, so we were all trying our best to get a good view of the animal without being loud. We watched the leopard approach the tree with the kill from behind a large termite hill; it took the animal around 10 minutes to carefully cross maybe 50 feet worth of distance. Once it was comfortable it took a few graceful leaps and was suddenly in the tree, eating the carcass. We watched in amazement as the leopard ate its breakfast; it was certainly a sight I don’t think that I will forget. It was possible to hear the jaws of the leopard crushing the bones of the impala as it ate, which added a whole new layer of intensity to the experience.

Several moments after the leopard began eating we saw a hyena slowly approach out of the bush and take up a waiting position underneath the tree. The ranger explained to us that the hyena was unable to climb the tree, and was waiting for bits of meat to fall off of the tree as the leopard ate. When the leopard spotted the hyena it adjusted the carcass in the tree to pull it up, as apparently the hyena might try to grab one of the danging legs and pull it down. We spent several more minutes watching the scene before we decided to move on and let others view the scene. Just as we were pulling away the hyena got its wish and the leopard accidentally dropped a bit of meat - within seconds the hyena had it and we saw a second hyena take up position underneath the tree. It was tricky to get away from the site - word had gotten around and a lot of cars and other jeeps had filled in around us while everything was unfolding. It took us about 5 minutes to get away - the site of a kill apparently turns the park roads into parking lots.

As we continued the drive everyone was excited from the previous sighting. The leopard was the only of the “Big 5” that we hadn’t seen on our last drive, and from what we were told by Belinda this particular scene was a super rare thing to see. I believed this - both Belinda and our ranger were taking photos of the scene with own with their cell phones! As we drove on we saw more impala, and got a cute photo of two impala cleaning each other. We also saw some “blue ball” monkeys just chilling on the side of the road, and after taking some photos continued on. We saw more impala and some more elephants in the distance. By this point in the morning it was almost 9:45, and we hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, so we pulled into the central camping area in the park for a 45 minute break.

We stood near the picnic tables and ate breakfast with some of the Aussies from our tour group. There were a number of monkeys near the picnic tables, and they were aggressively grabbing anything left alone that looked like food. Todd put his breakfast bag down on the table for a moment and less than ten seconds after letting go a monkey had grabbed it and tried running off with it. Lucky for Todd the bag was too heavy for the monkey, and after a struggle to pick the bag up the monkey let it go. Todd quickly grabbed his bag back, and we were quite a bit more cautious with our food after that. It took about 30 minutes to eat breakfast, one piece at a time. After breakfast we took a quick walk around the picnic area before getting back into the jeep for our next drive. The jeep pulled out of the parking lot at 10:30 and drove deeper into the park.

After about 5 minutes of driving we pulled onto a bridge and paused. On the left side of the vehicle, on a sand bank near the water, was a crocodile. We admired the animal from the distance for a few moments, then finished crossing the bridge. The other side of the bridge had a hill, which we drove up. Near the top of the hill our ranger exclaimed that he saw a lioness and her cubs resting on a rock back near the river. We turned the jeep around and were able to see the lion and her cub using the binoculars. My camera was able to get a bit of a shot of the animals, unfortunately it did not have the resolution to capture them in detail. We drove back down to the bridge hoping they would walk closer to the river and give us a better view, unfortunately they must have gone the other way and we did not see them again. This marked the third of the “Big 5” we had seen on the trip, and it was barely 11 AM!

We turned back around and climbed the hill again, then followed the road forward. A short while later found a giraffe eating just off the road. This was a male giraffe; it had worn the fuzz off its horns battling with other males. We watched him eat for a few moments then continued our drive.

The next thing we saw on the drive were multiple herds of elephants walking towards the road. We watched in awe as the herds, each with 7-8 elephants (including several babies!) crossed the road and continued on. We saw at least 30 elephants, and the number was likely closer to 40. We spent probably 15 minutes watching this procession - it was quite breathtaking to experience.

We drove over another bridge, and saw another crocodile in the river. Just after getting off the bridge we saw a baboon sitting high in a tree. It was explained by the ranger that this baboon was the sentry, and there were more scattered in the ground around the tree. Unfortunately we did not see any others, and so after a few moments we continued on. We drove past and a short while later saw another giraffe eating a tree near the road, and took a quick photo break. Just past the giraffe we saw a hammerhead bird in a puddle by the road, and watched it forage around in the puddle for a brief period of time. It was doing a funny-looking dance move with its feet, apparently to try and kick up worms in the dirt.

We continued driving on. We drove past a car that had just pulled back onto the road, and one of the people in our jeep thought they saw a person in the car signal to us that we should pull in. We backtracked slightly and pulled into the turn off, to be greeted by the sight of a herd of cape buffalo sunning themselves on the bank of a river. There were about a dozen of the buffalo in a tight group resting together, and we spent a few minutes taking in the scene. This was a rare sighting as we had a few moments where we were the only ones viewing the sight, and it was relaxing to have silence as we watched the majestic animals. The cape buffalo marked our seeing the fourth of the “Big 5”.

We headed back to the central area for lunch, arriving just before noon. We had an hour to eat; Todd and I also managed to get 3G service and completed our language lessons. We pulled out from the parking lot just after 13:00, beginning the last of the game drives of the day.

Shortly after leaving the lunch area we ran into some guinea fowl on the side of the road. They are apparently not very intelligent and easy to capture, but require several hours of cooking otherwise the meat is too tough. We next saw a vulture in a nest in a tree - it was drying out its wings and had them spread wide for us to see.

We continued and saw another giraffe eating, and then saw some bird nests built into a tree overhanging the road. As we drove back towards the entrance gate we saw a herd of elephants in the distance, walking towards the road - we spent a few moments watching them but they did not get to the road before we chose to move on. We also saw a wildebeest in the distance, grazing on a shrub. It was fascinating to see up close through the binoculars, unfortunately my camera wasn’t able to get a super clear photo. We made a quick stop when we saw an animal that turned out to be a warthog, unfortunately it darted off before anyone could snap a photo.

After a few more minutes of driving we pulled off at a dam that was a short drive off the main road. Here there were a large number of hippos lazing in the lake behind the dam, with a couple of hippos that were fully on the land. We watched as one of these hippos walked into the lake, while the other walked to the shade of the trees on the far side of the water. We also saw a number of crocodiles sunning themselves on the beach around the water, calmly ignoring the hippos. We also saw a baboon sitting not far from our jeep, however once another jeep pulled up this baboon chose to move away from the group. We spent close to 10 minutes watching this calm scene, taking in the beauty of nature and these animals.

As we continued driving towards the gate we saw another elephant right beside the road. This elephant had lost one tusk due to heavy use, the other one was heavily worn as well. It was a large, mature elephant, and beautiful to see. We drove on and saw another elephant, this one very clearly a male eating beside the road. Belinda referred to this elephant as a five-legged elephant due to its very prominent male genitalia, and everyone had a good laugh as we took some photos.

We were getting close to the gate and yet we still held out hope that we would get a closer view of the zebra - one of the quintessential animals of Africa yet one we had only seen from a great distance first thing this morning. We were lucky that several minutes from the gate the ranger spotted a zebra in the brush and quickly pulled off. There were close to a half dozen zebras that were beginning to cross the road, and we got to watch as they walked from one side to the other. There was a baby zebra among the adults, which was fantastic to see. They crossed in two groups, and the second group formed a nice orderly line that was amusing to watch.

We had just departed from the zebra crossing when the ranger slammed on the brakes and quickly reversed. He had spotted a lilac breasted roller in a tree branch, and we were able to get a few photos of this beautiful bird. Once everyone had finished getting photos the ranger tried getting the bird to take off, as he wanted us to see it in flight. He tried several things, including clapping, opening a door, etc. however only starting the engine was enough to spook the bird into flight. Once it took off we understood why the ranger wanted us to see the bird in flight - there were 9 distinct colours visible on the body of the bird as it was flying. It was even more beautiful in flight than it was on the tree. That bird was the final animal sighting we had in Kruger National Park.

The jeep returned to the park gate several minutes later. We got out of the jeep, thanked the ranger for his assistance during the day, and then got back into the bus for the return trip to the hotel. We arrived back around 15:30, and decided after the long day to have a quick swim in the hotel pool. We got changed and jumped into the frigid pool water (it wasn’t a heated pool). Todd managed to stay in much longer than I. After about 30 minutes of relaxing we dried off, came back to the hotel room and got ready for dinner. I spent the next hour revising our day in this blog, while Todd watched some TV.

We had a pre-dinner drink with our tour director, Belinda, and as time progressed other people on the tour joined us and we enjoyed some relaxing time. We had great dinner with the Aussie and Finnish friends we had made; at the end of the dinner we enjoyed a small glass of Amarula, a cream-based liqueur similar to Bailey’s. It was quite good, I tried pouring some over vanilla ice cream to make it even better. Tip: it worked. We were in bed shortly after 21:00.