I have been fortunate enough to have visited many remote areas of South Africa and spend time there, and no doubt i will expand on those trips considerably. However, being a working lad living in Johannesburg much of my ‘bush time’ has been spent in the vastness of the Kruger. Just a few hours from Joburg it has been the most convenient place for me to go. Everything is there, it is quite easy to lose oneself and every twist and turn, every kilometre provides exciting new views and landscapes.
I was born in London, UK, and grew up there in the suburbs. Although i had a fair bit of wilderness experience in different parts of the world before i discovered the African bush i can honestly say that it was the most exhilarating discovery of my life to date.

I got lost in the bush, found myself, and came back a stranger.

The Kruger is to be found nestling in the north eastern corner of South Africa, bordering Zimbabwe in the north and Mozambique to the east. Forming part of the southern savanna woodland zone of sub-saharan africa, it varies between tropical and sub-tropical and is commonly known as the lowveld. Nestling is probably not a good word as the park covers over 20,000 square kilometres, larger than Israel and about the same size as Wales, in recent times a contractual extension with bordering private game reserves resulted in fences being removed which increased its size greatly. The road which runs from north to south is nearly 450 kilometres long.

Although it has grown considerably since, it was President Paul Kruger who originally proclaimed the areas between the Crocodile and Sabie rivers as a game reserve back in 1898.

Major J. Stevenson-Hamilton was appointed as the first official head warden in 1902, after the end of the Boer war. It was not too long before one of the parks most enduring tales took place when Ranger Wolhuter was attacked by lions whilst riding his horse back from a safari to check the northern sectors. Amazingly, after being dragged off for several hundred feet and badly mauled, he managed to survive by killing the male who had taken him using the pocket knife that he always carried with him. Then, with the kind of strength that only comes with shock and horror, he somehow hauled himself up a tree before the second of the two lions returned from chasing Wolhuters horse.

Proclaimed as the first national park of South Africa in 1926, it was officially opened to the public in 1927. In that first year there were three cars that visited!!

Home to around 150 different types of mammals, more than 500 bird species, 115 reptiles, over 30 amphibians and 50 freshwater fishes the Kruger probably has more wildlife variety than any other area or park in the world. The insects are also abundant with for example, at least 230 butterflies recorded. Botanically the Kruger is equally rich and diverse, with nearly 2000 species of plants, over 450 of these being trees and shrubs.

Throughout the park there are various sites of historical interest, including Thulamela which is the oldest existing man made construction in South Africa having been inhabited between 1240 and 1650, and the Masorini hill dwellers camp with its primitive iron casting pits. Elsewhere, one can find markings from the earliest of missionarys, traders, explorers, hunters, and prospectors.

Not far from the Letaba camp is a cross engraved onto an old leadwood tree. Clearly visible, although the original marking has been overgrown with bark, it is said that the mark was to show the earliest of missionaries (15th century)that it was the best place to cross the river on their way into what is now Mozambique.

Blending into the bush, each with its own style that are largely dependant on the immediate surrounds, are 25 camps dotted throughout the park, some of which are simply fenced off areas with ablution blocks for campers. Others are small private camps with a few generic rondavels, nine of them are larger and more accomodating for the average tourist with a shop and restaurant, a variety of huts, chalets, lodges and permanent tents to stay in.

For the serious nature lover, he or she who really wants to get away from it all, one of the best available camps in my opinion is Balule, it can be found situated on the Olifants river towards the eastern side of the Kruger. I have spent many days and weeks there, months overall, and have every intention of spending many more.

Set back about fifty metres from the river bank, the camp was originally built in 1926 for the builders of the nearby pontoon bridge and thereafter the occasional visitor to this remote part of the bush. The six whitewashed, circular, African Rondavels are exactly as they were back then. With no electricity or power of any sort Balule provides a perfect opportunity to transport oneself back in time to experience the African bush in all its glory and different facets with barely the touch of the human hand, as it was in the days of the colonists and indeed the early trekkers.

In the evenings, sitting under a complete blanket of bright and twinkling stars, hundreds and thousands of them, with the aromatic smells and crackling sounds of a leadwood fire burning down slowly, one can only feel truly blessed at being alive.

The night sounds of the bush providing testimony to the splendour of it all, cicadas and bullfrogs down by the water providing an operatic accompaniment to the sound of zebras stampeding in the darkness at the onslaught of a pride of lions, finally to hear one brought down with a crash and the death rattle as nature perpetuates herself, is nothing less than a wonder to behold for all the senses.

As the grey light of pre dawn breaks, a pale mist covers the ground, with the ghostly branches of the trees breaking out above in twisted distortion. Finally, but quickly, a great pink ball glides above the bush and seemingly sitting in the cupped, gnarled fingers of the trees, spirits the mist away to herald a new day, together with the dawn chorus of the lions roaring at the rising sun.

For the visitor to the park the day will start at varying times depending on which month you go, the gates at each camp are opened with the beginning of dawn. Whatever time it may be, that is the time to start, many of the nocturnal animals will still be up and about and it is the best chance of seeing them. Many animals will be making their way to water for a drink, either as an early morning ‘cuppa’ or as a ‘nightcap’.

A good plan is to get up a half hour before the gates are open, not only giving you time to wash up but also a chance to hear the bush coming alive again. Feeling rather than seeing, the transition of darkness into light. Once out of the camp it is probably favourable to get to some kind of watering spot, park up and let the bush come to you rather than trying to chase it around.

There is something quite amazing about watching a deserted stretch of land with some sort of water in front of you, look away to pour some coffee from the flask, look back and there may suddenly be dozens of animals before your eyes. Spooky….but there it is, that is the bush for you.

Still and silent in one ear, yet somehow an absolute symphony of sound in the other of birds, insects and small animals. Awesomely beautiful, almost surreal, enveloped by an incredible serenity that can suddenly, at any time be totally smashed by the sound and sight of a kill, the trumpeting of elephant or the roar of lion.

An impala breaks out of a bush, frothing and lathered….finished, having been run into the ground…to be immediately put upon by a pack of wild dogs….ten of them growling, spitting, barking…the first few bites are of living flesh…somehow the bleating of the ewe rising above the din…the last few bites less than a few minutes later….and the dogs are gone again..so is the impala.
Silence and serenity…Stillness. Gruesome, awful, sickening….but it is not…it is not the death of an animal but the survival of nature, the perpetuation of life.

It is still before 8.am and you have been up for 3 or 4 hours already…breakfast time.

Dotted around the park there are a few small areas of land that have been partially cleared. One will find an African ranger living there, normally a person who has lived in the area all his life, and knows the area inside out. They will have hot water available, a lit fire to keep away predators, and a few gas skottels on hand, perfect for rustling up an english breakfast. There cannot be a better place in the world to cook and eat one for those that go prepared. Sitting under a wild fig tree in an ‘out of Africa’ setting is quite fabulous, marvellous, for many it will be the highlight of the day, just, being there and living it.

Onwards with the safari, maybe taking a drive down the dirt track that runs alongside the riverbed, with its pools of sparkling water, flat rocks, and reeds. Hippos snorting and playing in the shallows, crocs lazing on the banks in the hot sun, a herd of buffalo walking along the sandy bed feeding on the vegetation growing profusely all along the way. A fish eagle perched in the deadwood tree, brilliant blue and cloudless background, calling out for its mate….for many the true sound of the bush in daylight. Herds of wildebeest, zebra, and differant types of antelope making their way down for a midday drink, single file, en masse…kicking up the dust in the ever increasing heat of the day. A couple of giraffes loping down too, keeping watch over the others as they drink.

Elephant….the true king of the jungle!!….where did they come from, huge, towering giants ripping up the foliage, knocking down great trees and eating the top leaves, yet somehow very gentle. Turn your head for a second and they can be gone, like magic, silent on their massive pads, unbelievable that such bulk can so easily disappear.

Round another bend in the river,and there under the thorn tree is the pride of lions…the true terror of the bush, looking for all the world like pussy cats as they laze around and sleep off their kill of the previous night.

Thats the bush, the unknown, unpredictable, you just never know what will happen, or when it will happen, absolutely anything could be around the next corner.

Unfortunately, apart from a few notes and a thousand memories i have little to show for all my safaris. However, a journey of a thousand miles requires the first footstep and from here on in i shall be photographing and writing about all the trips i make, no doubt incorporating many of my past stories and encounters along the way for anyone who has the inclination to read them.

Christmas eve (although i did not realise it) and i woke early again with the idea of getting those elusive sunrise shots.

By 5am i was several klicks out of the camp and parked up waiting for the dawn whilst drinking steaming hot coffee.

As the sky lightened i realised it was not going to be, although there were some fantastic clouds in the sky it soon became clear they were storm clouds that were going to block any views of the sun at all.

However, as the sun was nearing the horizon there was a band of clear sky that sat on the horizon up to the scudding clouds that was as red as any sky i have ever seen, it really was scarlett…bright bright red. I took a couple of shots but with the blackness of the clouds and the darkness of the bush line they look as though i have adjusted the colour with photoshop and the pictures show as three horizontal stripes, black, red, black!

Assuming that we were in for a big storm i decided not to go far and headed back to carcass corner where i, once again had a lovely mornings viewing.

It was quiet for the first half hour or so but then at about 6.30 the animals started coming down for their morning drink in droves.
There was a lot of bird activity too and for the first time ever i managed to get some shots of purple lourie, a stunning bird.
After landing on top of one of the bushes next to me she went down to the waters edge and proceeded to drink and bathe in a waterfilled buffalo footprint putting on a great show for me.

Another unusual sight for me was a ‘hornless’ bull buffalo. Clearly a very aggressive animal, as he approached the waters edge everything else, including two other bull buffs got out of the way. He was accompanied by a younger bull buffalo that seemed to be acting as a kind of ‘bodyguard’.

That afternoon i headed north again and on the Luvuvhu tributary, just behing the klopperfontein dam i came across a lion kill.
It was quite a strange sight as the carcass was on its back with all four legs sticking up in the air.

I thought it was a wildebeest at first but soon realised it was a buffalo. There were three lions close by and further over to my right under the shade of one of the bigger trees on the tributary’s banks were another five sleeping off the meal.

The kill must of taken place the day before as the animal was over half eaten and there was a huge gathering of vultures, tawny eagles and marabou, at least a hundred birds in all with more flying in constantly.

It soon became apparent that the three lionesses dotted around close to the kill were there to keep the birds and jackals away. Every now and then as the birds crept closer one or more of the lionesses would charge them sending them scattering in all directions, great fun to watch!

Around 4pm the day started to cool a bit and eventually one of the lions started dragging the carcass under cover of some bushes close by, the buffalo had obviously been far too heavy to do that when it was first killed and was essentially lying out in the open. Even though it was half eaten there was still a considerable amount of meat left along the spine of the poor beast and i reckoned there was still several hundred kilograms of weight there. I was left marvelling at just how strong a lion is as the one lioness dragged the remains for a good fifty metres before another came to help.

It was quite funny to see the whole gaggle of vultures hopping along in their wake and i stayed right up until the last minute of the day watching the whole spectacle.

The storm did come that night and i was woken up around midnight with a veritable river running under me!! The tent was flapping badly on one corner and i was forced to get up and out to retie the guy ropes that had come loose…not my best experience!! By the time i had done this and checked the water running through my camp i was soaked and cold and got back into my bed sarcastically wishing myself a ‘merry christmas’ with a grin on my face, after all it is all part of the adventure.
Did not sleep so good after that and was up and out before 4.30 with a view to driving straight back to the lion kill to see what had happened overnight.

I thought the storm had come at least…little did i know…although i did have a funny feeling!!

23/12/08. Christmas was upon us once again but by now I had pretty much lost all sense of time, in fact it was only late in the day on the 24th that I realised it was Christmas Eve.

I had woken early again on the 23rd but still not feeling great, swollen glands and all, I slept in till past 5am and then headed out to Mahonies loop again as I really did not want to go far.

After driving for about 30 minutes or so I parked up under a large fig tree next to the tributary for coffee. There was not too much going on except for the birds but it was lovely to just sit and relax to the sounds of nature.

A small family of Nyalas came down the far bank after a while but they were very ‘twitchy’ and when I tried to get a shot of them they must of smelt me or seen the movement and scarpered rather sharpishly.

As I was getting back into my cab I heard noises coming from a small thicket just below me about twenty feet away, Strange noises that I could not recognise at first. Needless to say I got into the cab quite quickly and continued listening through the open window.

After a while I realised that I was listening to a baboon comforting a new born baby! It was a wonderful experience listening to mum cooing, I never actually saw anything but I left after an hour or so absolutely convinced that the baby had been born under my very nose as I drank coffee!

I moved round to carcass corner where I intended parking up for a few more hours before heading back for another nap. I arrived around 8am to find nothing going on at all.

After a short while I spotted 9 buffalo bulls walking down the dry river bed towards me and for the next one and a half hours I had over 300 different animals come down for a drink and wallow, buff, kudu,impala,zebra,baboons,steenbok and warthog.
Additionally there was the seemingly resident knob billed duck ever present as well as a whole plethora of other birds.

After a long midday break back at camp I headed north for the Klopperfontein dam where I also found abundant birdlife and various game. I checked out Barnards drift for a while and then headed for the Klopperfontein waterhole which has wide expansive views all around the water and the river beyond.

There was a lot of movement here too which kept me occupied. A couple of big elephants came out of the tree line down by the river and came over to the water reservoir which was just a few feet away from where I was parked. Then another came from a different direction, then another, then another couple…all from different angles. Eventually there were nine of them and it seemed like the sweet water in the high walled reservoir was a meeting place as they all clearly knew each other well.
It was fantastic to see them all greeting each other and quite clear that the relationships between them all differed. One of the last to arrive was a particularly stocky beast, not as tall as one or two of the others but probably heavier with amongst the largest tusks of the group. This one was clearly a favourite with just about all the other ellies, especially one of the younger teenagers, and I was left wondering whether they were brothers or even father and son.

The biggest elephant of the bunch seemed to be the grumpiest and the least liked of the group. I got the feeling that he was the bully of the group and the other not so tall elephant was the good guy who looked after the others.

They spent quite a while at the reservoir, drinking and splashing themselves, resting their trunks against the high walls and coating themselves with sand dust as I looked on from a few metres away tucked into a small thicket of small Mopani bush trees.
They left in ones and twos to all directions, much the same as they had arrived, the last to go being the big grumpy guy.

It was at this point that he seemed to take an interest in me and my landy, and walked over to within touching distance of the bonnet.

It is impossible to describe just how big these guys are when they are standing next to you! Suddenly they are towering above you and one realises how small and insignificant we are by comparison.

I held my breath and sat there as still as I possibly could be. He edged closer not looking at all happy and I was left thinking, or should I say feeling, that my presence was irritating him immensely and that he was looking for something to take his irritation out on, particularly as he had largely been shunned by the rest of the group who had now all left.

It was probably less than five minutes but it seemed like ages we both sat staring at each other from two metres or so. I looked around me for an escape route but realised I was going nowhere as I had bushes to the right and left of me and a stone ‘obelisk’ directly behind me with a brass plaque announcing the name of the waterhole, and of course an approximately 5 ton elephant blocking my path.

For the first couple of minutes or so it really was a heart stopping moment. I knew he could of completely trashed my cab if he wanted to and the adrenaline was pumping hard, I didn’t even want to try and take a picture of him as I would of had to show movement to do so, I didn’t even want to breathe!! There i sat, inwardly shaking my head at myself for getting into such predicaments!!

Just a few minutes of pure excitement but it was a moment I shall never forget.

I have been mock charged before on a few occasions but this experience, even though he did not charge me or make noise, really took the cake.
After what seemed an eternity he moved off, albeit grudgingly, and he would take a few paces and turn back to look at me again. It felt like he was saying “I should come and bash you up but I can’t be bothered”!!

A terrible thing transpired on what i have now worked out to be the 23 december.

A few days beforehand i had been driving along the tar road heading east away from Punda. About 20 klicks or so from the camp i was quite startled to see two guys walking along the bushline on my offside.

They were clearly refugees. Torn, dirty and bedraggled, they had obviously spent quite a while in the bush. They were both drinking from old two litre plastic coke bottles, what looked like dirty water.

The Immediate reaction is to stop and offer help but simultaneously one realises that it would be foolish to do so. They both looked very shady and slightly alarmed to see me, there was no way i was going to stop. Essentially in the middle of nowhere, they could of been murderers on the run for all i knew.

My immediate reaction was probably motivated by the fact that it was not the first time i had come across refugees. The first time (about 20 years ago)had been quite amusing and the second time i had guilty feelings afterwards when i had driven straight past the guy, after which i had resolved to try and help if it happened again.

As i say, i did not stop…common sense prevailed.

I did stop about half a klick down the road and thought about it, but after a while i concluded that they must be walking on the road to give themselves up anyway. No doubt a rangers vehicle would pass them soon enough and pick them up and i trundled off on my way.

A couple of days after passing these two guys i was in camp roughly around midday. I had showered in the ablution block and was back in my tent drying off and getting dressed. My tent was right on the edge of the camp with my tent entrance facing out into the bush. I was standing just inside the entrance totally naked as i dried off. I did not really care if any animals saw me undressed and the last thing i expected was people to be out in the bush outside the camps perimeter.
So i’m standing there in all my glory drying my hair when another refugee comes walking past my tent less than 20 metres away!!….i am not sure who was more shocked…him or I.

I thought about going through to the rangers to make a report but once again i figured he was giving himself up. Sure enough that was the case and i heard later up at the camp reception that he had done just that and i thought no more of it.

Then on the 23rd i was chatting with another camper who told me that earlier that day they had found a woman sitting by the side of the road a couple of klicks outside the camp, she had two young children with her.

When the rangers picked her up they questioned her and asked why she had given herself up when in fact she had almost made it into SA.

Apparently she had left Mozambique almost three weeks earlier with three guys from the same village and her children.
The two younger guys had deserted them one night several days beforehand and the older guy had left her the following night.

These must have been the guys i had seen on the road and by the camp in the preceding days.

It must of been absolutely terrifying for all of them, i knew i had been listening to the lions roaring for several nights past.

One of her kids was apparently quite sick at the time she was picked up which is the reason she gave for giving up.
However, the guys talking to her must of detected something in her words because when they pushed her a bit she said that in fact she had three kids but one had died the night before and she had left the body under a bush near to where they had found her.

Isn’t that shocking? It kinda makes any problems i have or have had melt away into absolute inconsequence.

They drove her back to the spot and sure enough found the little infant’s body hidden under a bush where the mother had left it.

The lady i was talking to in camp also said that later in the day she had driven past where it all happened earlier , and laying on the verge was a tiny pair of kiddies shoes made from old car tyres that had been left to mark the spot.

I am glad i never saw them, but even so, i have an image in my mind of this kiddies shoes by the side of the road that i don’t think will ever go away.

Slept really well last night and woke at 3.15am feeling as good and refreshed as i had for a few days. It was a bit damp and cloudy so i lit a fire and sat having an early coffee by the warmth. I thought it might clear a bit as the dawn prevailed so i set off at 4.30 to get some sunrise pictures. No chance as was proved.

It was good to get out early though and in my headlights as i headed south out of camp i caught two African wildcats crossing the road and three separate genets in the bushes alongside the road as they prepared for sleep during the coming day.
I saw many other sets of eyes, many of them were hares and rabbits but some were indistinguishable.

Darkness brings a whole different perspective to the bush.

Having realised i was not going to get my sunrise shots i headed for Mogambo, and was parked up under the sausage tree soon after 5am. It was very quiet except for the birds and general noises of the daytime bush creatures waking up. Amongst others i watched green pidgeons breakfasting on the fig tree, Wood Hoopoes scurrying around and taking food back to their nests in the trunk of the fig tree, turacos, and striped kingfishers.

At 5.50am i saw the big male leopard stepping out of the bushline and pad softly down to the waters edge, followed moments later by a female leopard. A fantastic sight, the sky was still grey, mist was rising from the ground as the temperature warmed up and these two magnificent animals crouched side by side nonchalantly lapping up their early morning drink, silent except for the sound of slurping water.

The whole bush seemed to freeze!

After a good long drink it became clear that they only had one thing on their minds, particularly the female as she started rubbing up to the male. At first he did not seem interested, acting in a lordly superior manner, he even seemed to swat her away at one stage. Seeing the two together made the male seem even bigger, his paws were absolutely massive, seemingly as big as a lions.
She kept on at him, rubbing herself against him, hopping over him and lying slightly in front of him until eventually he could no longer resist and mounted her.

It was over in seconds, followed by a deep throated guttural roar from the male and a kind of victory purr from the female. As he finished he seemed to bite at her neck, to which she responded by snarling at him and twisting round under him as he swatted away her snarl with his huge paw and a reciprocal snarl of his own.

Absolutely incredible to watch with all the senses totally tuned into the scene before me. I am quite sure i must of been watching awe struck with open mouth!!

A first for me and a wonderful experience, i had the pleasure of their company for the next two hours completely on my own during which time they repeated the act four times. At around 8.00am a landy came by with a couple of youngsters in the back and i was so chuffed with everything that i moved out from under my spot and let them pull in for a better view. Unfortunately this movement disturbed the two leopards and they moved off into the bushes.

They continued to mate though and each time they finished the same guttural growls emanated from the bushes where they were laid up. Hearing it but not seeing it was, in its own way, as exciting as seeing it before ones eyes.

Around 9am a herd of about 20 impala came down to drink, totally unaware of what had been transpiring at the exact spot where they were drinking just minutes beforehand. In the middle of their drinking the leopards could be heard again finishing off their business and the noise almost paralysed the drinking impalas, they did not know which way to turn, and after a few minutes of silence as they tried to scout out the direction of the growling they fled in the direction from which they had come.

In between watching the leopards and everything else that was going on at the waters edge i had been watching a striped kingfisher who had been perched on a bough above me checking the ground intently for breakfast. At about the time the impalas scampered off i noticed he had caught a snake about 15 inches long and was busy whacking the snake against the branch to kill it.
I was quite surprised as the snake seemed far too big for the little kingfisher, yet after several minutes of pulverising the snake against the branch he swallowed the thing whole in a split second. It was hard to understand where the snake had gone too, but the magic of the moment will live with me forever.

By 10.30 i was feeling quite tired and with no noise from the leopards for a while i decided to head back for food, sleep and a refresh, as well as recharging my camera batteries. I must of taken at least a 100 shots of the leopards.

By 2.30 i was back at the sausage tree.

Almost immediately i heard the two leopards going at it again, as they did every 15 minutes or so for the next couple of hours before stepping out together again for another drink at 4.30.

At that point there was a big tusker wallowing in the water and as the leopards appeared he kind of mock charged them flapping his ears and telling them in no uncertain terms that he did not want their company.

They got the message, and although not so much out of fear but more out of respect they retreated. I followed them at this point and found them both sitting on top of a huge termite mound that was built at least 15 feet high around the base of another large fig tree.
They mated again in all their glory atop the termite mound before the male scampered up the tree to a kill that was wedged into one of the upper branches. I could not be absolutely sure but i think it was the unfortunate female grysbok that i had seen a couple of days beforehand.

By now a couple of other cars had arrived and i was pointing out the sequence of events to them but it was all too much for the leopards, they appeared to go off deeper into the bush and i never saw them again.
George and Eileen from the camp restaurant came down as i had told them what i had been seeing at lunchtime but sadly they had missed everything.

I drove slowly back to camp savouring the days viewing. Truly a day to remember.

The viewing that day was great though. I headed back to the sausage tree at Mogamba, passing a bunch of vultures that were busy cleaning up the old lions buffalo kill from two days ago, arriving at around 7.15am to find the area deserted.

By the time i had poured a coffee, peeled a couple of boiled eggs and cut up some fruit there was in front of me approximately 130 buffalo, 13 zebra, the grysbok male (where was the female?), jackals, impala and warthog all vying for a place at the water hole!! Fantastic accompaniment to my breakfast.

I sat for a further couple of hours watching a woodland kingfisher who was perched in the sausage tree and occasionally swooping down to catch crickets before flying back up to his perch to eat them.

Back to Punda camp around 10.30 for a much needed sleep, before moving up to the camp restaurant where i ordered a hunters pot that i enjoyed under the Baobab tree again whilst chatting with an older couple from Alaska.

In the afternoon, not feeling up to much i took a slow drive around Mahonies loop again.

At one point i found myself in the middle of a large herd of Buffalo, perhaps 400 plus, which was very exciting as i was completely surrounded as they crossed over the track i was sitting on.

Further on i saw a breeding herd of elephants about 80 metres into the bush in a fairly open space. Working out where they were headed i moved on a couple of hundred metres to a stunning spot about 15 feet above a bend in the river where i had noticed some really clear running water.
It was perfect and after about 30 minutes the ellies eventually emerged through the riverine bush on the far bank and ended up drinking directly below me less than 20 feet away. There were a couple of very young ones, probably not even 3 months old, and they were quite inquisitive of the landy. Mum was close at hand and eyed me very suspiciously as the young ones drank right below me.

The remainder of the afternoon was full of good game sightings as i crawled around the loop and even though i was not feeling up to scratch i was quite sad to have to head home at 6.30. Mind you, once i got back i was ready for bed and must of been sound asleep before 8pm.

The following day i had arranged to drive south to Mopani to meet up with D again. I was up at 3.30am but no go, i could feel myself coming down with something so i went back to bed till after 6, got up to try again but ended up back in bed till mid morning when i went up to the camp office to leave a message at Mopani. Sleeping was the only option i really had and even though i was a bit pissed at myself for not going down i knew that i had done the right thing and would of been quite ill if i had not slept.

Waking just before 3pm i decided to drive a few klicks out onto mahonies loop and park up at a wide bend in the river for the remainder of the afternoon. I named the spot ‘carcass corner’ as there were the remains of two buffalo that had obviously been killed at different times in the days preceding my arrival.

Although nothing spectacular happened it proved a gorgeous place to sit and, in fact over the remainder of my trip i spent many hours at the same spot.

That night whilst sitting by my fire all the African people who worked at the camp got together under a tree on the hillside and sang Christmas carols for an hour or so. It was lovely, their voices resonating through the bush and wafting down to me in superb timbre as i gazed up at the night sky covered in a blanket of sparkling stars. I truly felt as though i was sitting in one of the old trekkers camps from 200 years ago!!

Another great trip…they all are!

An unusual trip in many ways, but largely because i was on a complete detoxification. I am quite sure that i was a bit diddly and not functioning properly.

I stopped everything…smoking, alcohol, vitamins, coffee, energy drinks (after the first few days), meat(except for bacon at breakfast).

I think it was good!!

Completely lightheaded at times, my sleeping patterns went out the window and i found myself sitting under the moon at odd times throughout the nights checking out the milky way and the stars and satellites passing by.

Of course sleep does not matter when i am in the bush, it is very easy to have a nap at any time during the day on any day.
It showed in my photography though…at least that is my story and i am sticking to it! I was a bit disappointed all the same, of the 1430 pictures that i took i deleted over 400 on my first perusal when i got home and was only really pleased with about 20 or so. Not that it really matters…just gives me reason to go and take them all again!!

I saw and experienced some wonderful sights and moments, some of which will not be so easy to see again quickly i am sure.

There was one day when i spent just about the whole day with two mating Leopards…fantastic!…a first for me, and although i have got quite a few pictures of them, there were none that i would be able to print off and frame for the wall.
A few people came by during the course of the day and while chatting i offered to send them the best pics of the two leopards. I feel a bit sheepish now i have seen the quality of the shots but i will be sending half a dozen out to the various folk who mailed me, at least they will be good mementos of the sighting for their personal albums.

Sorry for the delay by the way people…reality has gotten in the way of things these past few months.

There were many more highlights, i sat with 9 lions for a couple of hours one morning early…playing and ‘Kangaroo’ boxing with each other, stalking visitors to the waterhole we were at, i saw another pride of lions taking an impala off a crocodile. On other occasions i saw 5 lions tackling a herd of about fifty buffalo for about an hour and a half, another pride protecting their buffalo kill from about 100 vultures.

I had a real moment with an old bull elephant where i truly had to focus on holding my nerve. On three occasions i saw different birds taking snakes, killing and eating them.

I saw a lion and a rhino facing off to each other at one stage, no contest though, and the lion knew it.

At one point i was parked up by a dam and within 360 degrees i had good sightings of all of the ‘big five’ at the same time, good sized herds of buffalo and elephant, a leopard sleeping up a tree and the lion and rhino facing off.

The list goes on with every day of the trip producing something special.

Unfortunately i had to cut the trip short though and came home after just 30 days, i checked my messages around about the 8 january and realised i needed to get back…too much going on at work.

I came back hoping to be able to return for another month at the end of January but it has proved not to be. Never mind, i will get up there again soon enough, and with the way this financial crisis is going the year long safari to the kruger may come sooner rather than later.

Anyway, i have uploaded some of the pictures i took into the gallery and the blog of the trip follows below together with a few more pics.

Anyone who is reading this has no chance of enjoying as much as i did, but i hope you enjoy anyway.
Ciao ciao

Finally the weekend came…and all i felt like doing was crawling into bed and sleeping for a month!!

But of course i did not do that, i went with a view to just getting there and then sleeping off my grotty feeling.

The night before only exacerbated my general tiredness and after a totally disturbed sleep i got up at 3am with only a few hours sleep under my belt…amazing what a couple of red bulls can do though!!…not to mention the fact that when the morning arrives for me to head for the bush i am like a kid at Christmastime!!

I left home just after 5am and arrived at Malelane just after 9am totally wired from the drive. By 10.30am i was sitting a Traders Rest in the park ordering up a big farmhouse breakfast. Great to be back even though i was not 100%…just being there made me feel slightly better.

I took the old Voortrekker dirt road through to Pretoriouskop where i checked into my hut soon after midday.
The rest of the day was spent in camp, sleeping, walking around the camp and just relaxing taking it all in once again.

That night i slept solidly for over nine hours which was wonderful and left me feeling a lot better. I left camp just after 5am and started heading north. Three days travelling ahead of me to reach my final destination at Punda.

The scenery was beautiful, everything being so green and fresh, clearly, there had been a fair amount of rain and i was thinking that there may be more to come. Something was leaving me with a feeling of foreboding and i was not sure whether it was the rain or just me not feeling quite right.
It did not really matter, i was going to enjoy myself whatever the elements threw at me.

Before long i came across two elephants mating very close to the side of the tar road i was travelling. They startled me actually as i was doing about 40kph and i certainly startled them as i was so close, the female tried to move off whilst the bull was still mounted on top of her and by the time i had stopped they had started to move off so i lost the photo opportunity. Great to see all the same, not the most common of sightings and my sense of foreboding was gone as i took the sighting as a good omen of things to come.

Further up the road i pulled off the road and parked up at the old Transport Dam for a coffee.

I spent quite a bit of time at this dam on my last trip and was surprised to see how high the water had risen, the water was at least a metre higher and therefore covering probably three times more space than a few months previously. It never ceases to amaze me how different a place like this can look with such different water levels, it was almost unrecognisable to the place i had spent time at in October.

Moving on i pulled into Skukuza for some supplies and then onto Tshokwane for breakfast where i was inundated with glossy starlings, hornbills and vervet monkeys all hoping to get some crumbs from my plate.

Further north i pulled up beside the Mazithi dam to watch some spoonbills and various other storks and herons feasting. There was obviously some kind of movement going on below the water as all the birds were constantly picking up crabs, frogs and small fish.

I was started to feel a bit rough again so from Mazithi i headed straight for Satara, arrived around noon, checked in and slept for a couple of hours again.

In the afternoon i went for a drive along the Nwanetsi dirt track, one of my favourite areas for seeing wildlife and it did not disappoint.I came across three lion cubs, quite gorgeous, and probably the most ‘Orange’ in colour that i have ever seen. I sat with them for quite a while and got some lovely pictures.

There is always something very special about watching young animals that leaves a smile on the face and these three were no exception.
In between dozing and flopping around they were half heartedly play fighting with each other and snarling at a few birds that came quite close, very entertaining.

After about an hour or so i moved on up the track and after maybe 500 metres i pulled up sharply as on my right in thick riverine bush i saw a male waterbuck with his back to a particularly thick thorn bush with his head down and waving his horns menacingly.
As i stopped i realised the waterbuck was being attacked by a very large lioness when i saw her crouched low in front of the waterbuck.

I had obviously just missed the original attack and thought i was in for a treat till it became obvious that the bush was protecting the buck and with those big horns swirling around the buck seemed to have the upper hand, although very stressed.
Within seconds of me stopping the buck must of realised the lionesses predicament and he turned, leapt over the thorn bush and was gone. I was surprised that the lioness did not try to follow, maybe she had taken a hit from the horns before i turned up.
All too quick for me to take pictures unfortunately but very happy to of seen it.

After that i headed back to Satara as i was starting to feel a bit rough again, and that night i was asleep by 7pm.

16 December

Another good nights sleep and i was up at 3am ready to go again.
I had decided the day before that as today was supposedly my shortest travelling day as i headed north, i would spend the first few hours of the morning around the N’wanetsi which i did.

Amongst other things i saw quite a big herd of Buffalo, maybe 400 (big by todays standards) and at one point a few buff came too close to some elephants who promptly chased them off trumpeting.

A small victory for the elephants who then proceeded to wander off into deeper bush. I sat with the herd of buffalo for a while as they too started to wander off, grazing as they went.

When one sits with a herd of buffalo like this it is easy after a while to distinguish the different families in the group and their different ways. Each family has its own leader who generally stands out from the others,but a leader for the herd en masse never seems apparent, they seem to interact as one ‘democracy’, unless there is danger when the bigger bulls then get between the young and the danger.

In this instance there was no danger and as the herd wandered along grazing there were all sorts of activities going on amongst the various groups, young males play fighting(although one suspects that whilst playing they are in fact asserting their physical strength and prowess for the future), mating, mothers herding the very young along and keeping them close.

I got very close to a mating couple, and unlike the mating elephants from a couple of days ago ,managed to get some shots…felt a bit like a peeping tom, and at one stage the buffalo male seemed to get a bit irritated with me for being so close, perhaps they could hear the click of the camera.

I pulled into Satara around 7.30 am for breakfast and a shower before heading up to Olifants camp where i was booked in for the night.

On arrival there soon after 10.30 i changed my booking to Letaba which is about 50 klicks further north. At Letaba by noon i managed to change my booking to Shingwedzi which is another 100klicks further north still. After a quick lunch and a walk round the camp, including calloing into the ‘elephant’ museum which houses the tusks of some of the old ‘super’ tuskers, one of which, Mandleve, i was fortunate enough to see whilst still alive back in the early eighties.

I called into the Mopani camp for coffee before continuing, stopping at the Tropic of Capricorn for a brief period to stretch my legs a bit, Finally arriving at Shingwedzi soon after 4.30.

For most of the drive i was more intent on getting there as opposed to trying to spot game but it was a nice drive anyway, coming across three sleeping lions, Tssessebe, elephants, buffalo and the usual buck feeding by the sides of the road.
By the time i arrived at Shingwedzi i was feeling quite stuffed again and decided i had had enough of the cab for one day, so i spent the rest of the day walking round the camp in preparation of another very early night.

I have so many good memories of each of the camps in the Kruger that apart from the pleasure derived from the fauna, birdlife and small animals that can be found in the camps, walking around quite often becomes a trip down memory lane.

A very early night indeed, so early in fact that i was up at 1am for a walk round the camp in darkness…very different from walking in daylight i can tell you. The noises are completely different and quite creepy at times but i find it quite exciting. Every little rustle in the undergrowth gets one going a bit but the torch provides comfort. I keep meaning to buy a black light, must do it so i can get some illuminated shots of scorpions etc, they come out in a kind of purpleish neon see through.

It was raining lightly which was nice, but eventually drove me back to bed for a couple of hours. Up again at 4am i spent a good hour on my stoop, drinking coffee and listening to the daytime bush life start to wake.

I was on the road again just after 5am in the grey light of dawn on the last leg of my journey north to Punda.

After about a half hour i came across two young Hyaena cubs playing by the side of the road and sat with them for quite a while drinking more coffee. Great fun to watch them fighting and playing with each other. They seemed to take quite a liking to my car and tried to get their teeth into my tyres and bumpers!!

Eventually, after another hour or so a large female came through the brush to join them and after laying around for a while they all disappeared into the gulley that ran under the road where i was parked.

Carrying on i reached Babbalala at where i stopped for some boiled eggs and rye bread. I noticed that both of my rear windows were down, i must of pressed the wrong button earlier when it was still darkish, and to my horror i discovered that they were jammed. I was wondering about the feelings of foreboding that i had earlier when i left home and i wondered if it was to be a trip of mishaps…in three days i had broken my reading glasses, broken a new pair of leather slops, realised i had left a couple of things at home and now my windows…what next?.

The rain had picked up a bit in intensity so i managed to block the windows with a windscreen sun reflector, cut in half and taped to the windows it proved quite efficient for the next month, not only for the rain but also the heat during the days.

The last fifty klicks up to Punda was fairly uneventful except for a beautiful barn owl perched near the side of the road, and i arrived way before noon.

The camp was drenched and i was thankful i had not been there the night before. I built my camp right by the fence overlooking the waterhole, a lovely spot but i was a bit concerned about the rain.

Feeling very relieved to have finally arrived i walked up the koppie to the camps restaurant where i tucked into another big English breakfast whilst sitting outside under the big Baobab tree outside reception. It was a great feeling to be there knowing that i had a good month before i would be moving on again….a month at that point seemed like forever. Heaven!!

I went out at 3pm for an afternoon drive around Mahonies Loop which is a dirt track that winds it way for 25 klicks around the Koppie that the camp sits on. It is a particularly lovely drive through the valleys and over smaller hills that surround.
I saw plenty, Golden Orioles, red headed weavers, puffbacks, the smallest impala calf i have ever seen walking around…it must surely of been only a few hours old. Several buffalo, elephant, nyala, duiker, grysbok. It was all very peaceful, beautiful and calming.

That evening around 8pm the still night was shattered with extremely loud roars coming from very close by, it honestly sounded like something out of some pre historic dinosaur age. I quickly realised it was the roar of a big bull elephant that was leading his family down to the water hole. There were eight of them including a tiny young one that was no more than a few months old.
Sighting elephants at night is very special, they are almost ghost like in appearance as they seem to float along, almost surreal fact.

I was standing right by the camps fence and they all drank just a few metres from where i was standing, then to top the moment off i could hear lion roaring in the distance.

Unfortunately i did not have my camera to hand but i have resolved to try and get some night shots on my next trip.

18 December 2008

My first night under canvas was lovely although i woke a few times during the night, but even that was a pleasure as i lay listening to the night sounds.

I slept in till 5am and took my time getting up whilst enjoying the peacefulness of my camp.

Around 5.30am I left camp to drive around Mahonies loop again but in the opposite direction to yesterday. It really is a beautiful drive and coming round the other way made it feel completely different.

I stopped at various points taking it all in and eventually spent over 4 hours doing the 25k drive. ‘Bushified’ and tuned in, it normally takes two or three days, and it was no different this time around.
All the stresses and strains of work and everyday life were gone, vanished.

I was totally immersed in the wilderness with not a care in the world, the therapeutic power of solitude amidst such beauty and wildlife weaving its magical spell over me.

Back to camp just after 9am I napped till 10.30 when I was woken by two vervet monkeys who had crawled under my tent into the kitchen area and were busy going through my picnic basket!! They obviously did not realise I was there sleeping and caught a real fright when I stood up and shouted at them.

After mooching around camp for a while and a nice farmhouse breakfast outside the camp restaurant up on the hill I decided to go out and start to re-explore the area, having not been so far north for several years.

I ended up driving up the Dzundzweni koppie where the views over the bush eastwards are quite magnificent. From there I went back down onto the dirt track leading up to the koppie and parking up under a lovely sausage tree overlooking a water pan that nestled under the north side of the koppie.

A bull elephant was about 20 metres away, sleeping with his tusks hooked into the branch of a tree to support him while he dozed. Several bull buffalo were wallowing in a mud bath by the water, crested guinea fowl wandering around, plum coloured starlings, wood hoopoes feeding young in the trunk of a nearby fig tree and after a while a very brown Rhino cautiously stepped out of the bush line and came down for a long drink.

Whilst watching the Rhino warily wander around a couple of Grysbok appeared off the koppie to my left from where the were grazing around the car, very unusual for such shy creatures, and I was very pleased to see them and get some shots as it must be quite a few years since I saw them last.

Heading back to camp at 4.30 I came across a very old male lion resting up against the side of a huge termite mound, by huge I mean about 12 feet high and maybe 30 or 40 feet in diameter!. The lion looked pretty well stuffed, breathing and panting very heavily, his face looked like he had been on a serious ‘bender’ the previous night….at least that is how I look on the morning after!!

A quick pic and I moved on to Thulamila which is just 3 klicks from camp near the Punda Maria gate. It is a lovely spot and I found a small male ellie gorging on figs that covered the ground around the tree. He was most amusing, eating, drinking, having a good scratch against an old stump that was conveniently there and farting intermittently. Hells bells they smelt rotten!!….and I gave him a piece of my mind about being rude, but I think that made him chuckle to himself and let even more go.

Rain was in the air as it had been for a few days and I felt it would come that night. It did!…and how. I woke up at about midnight to find my mattress floating in about 2 inches of water that was flowing under the tent, a strange feeling. After assuring myself that the tent was holding up ok I dropped back off again and slept soundly till 5.30.

19 December 2009

I was up and out very quickly and about 6.30 ish I came across the old lion again, walking towards me along the centre of the road. I pulled up and had the pleasure of watching him as he approached and walked past me within touching distance. I reversed slowly and within another 30 metres or so he went into the brush and within 20 feet from the side of the road he started feeding on a young buffalo kill, just a few metres from the termite mound I had seen him at the day before.

I realised that when I had seen him yesterday it must of been soon after the kill had taken place which was confirmed by a ranger who came by soon afterwards. He told me that the buff had been brought down by three females yesterday afternoon who had then given up the head, front legs and top half of the body to the male which is what the old lion was feeding on. No wonder he had been panting for breath so much, he had just taken the half buff (probably weighing at least half a ton) off the females and then dragged it for 40 metres or so to where it was now in a small thicket near the termite mound.

The old boy fed for a good half hour before lying up on the side of the mound again where he proceeded to sleep off the feed.
I headed off to my spot under the sausage tree a few klicks further on.

So pleased that I did, as I approached I could see something drinking low down by the water’s edge, and as I got closer I realised it was a beautiful male leopard. He really was a stunner, quite massive for a leopard and in beautiful condition.

(It is taking me so long to write up my last trip and upload that the story is getting hidden behind previous entries, so rather than just add on to the bottom of the blog as i have been doing periodically, i am going to finish off and add to the top where it can be accessed more easily)

I watched him drinking for about 10 minutes before he got up and walked off into the bush. I could see that his belly was full, too full to be only the water he had just drunk so i suspected that he would not move far until nightfall.

Feeling peckish i served myself a couple of hard boiled eggs, rye bread and coffee. A simple breakfast but when sitting under a sausage tree in the middle of the bush with magnificent views over the bush and the foothills around Punda in the background, birds of all varietys chirping away, leopards a few metres away and various other comings and goings of animals it is as good as any five star meal that the very best of establishments could possibly serve up!.

I sat for another couple of hours before heading back to camp for a snooze. Nice lunch under the Mopani tree and a very relaxing few hours around camp until after 3pm when i drove back to ‘Mogamba’…i felt strongly that i might get another glimpse of the leopard.

I arrived to find a very noisy bunch of vervets swarming all over the fig tree gorging themselves, it is a bit like watching a rowdy young family of kids at a picnic.

Sure enough at about 4.30 the leopard appeared again and i sat watching him till 6pm when i had to leave to get back into camp before the gates closed for the night.

I had met and chatted with a lovely lady from America a couple of times over the previous two days and that evening i joined her for a bottle of wine outside her lodge which was very nice. I don’t normally socialise when i am up in the bush but i must say it was a very pleasureable evening and we had lots in common, the conversation flowed freely. She was quite a character with a great story to tell and in fact had recently had a book published about her own adventures in Africa to date. Having now read the book it has given me added inspiration to finish writing my own. Thank you D, i truly hope that one day our ‘ships’ will pass again.

The next day was a bit of a babbalas day (hangover to the non SA people reading), as much as i had enjoyed the previous evening i was regretting the wine!! So at that point i went into full detox mode and did not have another beer, cigarette or coffee for the remainder of the trip.

The days viewing was great though. I went back to the sausage tree at Mogamba passing a bunch of vultures that were busy cleaning up the old lions buffalo kill from two days ago.

October 2008 Safari

Hey hey!!…back on the road again. I have been trying to get up to the bush for 5 months already but have had too much going on with work. No complaints about that but i sure am pleased to be away, just a short trip (twelve nights) and then back for a couple of months of nose to the grindstone before the Christmas break when i will come back up again.

Currently day two, around 2pm. After arriving at Malelane at about 11am yesterday i have already had quite an eventful trip!
I left Joburg yesterday morning and drove east to Nelspruit, through the Elands valley and on to Malelane where i Stopped for a breakfast and a bit of last chance shopping before entering the Kruger through the Malelane gate. It normally takes me 24 hours or so to get ‘bushified’ and tuned in but within a couple of hours i came across a cheetah kill right by the side of the track.

I stayed at Lower Sabie camp last night, and had intended travelling further east to the Mozambique border before turning north and entering through the Crocodile Bridge gate, however i changed my mind with the idea of taking a very slow drive along the Mbiyamati river and then east again to Sabie.

So upon entering the park i immediately turned east again onto a dirt track so i could get away from any other cars, don’t mean to sound unfriendly but i just love the feeling of losing myself in the wilderness.

I used to feel that to a great extent as soon as i got through the gate, i still do of course, but somehow it is not quite the same as it was before the days of cellphones and computers. Up until about 10-15 years ago the only form of communication up here was by way of CB radio and it seemed so much more remote. Nowadays just about all of the camps have a cell mast and broadband…progress i guess.

Anyway, I headed up to the mbiyamati weir which has always been a beautiful spot with plenty going on, especially reptiles, crocs and birds. I was going to park up and have a couple of beers to get over the drive up here and just kinda chill into the surroundings.

I reached the weir around noon and decided to go a bit further up along the Mbiyamati river, again a particularly beautiful stretch of track that twists and turns with the river on my left. I had only gone a few Klicks when i saw ahead of me a bit of a disturbance in the sandy road and stopped to check it out. There had clearly been a skerfuffle of some sort and i could see the tracks of a cat although i was not sure what it was at first. I looked up and right there, about 5 metres from where i had stopped i saw the kill and two fat pot bellied cheetahs lying under the shade of the bush, in all probability if i had not noticed the spoor on the dirt road i would of driven straight by them.

It looked like they must of killed the Impala a few hours earlier as they really had gorged themselves, to the extent that they both looked pregnant. One male and one female, i don’t think they were a ‘couple’ though, more than likely a brother and sister, two or maybe three years old.

Fortunately for them with the bush being so close to where they had made the kill, they had managed to drag the Impala under the bush and out of sight of Vultures, hyaenas, jackals and lion…all of which could of taken the kill from them. Generally,Cheetahs will eat their food as quickly as possible afdter killing it, largely because they know full well that they are at the mercy of virtually anything that would want to take it from them. They had obviously eaten as much as they possibly could with that in mind and now lay alongside virtually unable to move!.

However, as i say, they had managed to conceal the kill and consequently were able to stay with the kill for the rest of the day when they no doubt had another feed. I stayed with them for a few hours and got a few pics after a couple of hours when they had a little walk around. Actually something must of unnerved them because they both jumped up fairly quickly and moved a ten metres or so to another bush where they both seemed very alert all of a sudden. It might of been lion. Maybe my ears were deceiving me but i am sure i had heard them grunting (the lion that is) about maybe a klick away but it would of been most unusual for lion to make noise at that time of day. Something put them on alert though and for a while i thought i might be in for a real treat with some wonderfull close up shots of lion stealing the kill.

It was not to be though as i still had over 50 klicks of dirt track to drive to get to my camp and i was running out of time, i had to leave them just before 4pm. Wonderful afternoon all the same, and a great way to start my safari.

I saw plenty of game and various animals before i had found them, buffalo, elephant, mongoose and all the usual herbivores and plenty of birdlife as well…too numerous to mention but nothing out of the ordinary.

After i left the cheetah i got a bit of a march on for an hour or so and then slowed down to a crawl when i was about 20 klicks from camp. I saw a pride of lions, maybe about 7 or 8, but they were a good 40 metres into the bush and still siesta-ing so i only stayed with them for five minutes without getting any good shots.

By the time i reached Sabie at 6.00pm i was already beginning to feel the effects of the long day with little sleep the three previous nights so i was more than ready for an early one. Quick salad to eat and i was in my pram soon after 7pm.

Slept like a baby and woke up with birds at 3am but decided to be nice to myself and turned over for another hour or so.
The camp gates open at 5.30 am and i was out at 5.30 and one second!!…actually i had driven round to the gate at about 5 am and then walked down onto the viewing platform over the Sabie river for fifteen minutes or so. It must be one of the nicest ways to herald a new day to be standing on the banks of an African river and listening to the day life starting to wake. There were plenty of hippo about , waterbuck and Impala. In fact i startled one impala who had been feeding directly under me and had not seen until i leaned right over the wooden balustrade.

Out of the camp i headed north west along the Sabie thoroughly savouring the joy of being back again. The light was still a bit gloomy ( it was overcast this morning but hot) but i saw quite a lot of movement down on the sandy sections of the river including a herd of about 30 buffalo. About 6 am i had a stunning specimen of a male lion cross in front of me, once again a great start to the day, although i did not get a chance to get any decent shots of him.

I turned east and drove along the N’watimhiri river with the idea to do exactly what i am doing now, sitting in Pretoriouskop camp , have a couple of hours to relax and writing this, having a cold shower and hot shave before i go out again for a few hours this afternoon to the Shitlhave dam which is just 5 klicks away. (what a name!!….Shitlhave…i always wonder how on earth they named it.

Sometime around 7 am i had stopped at a watering hole on the N’watimhiri and parked off for a couple of hours. Lovely place, a constant hive of activity, during the whole two hours there was probably never less than 100 animals around and dozens of birds all having their morning drink. There must of been at least 500 impala that came and went, a dozen or so Kudu three different groups of elephant with some very young ones less than a year old and a few ‘teenagers’.

One of the teenagers was great fun as he took umbrage to all the other drinkers and kept chasing them off with trumpeting, ears flapping, growling and the occasional two step pretend charge.

I moved off sometime after 9am and headed for Traders Rest for breakfast. I guess i must of got there at about 10 am and was more than ready for food so i had a massive ‘Traders farmhouse breakfast’. “English breakfasts somehow taste so much nicer when you are eating them sitting under a tree in the bush. I don’t often go there as it is always busy, but i knew they did a nice breakfast and also before i had left joburg a client was telling me that last week there had been elephants rampaging through the eating areas!. I had asked whilst the girls were cooking for me and sure enough it was true, just last week in fact!

I had just finished and was having another coffee when suddenly there was a hell of a commotion over to my left with people scattering all over and blow me down if there was not a huge bull jumbo lurching his way into view right through the middle of half a dozen breakfast tables and skottles!! I was cursing as i had left my camera in the car and by the time i had gotten it the elephant had disappeared back into the nearby spruit. Great fun to see all the same.

I left there at 11am and turned onto the old Voortrekker track which was the original old road carved out by the early traders and their ox wagons bringing goods to and from Delagoa bay in Mozambique to the mines and eventually Pretoria and Joburg . I love that track, something very romantic about it with all the history. Jock of the bushveld was born there, a couple of old traders were killed along it, there is a place where the early transporters used to have shooting practice on one of the older trees as well as a couple of spots where they used to lager for the night.

I must of pulled into Pretoriouskop at about 1.30 pm and checked in( i am in a nice rondavel tonight with my own ablutions and air con etc). I was driving round to my rondavel, maybe doing 15-20 kph when suddenly two impala came galloping out between two other rondavels as i drove by, something must of spooked them. The first one somehow managed to jump clean over the bonnet of my landy but the second who was closer to me and slightly behind the other tried to leap over as well but a bit closer to the windshield. CRUNNNCH!!!! It happened in an instant and the next thing i know i have an impala sprawled over my bonnet!!… i honestly thought he was going to come through the windscreen. Amazingly tough these creatures, he scrambled off the landy, clearly in shock…for a split second we were eyeball to eyeball before he flew off into the scrub. He is going to be sore tonight once his adrenalin stops pumping so hard, i have a huge dent on top of my wheel arch squashing the side into the bonnet and a crack right across the middle of the windscreen. I wonder if insurance covers impala crashes??!!!…i can prove it, i have tufts of impala hair jammed into my wiper blades and along the upright edge of the windshield. No blood though so i am quite sure he will recover.

So thats been my start…hectic first 24 hours i would say….i luv it all!! Gonna have that cold shower and head down to the dam for a couple of hours. Ciao ciao

DAY 3
Just after 2 Pm now on my third day and i am plotted up under a tree overlooking the Mestel Dam, lovely panoramic view over the whole dam and out of the glaring sun. A pod of about ten hippos are on the far side in the shallows, Impala, Waterbuck, a couple of giraffes, baboons, Monkeys and an obviously hungry Fish Eagle are all within sight. Shabeni Koppie is over to my right rising majestically over the the bush and i can probably see for a kilometre in a 180 degree view of the whole basin surrounding the dam and over to my right i can probably see for over 10 klicks, all bush but sparse enough to see through it quite clearly with the binoculars.
I have had another brilliant morning…mind you they are all brilliant to me even if i do not see much game.
After i finished writing yesterday in the camp i drove out to Shitlhave Dam to sit for a couple of hours and have a couple of cold beers which was lovely. Fact is i hardly ever drink anything these days let alone beer, but up here in the bush when it is hot they go down so well that i had three together with a couple of hundred grams of buffalo biltong. Seems a bit odd to sit eating buffalo whilst watching a herd of them having an afternoon drink! Lovely biltong though, i can easily understand why lion like them so much.
The fish eagle is busy calling as i write, wonderful cry.
Nothing spectacular happened yesterday apart from watching the herd of buffalo walking past me down to the dam. Also on the way there i very nearly ran over a snake, about a metre long, i think it was a junior black mamba although i am not 100% sure…much to learn regarding identifying snakes.
The biggest black mamba i ever saw was at least 4 metres and i very nearly trod on it, but as it happened i walked past it by about 3 metres and did not even notice it until it moved as i walked by. Of all places i was just walking up from a very remote beach just north of Richards Bay and it was the last thing i expected, i swear it’s head was bigger then my fist and twice as long!!…i must put the story into my bush diary.
Stunning, i just turned my head in time to see the fish eagle swoop down from its perch in a bush by the side of the dam and take out a fish about 6-7 inches long, it has flown off to a treetop about 100 metres away to eat it followed closely by its mate.
Anyway, i started my day this morning about an hour before dawn and parked up at the camp gate at about 5 am. Far too early, but the gate area at Pretoriouskop has many trees, and it is a fantastic place to sit and listen to the birds waking up. I had decided last night that today i was going to go birding and take a drive along the dirt track that runs north along the Phabeni and then call in to the Albasini ruins.
The first bird i saw this morning was a purple crested Lourie, a stunning bird that is not always so easy to see so i was well pleased and i followed it around as it jumped from tree to tree until the gates opened at 5.30.
So much for birding, it was one thing after another with the animals that i did not get much of a chance to focus on the birds. I got some great shots of Rhino as they crossed the track in front of me, Mother and daughter that were very nervous as they often are. Buffalo, elephant, jackals…all sorts of sightings. I stopped off here at the same dam for some coffee and watched some hippo grazing on the banks of the dam just below me which was lovely. Maybe it is just coincidence but i am sure that these days i see much more hippo out of the water during daylight hours than i ever used to. Generally speaking they will stay in water all day long , which, apart from anything else prevents them from getting sunburn. (sunbathers tip: wipe hand over a hippos body and rub onto face…it is apparently the best suntan lotion you can get!!…not easily available though!
After leaving the dam this morning at around 8pm i turned a corner in the track to see a pack of Wild dog coming towards me about fifty metres away and got some great shots of most of them as they trotted past my drivers door. There twenty in all including 10 that were barely a year old. Fantastic sighting, they are not often seen by many people and have been on the endangered list for years. I stayed with them for nearly 3 hours which was great fun and probably travelled a good couple of klicks as they ran around looking for food. I must of taken a 100 shots so i am very hopeful that i will have a few really good ones. At one stage an impala came by while they were resting up on and around a termite mound…the spotters on top of the mound. The impala was lucky though and saw them just in time as the first few leapt after it. However, with one very graceful leap that must of taken the impala over 4 metres across the track and managed to escape in the long grass.
As i watched them i realised that one older auntie was looking after the younger ones and every now and then she would shepherd them off to a hidden spot about 20 or 30 thirty metres away from the older hunters, i guess they were learning by watching. There were about three or four of the older ones in particular that were clearly the main hunters or spotters and one got the feeling that these ones were almost trying to show off by the way they kept alert and every once in a while bounded off from the others into the bush to try to find something to hunt down.
I saw a wild dog kill once, long ago, over twenty years. Of all the kills i have witnessed this in some ways was the most spectacular…and so fast. It was a female impala and the poor thing was virtually half eaten before it hit the deck. Another story for my diary.
I saw a couple last year but they were the first i had seen for over twenty years i am sure, so i am well chuffed to have got so many shots for the site. A client of mine has asked for some wild dog shots too so hopefully i will be able to satisfy his request and recoup some of my expense for the trip as well.
After that i was starving, i had planned to have breakfast around 9 am, but by the time i got back to camp it was gone 11am so i had the biggest farmhouse breakfast before having a walk around the camp. Too hot though so i decided to come back out here to write and have a couple of beers. Depending on what happens here in the next hour or i will either stay or drive up onto one of the koppies to get a sunset picture before i head up north tomorrow morning to Satara and then Balule where i expect to see most action on this trip. They are normally the best viewing areas for lion, leopard and big game, especially around the Nwanetsi which is one of my favourite areas. Mind you, i am delighted with what i have seen and experienced so far down here in the south which has been beyond expectations.
Evening now, still on the third day and i am in my rondavel after eating a quick salad supper with sardines. A few tins of sardines work well on safari, normally one just eats meat which gets a bit much.
A lot of the biggest camps have a snack bar and also a nice restaurant where they serve excellent buffet meals. It is a grand way to end the day up here but the trouble is for me it is just too much to eat before i sleep, and bearing in mind that i am up and about by 4 ish i really prefer to get an early night. I expect that i shall stay in camp one day at Balule and cook a slow potjie (probably wildebeest), whilst walking the camp trying to get some shots of birds and anything else i find…..good way to catch a tan too.
Nothing too exciting again this afternoon . I stayed at the dam for over two hours watching anther pod of hippos sleeping on the sandy bank on the far side. Two youngsters with them, one of which was very small…not sure how old but probably about a year. A few animals of different variety came out of the bush on the far side to take a drink, kudu, waterbuck, impala, jackals, warthogs with a variety of water birds around the edges or flying past..no chance to record most of them though as i was too busy writing, but amongst the others there were various waders, Egyptian geese,plovers, wild duck and the occasional eagle, fish eagle, tawny, yellow billed kite….
I left the dam at 4.45, cracked my second beer and took a 20kph drive back to camp. Saw a lopvely male kudu, a great specimen with huge spiralling horns.

Further on i came across an impala kill from yesterday that was being feasted on by a couple of collared vultures where i managed to get a few good facial shots of the birds which should come out well. Perhaps when i am in Satara or Balule i will find some time to start editing the pics and post a few amongst these words.
I got a nice one of a group of them walking up a sand road ahead of me, mainly because i wanted to show the ‘M’ on the rear ends…i always tell people that they are the Macdonalds of the bush….which in essence they are.
So back into camp and ready for another early night, i can feel sleep getting to me now and it is only 7.44. Still i think i will get up extra early tomorrow and walk around the camp again whilst the bush starts to awaken….especially up by the gate where it is rife with various birds.
Heading North tomorrow and looking forward to it very much as it is not only one of my favourite areas but normally very good for seeing plenty of game, not to mention the fact that it is an area which has always been good for me with lions and leopards and the like. I have really enjoyed my few days down here in the south of the park but am looking forward to getting further north.
If anyone is reading this by the way, check it again in a couple of weeks and i will have inserted some of the pictures i am talking about. Night for now.

Day 4
Another excellent day!
First i must note the treat i had last night. After finishing writing i went for a quick walk around the camp just to finish me off for the day. What a bonus, i walked up by the gate where i found a few people gathered. Obviously i went over to find out what the attraction was and right next to the gate (on the other side i should add) was about 8 elephants feeding off quite a big tree about 2 metres away, fantastic to watch and hear so close up, i could of literally reached through the wooden gate and touched them, i was tempted but didn’t as i could not really see beyond a few metres properly and there were a couple of young ones with them. Apparently they had been there for half an hour already so i only got to see them for ten minutes or so and they left. They must of come back after everyone had gone though as in the morning i could not believe what was left of the tree, at least half of it was gone. I should of checked to see what type of tree it was, i will look in my book, but it was full of bright green new leaves sprouting out .The landscape is fairly dry at the moment as we have not had any spring rain yet, so the trees that do have new shoots stand out like a sore thumb. I guess it must be a regular ritual for the jumbos, because even though there was virtually nothing left of it they had not smashed it down completely and there were enough branches left for it to grow again this year. Wonderful stuff!!
So after another really good sleep i was up at 4.30 this morning and up at the gate 15 minutes early which was nice as i had a chance to chat with the gatekeeper a bit, a young Shangaan guy from Hazyview, always nice to communicate with these guys and get an idea of who they are and what they are about.
I had decided earlier to head straight for the old transport dam, one that the original transporters in their ox carts used to use way back when.
I saw quite a few interesting things on the way including three different sightings of Rhino and arrived at the dam around 7 am. Great choice and i stayed until past 11.00am there was so much going on.
The dam is great for viewing with almost 360 Degree views for far so that one can see everything that comes and goes, and at this time of year with the bush being so sparse it is even better.
During the time i was there i probably saw close on a thousand animals coming and going in single file from all angles. At least five hundred Impala with at least twenty different groups that never stopped over the whole time i was there. Kudu, Wildebeest, Giraffe, monkeys, Baboons, Zebras, Buffalo, Warthog and one herd of 12 Elephant. Great fun to see them come trekking through the bush, and then when they cleared the bush line from nearly every group there would be a few who would run down to the waters edge. Almost skipping and hopping, it was clear to see that they were really looking forward to their morning drink. Very few of the animals hang around at the waters edge for fear of predators so at times it was like Piccadilly Circus with some coming and some going from all corners of the compass ( except from behind me which was a track that led up to the road). There were no crocs around it seemed, i certainly never saw one, so many of the animals, especially the bigger ones, had a good splash around too. I am sure i have some good shots so i will upload them when i get home.
There was also plenty of birdlife too, Kori Bustards, Hornbills, Whydahs, Quineas, Guinea Fowl, glossy starlings, various plovers and many more, but no waders.
I suppose the highlight was a couple of Fish Eagles who were out looking for breakfast, and after a couple of hours of moving from tree to tree to various rocks around the dam the one eventually swooped down just 30 metres or so in front of me and took a fair sized Barbel that was wallowing in the mud in the shallow water at the edge of the dam nearest to me. The fish stood no chance as the eagle came in behind it (almost flying directly towards me) and just landed on the poor thing, gripped it and hopped less than a metre on the churned up mud out of the water. A few seconds getting a good grip and it was off to a tree about 100 metres away to breakfast. I am sure i got a few shots of it taking off with the fish in its claws…too busy to check any pictures at all yet.
I will have to soon though, only 3three and a half days so far and i have taken about four hundred shots already, some trips it can take me three weeks to get so many. Mind you, i will probably edit out between fifty and a hundred i am sure.
By 11.00 am things were staring to slow down a little as it started to get quite hot so with a fair drive ahead of me and a rumbling stomach i headed off north on the tar road that runs up the centre of the park ( about 440 kilometres from north to south).
I stopped at Tshokwane for another huge great farmhouse breakfast al fresco which was delicious, topped up with coffee and headed off again. After stopping briefly at a couple of watering holes along the way for a few shots of bushbuck, saddle billed storks, elephants and a few other sightings i arrived at Satara soon after 2pm.
Great to be back again, it was never my favourite camp in the past but i am quite fond of it these days, especially as, in my opinion, it is in one of the best viewing areas in the park overall. I suppose it is probably slightly north of the centre of the park.
I checked in and a quick shower befire heading out to see how much water there is along the Nwanetsi and was very happy to see that there is some which bodes well for viewing over the next week.
Taking the dirt track running alongside the north of the N’wanetsi as it heads east i had parked up at at a water hole with wide views all around and cracked a beer intending to stay there for a couple of hours before heading back and trying to get some nice sunset shots, but for some reason i was not settgled there and decided to drive on a bit further. Another great choice as 7 kilometres further on i came across two male Lions just a few metre off the track with a large bull waterbuck kill. I know it was large because the horns were massive, not much short of a metre long each. Big animals, they are probably the same height as a cow and virtually the same size all around.
The two lion were completely stuffed, not surprising as over half of the waterbuck was eaten already!!…they must of killed it around mid morning i would say. Both of them were lying next to the remains and occasionally sitting up to scare off the vultures that were gathering. In the surrounding trees i guess there were about twenty. So i sat there for the remainder of the afternoon and took quite a few shots whilst chilling out on a couple of ice cold beers…paradise!
So another great day, i am in camp now and just about ready to shower again and throw a few z’s at the thatch. Can’t wait to get back out there again tomorrow.
Day 5
I know it is day 5 because i can see that when i wrote about yesterday it was day 4, if it was not for that i would have to sit and try to figure it out. In other words i am totally lost in time, so totally engrossed in what i am doing and where i am that time and days somehow seem to lose all meaning.
It is a wonderful space to be in.
Well if yesterday was a good day today was a fantastic day! Cloudy and cool all day which is the very best game viewing weather one can get, the action was non stop all day, one thing after another. A Cat day would be a good title and one moment was just about the funniest, stupidest and most adrenalin pumping moment i have had in the bush!!
After being lulled asleep last night by a Scops owl i woke at 3.45 am feeling thoroughly refreshed and more than ready for the day ahead. I knew in my bones it was going to be good, i could see there had been a light spattering of rain during the night, the wind was blowing a bit and it was much cooler than the last few days. As it grew light i was sure the clouds were not going to burn off and it proved to be so.
As usual i was at the gate first at about 5.00am to be greeted by elephants trumpeting somewhere close by as i drank my first coffee of the morning…everything just tastes so much nicer up here.
I had thought about going straight back to the lion kill as i was pretty sure that the lions would still be there, and if not there would probably be a bit of a spectacle with vultures, jackals and hyaenas, but instead i chose to drive along the south side of the N’wanetsi and come back via the north side. Two reasons really, the south side is a smoother drive as it leads up to Singita lodge (where Nelson Mandela and all the top knobs go to) and i wanted to see a water hole called Sonop that i always enjoy. Actually three reasons, i was not the only one who knew about the kill and i figured there would be others doing the same thing and i was not ready for dust or other vehicles.
So i had a nice gentle cruise to start my day. Along the way i saw quite a few hyaenas anyway but not too much else as there has been a bush fire recently for most of the way on the river side of me and it probably needs another week or two of growth. After about twenty Klicks there is a dirt track which heads north and crosses the river and that is where the viewing really started.
I did stop at Sonop but apart from a black backed jackal and a Bateleur Eagle there was not much going on.
After about two klicks down the dirt track which twists and turns through gentle hills and down and up through the river i came round a bend to find a huge African Wild cat crapping in the centre of the track. Not often seen as they are as shy as any cat can be i was highly delighted and it really was a big one, as big as an Alsation.
Oh i forgot, i also saw a group of Ostriches and got one of my best pics ever of a Nyala Bull which is one of the most stunning Antelopes to look at.
A couple of klicks later i came across sixteen lions about thirty metres to my right. They were all lying down just in front of a fairly dense line of thicket bush and after a while they got up one by one and walked into it and then parallel with the track i was on. Although i had found them lying down they seemed quite alert and i reckoned they were hunting still so i stayed with them as i could see one or two of them every now and then. I lost them after about half an hour and drove on but within a kilometre i came across about twenty giraffe which i thought would exactly the sort of sized animal they would be looking for so i parked up for nearly an hour in the hope that i might see some real action. Not to be and i did not see them again but it was lovely to watch the giraffes as two of them were having a real jousting match with each other. Like boxers in a way except that there fists are the two tufts on the top of their heads which i believe is really hard gristle bone…not that i have ever touched one. They bend their necks down and then swing them up quite violently pounding their targets a kind of a upward headbutt.
I gave up the ghost with the lions and moved off again but well pleased to have seen them, they were all beautiful specimens too, all seemingly about three or four years old, fully grown and probably the equivalent to human 18 year olds.
Another few klicks along the track i glimpsed a leopard, but it was a brief moment as he had crossed the road about 75 metres ahead of me and had disappeared by the time i got there.
Once over the N’wanetsi i turned left onto the dirt track which runs east to west on the north side of the river, probably my favourite bit of track in the park. Apart from the fact that i just about never fail to see plenty along that particular track it is very beautiful in summer, but even in winter it has a certain beauty about it as it winds its way alongside the river for about twenty klicks.
Three klicks down i come to a lioness who is clearly hunting and hungry, so i parked up and watched her crouching in a small thicket just a few metres off the track looking out for some food to walk up from the river which was upwind of her. Once again i thought i was going to get lucky with some action right in front of me when she spotted a young male Kudu come out of the bush line along the river bank but at that moment some baboons in the trees above starting barking a warning and gave the Kudu the heads up. She seemed quite pissed off and walked off to another thicket at the base of a deadwood tree about fifty metres further into the bush overlooking a slope that ran away from me so i moved on again. About another hundred metres further on i came across a huge male lion that was sleeping under a tree right on the edge of the track i was on, they must of been mates to have been so close but he did not seem to have an interest in the world, maybe she was doing the hunting for both of them, it is the norm in the lion world.
After a while i moved on again and a further five or six klicks on i saw a huge male Leopard in the river bed. Another landy was parked up and they told me that it had just come down out of a tree where they had first seen it because some another couple of youngish Kudu and half a dozen Impala had come down for a drink in one of the pools of water in the river bed. I only saw the leopard momentarily but could see the Kudu and Impala which were all snorting alarm calls to each other . I would of stayed but it was getting on for 11am by now and i was feeling pretty hungry myself so i carried on.
Another six or seven klicks further on i came across another five lions, one male and four females that also seemed very alert. They were close to the river bank which was about thirty metres away at that point and i could see the far side of the river bed where there was a small herd of elephant passing, it was lovely sight to see the elephants in the background with the lions watching them intently for any weakness. There were a couple of half grown ellies but i reckon the lions did not want to try and tackle them with the bigger aunties that were also there.
I was very hungry by now so i only stayed briefly but then another five or six klicks further on i came across another male lion!! Also sleeping, at the time i found him all i could really see was his four legs sticking up in the air with an occasional flick of his tail. One morning only and five different lion sightings!!…almost unbelievable.
I guess i must of got back to satara at around noon where i immediately got stuck into another one of those big breakfast which i polished off very quickly…the lions would of been proud of me!
A quick shower and i was on my way out again just before 1pm…i did not want to waste any time in camp with so much going on.
I headed straight back along the dirt track alongside the north of the river, apart from having a wonderful morning there i had heard from one of the rangers whilst i wqas having breakfast that a big male leopard had been sighted there earlier on which seemed to be on the lookout for prey, having been spotted up a tree and then walking along the river bank.
About ten klicks along the track i saw another landy parked up and pulled up to say hi and see what he was looking at (i must admit it is sometimes good to have other folk around as one cannot possibly see everything)…sure enough there was the big leopard on a low bough overhanging the river bed. I got a shot but not a great one as there was a bit of green foliage and it was a good forty metres away. The other guy and his wife drove off soon after as the leopard was facing away from us and he was going back to the five lions that were laid up further back down the track. Murphys law, not two minutes after he left the leopard sat up and turned around before lying down again facing me, still not a great shot but i took a couple anyway. Five minutes later he cam down and started walking eastwards along the edge of the river bank. I followed him for a while but then lost him on a horseshoe bend in the river. Beautiful animal and great viewing through the binoculars.
I carried on eastwards and pulled into a track that took me right to the edge of the river bank where, to my amazement i found a female leopard, also on a bough over hanging the river and not more than ten metres from where i was able to park. Fantastic..if i did not have the pictures to prove it i doubt anyone would believe me! This cat also seemed quite alert and on the lookout, 99% of the time any leopard would be resting up at this time of day and waiting for dusk but i guess that because it was so cool and cloudy it was not so tired.
About 20-30 minutes later the guy in the other landy pulled into the cutout. He had gone back to the liuons to find that they had crashed and were obviously sleeping until later, he came back and saw that the leopard was gone and drove on until he saw me whereupon i pointed out the new leopard.
Anyway, he parks up next to me and we chatted a bit. I don’t know his name but i shall call him Herman as he reminded me of a ‘Herman’ i used to know about twenty years ago. The guy was wearing a skydiving t-shirt and although i did not ask him about it he did seemed like the adrenaline junkie type but a nice enough guy who seemed to be a good laugh. After a while he offered me a beer but i had already cracked one, so he gets out of his car and goes to the rear to get one for himself one from the cooler box…i figured he was just showing off but it was a pretty stupid thing to do with a leopard just a few metres away! The leopard looked at him and it seemed clear to me that she was less than impressed but all the same did not really move. The leopard went back to looking out over the river bed.
Ten minutes later he says to me that he he had grown up on a farm where they had leopards around and he figured it was not interested in anything but resting up for the remainder of the day and says that he was going to walk to the front side of it to get a good picture!! I could hardly believe my ears but there it is, so i said i would watch his back for him but i thought he was nutz….i am sure he must of had one toot too many. His wife did not seem to be saying anything so i thought that maybe he knew something that i didn’t.
Now i could not believe my eyes, i thought to myself that i should get my cam corder out as it might well be a real ‘youtube’ moment, but it seemed like a nasty thought so i didn’t do it and readied my camera instead and told him i would watch his back. I still did not really believe he would do it.
But he did!!!
He gets out of the car and takes about six paces until he was virtually under the the leopard and starts snapping away. I think i was almost in shock, the leopard turned immediately, i got a shot at that point and had a look afterwards, the look on the leopards face is one of absolute contempt, i shall post it here later.
After a few seconds the leopard suddenly jumps up with the most vicious snarl you can imagine (personally i think a leopards roar is scarier than a lions in some ways and in fact from what i hear from hunters i would rather face a lion than a leopard) she turns around in a bound and starts coming down the tree like lightening. Well i tell you it really was a scary moment, i got one quick shot as i shouted at him whilst starting my engine, firstly to wind my windows up as i have seen footage of a leopard attack a ranger through a truck window but also with the thought that i was going to have to try and ram the cat to save the man…all this happened in a split second. The guy absolutely kakked himself and nearly fell over as he scrambled back into his car with his wife screaming.
I know it sounds ridiculous but it happened just like that it is probably the most stupid thing i have ever seen anyone do. I looked at him in amazement and asked him how his adrenaline was and with that we all just packed up laughing. I always thought that i was a bit of a crazy coot but that surely takes the cake.
I was laughing about it for the rest of the afternoon and still am, although i realise it is actually very serious and not really funny, but it got my adrenaline going as well and the only thing to do was see the funny side of it.
I know why the hunters of old and of today and all the indigenous people of the bush call the leopard the yellow flash. That guy was very very lucky that the leopard did not just drop onto him, he would of been dead in an instant. His life though, what can i say!
By the time we had recovered we saw the leopard had gone behind us into a thicket where in actual fact i was able to get some nice shots of her which i will also post later. Unbelievable experience, and to in fact it is still only now sinking in what i saw.
After a short while the leopard moved off down into the river bed and out of view so we had a final chuckle about it and went our separate ways.
It was getting on for 4pm by now and i decided to have a 10-15kph drive back to camp for the evening thinking that that was surely it for the day.
The cloud had actually cleared a little and it looked it was going to be a spectacular sunset that i would be driving westwards into.
About five klicks on the way back i came around a corner just in time to see a herd of +-75 Buffalo coming up from the river which was lovely to see and i pulled up to take some shots. After about 5 minutes i was virtually surrounded by them as they crossed the track around me on their way. There was one with her mother that was surely no older than a month, beautiful little chocolate brown thing.
A couple from the Czech republic had pulled up coming eastwards towards me and took my e mail address as they said they had got a picture of me with the buffalo around me, can’t wait to see what it looks like.
I carried on driving grinning from ear to ear, a special day in the bush. I had my eye on the setting sun and was looking for a good backdrop to get a couple of shots. As i came round another bend i saw a lovely tree ahead with the sun directly behind it so i stopped I leant over to pick my camera up and as i did a female lion just walked out of the bush in front of me not even ten metres from where i had parked…i could not believe it, i had not even seen it yet had stopped in the perfact place. I tried to get a shot of her with the sun behind her but she was across the track already where i saw there were another two lionesses laid out in the grass just a few metres from me, i looked back into the riverine bush and saw a nice male coming up to and just about managed to him with the setting sun in the background.
I looked back through the bush and saw that there were more still down in the river and luckily just ten metres ahead was another little cutout that goes down the bank almost to the river bed where there were some nice big flat rocks (in fact it is a spot i know well and often pull in there for coffee when i am up this way. I quickly pulled in there in time to see another lioness with two cubs which were probably less than a year old. I managed to get a couple of shots with the mother and one of the cubs but they disappeared up the other bank quite quickly, they seemed very shy. I did notice though that the one cub had some sort of bucks hoof and shin in its mouth just like a kid with a lollipop!!
That must surely be it, it was well past 5.00pm by now.
But NO!!
Not even anoth kilometre down the track i come across a herd of about 20 elephants also coming up out of the river! Absolutely stunning and there two little ones that could not of been older than a couple of months at the most…i wondered if they were twins as they seemed identical. They were play fighting with each other, kicking up dust and the one starts mock charging me…it was the cutest thing. The mother was there…or an auntie…also just three or four metres from me eating leaves from a bush that was between her and me and i swear that she seemed to have a look on her face that said ‘sorry…they are just kids having fun’….i smiled back at her and put it down as one of those absolutely wonderful moments in life that i will remember forever. She really was calm…i cannot help but think that there is far more to the intelligence of some of these animals than we realise, i am sure that they instinctively know the good guys from the bad guys.
A wonderful , truly special day that i will not forget in a long time.
There is no way i can top this tomorrow so i am definitely just going birding, perhaps even spend some time in camp and cook up a potjie.

Day 7
It is the evening of day 7 now, sitting on the stoop of my verandah after finishing a plate of Wildebeest potjie. I bought what looked like a big packet of meat with the intention of eating it over today and tomorrow, but there was not so much as i thought so i got creative and added half a packet of bacon, good move as it turned out and i shall pull the same trick again someday. A potjie by the way is basically a stew cooked in an a cast iron three legged pot, much like a witches cauldron only mine is a smaller version. I guess it is a traditional South African dish and can be done in a variety of ways, the best being to cook it slowly on warm to hot ashes, depending on what meat you are cooking it can take 5 or 6 hours especially if it is Oxtail which is probably my favourite, Ostrich neck a close second. Any game meat is lovely though. It was the way the old voortrekkers used to cook when they were travelling through the country on their oxcarts and for me it always adds a ‘touch of romantiscism’ to my safaris. The other thing of course is to barbeque.
Nothing like sitting by the fire and watching the stars and listening the night sounds of the bush, even though i am parked up in one of the bigger camps in the park and have other people around me.
I was due to move on to Balule which is a tiny camp with just six huts on the banks of the. No electricity and no light except paraffin lamps and candles. The huts were built nearly 100 years ago for the guys who were building a pontoon bridge over the river. It has a fence around it now but still has the feeling of being totally out in the wild. However, as it is such a short trip and because i had such a good day on day 5 i decided to stay here for an extra two days. I will get there when i come up in dacember – January which hopefully will be at least a month. At the moment i am thinking of spending Christmas in Punda Maria and Pafuri which is far into the north on the Limpopo river, obviously close to the Zimbabwe border and also the Mozambique border. Quite different in may ways from the where i am now in the ‘middle’ of the park, and far more remote with a lot less visitors. I have been up there before now and spent some days without seeing any other vehicles at all outside of the camp and the approach roads.

Well it has been another couple of splendid days although different from the first few. Monday was quite windy and still overcast, even a bit chilly at times in the wind, i can hardly remember seeing the sun all day. I knew i was not going to be able to top day 5’s action so i did not even try. Mind you, Monday morning carried on in much the same vein with several lion sightings, even today i have seen a couple on my early morning drive.
I could not bring myself not to do the early morning thing though and both mornings have been up at the gate way before they opened to watch the dawn breaking and hearing the first birds singing and then out again for sunset game drives.
I spent a few hours yesterday in a bird hide on the Sweni river. Not much water so what was there was all packed quite closely together, a pod of ten hippos, loads of crocodiles on the banks including many very young ones, there must of been around ten that were less than a metre long and it was quite funny watching them stalk the impala and waterbuck who came down to drink and feed on the vegetation on the dry banks, even the impala were many times their body weight. The floor of the hude is slatted timber and i noticed one directly under where i was sitting.
At the entrance to the hide where i had parked the landy there were a couple of other groups of impala grazing so i figured it was pretty safe and walked into the bush for about fifty metres to try and get a couple of shots of them. I will get kakked on if any of the parks management read this but i just love the feeling of walking near the animals, a bit silly without a rifle i suppose, but like i say there were quite a few buck around as well as kudu so i figured that any lion or leopard was going to go for them before they even looked at me, not to mention the fact that the buck were all very calm. I got to within 30 metres or so from the one group but then heard another vehicle approaching so went back, turned out to be a group of American tourists in a combi.
Regarding game viewing it has been much of the same really although this morning i saw a red duiker and from the bird hide i saw a suni which was feeding under the overhanging dried reeds. There quite deep crevices that go under the bank and i suspect it is where the crocs go to sleep when the river dries completely, they certainly get under there in summer when there is water.
I have not made any lists but have seen quite a lot of different birds, i will go through my book when i get home to remind me, and and make a list of them all.
A lot warmer agin today and i suspect tomorrow may be another scorcher. Not sure which direction i will take yet but will decide in the morning, maybe i’ll do a morning drive alongside the Sweni which is also a very pretty river and quite often good for game viewing, there is a nice waterhole there with some wide open spaces where i may just park up for a while…we will see….the joy of unfettered wandering in the bush!

Day 7
It is the evening of day 7 now, sitting on the stoop of my verandah after finishing a plate of Wildebeest potjie. I bought what looked like a big packet of meat with the intention of eating it over today and tomorrow, but there was not so much as i thought so i got creative and added half a packet of bacon, good move as it turned out and i shall pull the same trick again someday. A potjie by the way is basically a stew cooked in an a cast iron three legged pot, much like a witches cauldron only mine is a smaller version. I guess it is a traditional South African dish and can be done in a variety of ways, the best being to cook it slowly on warm to hot ashes, depending on what meat you are cooking it can take 5 or 6 hours especially if it is Oxtail which is probably my favourite, Ostrich neck a close second. Any game meat is lovely though. It was the way the old voortrekkers used to cook when they were travelling through the country on their oxcarts and for me it always adds a ‘touch of romantiscism’ to my safaris. The other thing of course is to barbeque.
Nothing like sitting by the fire and watching the stars and listening the night sounds of the bush, even though i am parked up in one of the bigger camps in the park and have other people around me.
I was due to move on to Balule which is a tiny camp with just six huts on the banks of the. No electricity and no light except paraffin lamps and candles. The huts were built nearly 100 years ago for the guys who were building a pontoon bridge over the river. It has a fence around it now but still has the feeling of being totally out in the wild. However, as it is such a short trip and because i had such a good day on day 5 i decided to stay here for an extra two days. I will get there when i come up in dacember – January which hopefully will be at least a month. At the moment i am thinking of spending Christmas in Punda Maria and Pafuri which is far into the north on the Limpopo river, obviously close to the Zimbabwe border and also the Mozambique border. Quite different in may ways from the where i am now in the ‘middle’ of the park, and far more remote with a lot less visitors. I have been up there before now and spent some days without seeing any other vehicles at all outside of the camp and the approach roads.

Well it has been another couple of splendid days although different from the first few. Monday was quite windy and still overcast, even a bit chilly at times in the wind, i can hardly remember seeing the sun all day. I knew i was not going to be able to top day 5’s action so i did not even try. Mind you, Monday morning carried on in much the same vein with several lion sightings, even today i have seen a couple on my early morning drive.
I could not bring myself not to do the early morning thing though and both mornings have been up at the gate way before they opened to watch the dawn breaking and hearing the first birds singing and then out again for sunset game drives.
I spent a few hours yesterday in a bird hide on the Sweni river. Not much water so what was there was all packed quite closely together, a pod of ten hippos, loads of crocodiles on the banks including many very young ones, there must of been around ten that were less than a metre long and it was quite funny watching them stalk the impala and waterbuck who came down to drink and feed on the vegetation on the dry banks, even the impala were many times their body weight. The floor of the hude is slatted timber and i noticed one directly under where i was sitting.
At the entrance to the hide where i had parked the landy there were a couple of other groups of impala grazing so i figured it was pretty safe and walked into the bush for about fifty metres to try and get a couple of shots of them. I will get kakked on if any of the parks management read this but i just love the feeling of walking near the animals, a bit silly without a rifle i suppose, but like i say there were quite a few buck around as well as kudu so i figured that any lion or leopard was going to go for them before they even looked at me, not to mention the fact that the buck were all very calm. I got to within 30 metres or so from the one group but then heard another vehicle approaching so went back, turned out to be a group of American tourists in a combi.
Regarding game viewing it has been much of the same really although this morning i saw a red duiker and from the bird hide i saw a suni which was feeding under the overhanging dried reeds. There quite deep crevices that go under the bank and i suspect it is where the crocs go to sleep when the river dries completely, they certainly get under there in summer when there is water.
I have not made any lists but have seen quite a lot of different birds, i will go through my book when i get home to remind me, and and make a list of them all.
A lot warmer agin today and i suspect tomorrow may be another scorcher. Not sure which direction i will take yet but will decide in the morning, maybe i’ll do a morning drive alongside the Sweni which is also a very pretty river and quite often good for game viewing, there is a nice waterhole there with some wide open spaces where i may just park up for a while…we will see….Oh the joy of unfettered wandering in the bush with no stresses or strains or commitments!

Day 8
I was just sitting last night after i had finished writing my notes when i heard a kill somewhere close to the fence of the camp. Not sure what it was but i suspect it may of been hyaenas who often roam around the fences of the various camps. People having braais invariably throw their bones over the fence and i guess that has gone on for many years. Quite a sad thing to hear but as i often say it is not so much a death as it is the perpetuation of life. I wonder how many people realise the horrors that occur in the abbatoirs that supply the supermarkets?
Later on i was woken by them yelling and ‘laughing’ at about 2pm. It must of been within a 100 metres. I have heard it before whilst camping just 20 or so metres away from me, in the still of night it is quite a bloodcurdling sound. On that occasion i heard the kill as they trapped an impala and slammed it against the fence on the camp in Maroela at about 3.00am one morning. I got up and pretty much watched the whole thing by torch light just a few paces from me, horrifying to watch!!…the following night they caught a monkey somehow and that was worse because it sounded human. Little bit scary actually because at the time Maroela only had a fence barely over a metre high with quite a few holes underneath it and being in a tent right next to the fence did not exactly help matters!
Another lovely day today spending the morning along the Sweni river after sitting at the dam for a couple of hours first thing.
I saw plenty including a couple of huge tuskers. In the old days there used to be tuskers with ‘teeth’ that were over 12 feet long!!. There were seven in particular around called the ‘magnificent seven’in the 70’s and early 80’s and i was fortunate to see one of them live, i think it was called Mafamudi or something like that i will have to check. The tusks of the seven are on display in Letaba camp which i will spend time at in January so i will photograph them and post them on the site.
This afternoon i drove back along the N’wanetsi to the Gudzani dam where i spent an hour before crawling home at about 10 kph, lovely drive into the sunset which i thoroughly enjoyed.
The first highlight of the day was at the dam this morning which is 7 klicks along the road towards Orpen ( i can’t remember its name) where i saw another single bull elephant coming down for an early drink. His first trunk full of water he used to squirt at a couple of impala who were already there at the waters edge….they got the message and left rapidly!!
I made some breakfast for myself at Muzandzeni which is a kind of a ‘picnic spot’ on the Sweni, one of my favourites in fact. Just a clearing in the bush really where an African couple live and keep it clean and tidy as well as providing anyone who pulls in with a skottle.
There is a waterhole right there too where i was fortunate enough to have a herd of about 30 buffalo drinking as i ate my breakfast just fifty metres from where i was sitting. No fences or anything like that so it really gives one the feeling of ‘out of Africa’ as in the movies.
I had to laugh, there was another young couple there who appeared to be rare visitors to the bush. They were sitting having some food they had prepared and he was freaking out because a Hornbill kept trying to steal his food while he was eating. Maybe he just has a phobia about birds. I knew a guy like that once who i worked with. He was a genuine tough guy who one would definitely not mess with by choice, yet he was absolutely terrified of birds. I think he had seen the Alfred Hitchcock film when he was very young which had left an indelible mark on him.
The second highlight for me was this afternoon at a large pool of water in the N’wanetsi river bed. It is a pool that i have never seen dry i don’t think and there seem to be two permanent residents apart from several giant meat eating turtles who probably live off the crocs kills, a hippo and a huge croc. The closest i can get to the water is about 75 metres but is easy viewing with the binoculars and i would say that the croc is at least 4 metres if not five.
I was sitting there for a while on my way to Gudzani and an impala was about 12 feet from the edge of the weater eating some new green shoots that were sprouting up out of the trampled mud. The crocodile was quite fixated on the impala, my view point was about twenty feet above the river bed, so i could see that he was lined up and ready should the impala be stupid enough to take a drink. Instead of just laying there and submerging himself completely he had his eyes on the water line and was swishing his tail slowly back and forth every now and again creating a gentle turbulence in the water which the impala simple must of seen and heard and i wondered what he was doing. Then it struck me that, and i am guessing here, the movement being created by the crocs tail looked and sounded like a barbell basking. Although as i say i am guessing, i do believe that the croc was trying to entice the impala down to the waters edge by making it think he was just a barbell and therefore it must be safe to drink.
The impala was an older ram with quite big horns so it had obviously been around a bit and i don’t think he was fooled, but it would not surprise me if it worked on younger less experienced animals.
The third highlight was at the Gudzani dam. It was very busy with all sorts of birds making noise, i have some good footage which i will eventually edit and up load here too, a symphony of sound.
The water was low and i could see the waters edge for a good couple of hundred metres in both directions..right and left of me. Amongst all the goings on around the dam the place was infested with crocs. At one poiunt ten zebras came out of the bushline about 100 metres from me and i was watching them with the binocs amble down for a drink. I have seen lions ambush zebra before now in similar scenarios and was watching them intently as the breeze indicated vthat there were a couple of spots where predators could be laid up.
Instead, as i was watching them drinking a croc of maybe two to three metres leapt out of the water and went for one of the zebras. He missed, but it was a great thing to see and the zebras kicked a big cloud of dust as they scarpered!!
Beautiful sunset this evening to end the days viewing and all is well in my world.
Tomorrow i am heading south again, and tomorrow night i will pull into the southernmost camp in the park. I have not been there for years so i am quite looking forward to it. Very different country side as it is quite high in the hills with different flora and fauna altogether with some quite beautiful granite koppies.

Day 10
The afternoon of day 10 and i am sitting at the Matjulu water hole in the hills at the very south of the park. Strangely enough i have just heard a couple of low key ‘whoops’ from a nearby Hyaena, i can’t say i have ever heard them in the daytime before!!??.
Not much going on here at the moment, the occasional visitor to drink, couple of warthog just now, a lone elephant and of course the ever present birds, in this case, blue finches, glossy starlings, white fronted bee eaters, francolins, hammerkop and more that i can hear and not see…always a few ‘little brown things’ that is not so easy to identify.
Yesterday, day 9, turned out to be a brilliant viewing day, as it was the day when i had to drive back down to the south i kinda thought it might not be so good for seeing things as i had a fair way to come, nearly 200 klicks, but it was fabulous.
Leaving camp just after 5.30 i had decided to stick to the tar road all the way down and then relax a bit when i arrived. First stop for a cup of coffee was on the bridge over the N’wanetsi and lo and behold just down on the right hand side where the river bends sharply to the left with a kind of confluence with a floodwater channel i see 4 young lion cubs playing as the sun rose. Beautiful to watch. The cubs were probably about a year or more older so are starting to look and sound likelions but ‘puppy playful’. There were at least two lionesses on the bank behind some bushes but they seemed to be sleeping.
The young lions were fighting and growling with each other, slipping and sliding down the bank, standing up and pulling down young sapling trees and letting them go again like slingshots…great fun to watch. One could see the different characters amongst the four of them, one was clearly more naughty than the others with one nearly as bad, another was much quieter and laid back, the other seemed tro be doing what the others did just because they were.Superb start to the day and i sat there for about 45 minutes until they moved off into the bush after one of the lionesses had got up and moved back. Hopefully got a couple of good shots and definitely got some good footage.
Very shortly after moving on, probably not much more than a kilometre i came across a Ostrich couple walking along the road with 9 young chicks. I followed them for a couple of hundred metres, also lovely to see. The young ones were about the size of small chickens…looked a bit like something out of a Walt Disney film.
Five klicks later i turned off onto the Sweni dirt track, there is a water hole just a few klicks along from the tar road ands i had seen a couple of lion there a couple of days ago so i thought i would have a quick look. Sure enough there were six lions there, including, i am sure the mating couple i had seen before. They were quite far from me though on the ridge of the far bank but nice to see all the same so i had another coffee and sat for ten minutes or so before heading back to the tar rtoad and south.
As i turned i saw a large troop of baboons just spreading out for a days foraging. There were many, maybe as many as fifty with plenty of young ones, Spread out over more the 300 metres itr was stunning to see as the rising sun which was just beginning to gain height and strength was shining onto the other side of them so that from my position it gave them a sort of glowing aura as they walked along.
Even though ihad stopped a few times i was making good progress so i turned off again onto a dirt track that loops around the edge of the Nwaswitsonstso river which also proved to be a good move. As i turned into the river i came across a whole load of animals eating fruit from a tree where anoth smaller troop of baboons were feeding and then throwing down fruit. I am not sure but i think they were Loquats, i will have to check on the also.
Amongst all the various buck were a couple of fairly young bull Kudus that were locking horns and having a bit of a tussle…when you hear those horns clash it makes you realise just how dangerous these seemingly harmless animals are.
Another quite big bull elephant is just approaching the water hole here, i had better get back in the car for a while.
Well that was quite a moment…30 or 40 minutes in fact. The elephant was not so big as i first thought…but big enough, certainly 3 metres to his shoulder. As he was approaching i thought he looked quite irritable and menacing and i was right. I think he may of hyad a problem with his right front foot or pad as while he was drinking at the water hole he kept on squirting every other trunk full of water onto it. He kept looking over at me and was clearly not a happy chappy. Also, although the water hole is about 30 metres over to me right, about 10 metres directly in front of me is a concrete water tank. Normally elephants choose to drink from these, maybe the water is sweeter or maybe it is because that apart from birds they are pretty much the only creatures that can get to them. When he first arrived he tasted the water in the water hole and then came straight over to the tank. It must be dry or shallow (the walls of the tank are about 3 meteres high) and when he reached over with his trunk to get inside he came out empty. After walking around it a couple of times he went back to the waterhole where he had a good drink and splashed water over his foot. Then he turned again and came at me with his ears out. I must be honest and say that i had a couplke of nervous moments and actually started the car and reversed a metre or so to let him know that i was not interested in grief…to say the least!!! While all this was going on three zebras came down to drink and as i reversed he turned and charged them off…brilliant to see but i missed the shot as i was too concerned for my own safety. This went on with the zebras for five minutes or so though so eventually aided get a couplke of shots showing the elephant kicking up some dust as he went for them and the in the bottom of the pic you can see the zebras scampering away so i shall up load them shortly.
People wonder how i can have the patience to sit for hours at these place….moments like these are my answer!!
When i was watching the lion cubs yesterday morning there were a few other drivers who saw them, took a picture and then drove off…it always amazes me…people drive around for ages looking for lion and then when they find them they watch for a couple of minutes and drive off again, or if they go behind a bush they drive off straight away without waiting to see if they come back…invariably they miss the best parts.
Anyway, where was i…the kudus fighting with each other…also great to see and you realise how powerful these creatures are. I remember once i was driving in Hoedspruit with one of my managers following me in a volkswagon beetle. It was late in the evening and we were doing over a 100kph. A female kudu came from nowhere and he could not help but hit it full on. The kudu got staright up and ran off…for sure that must of been adrenalin and we suspect that it might of died later from its injuries but the guys car looked more like a wedge shaped sports car then a beetle…it was close to being a write off from an insurance point of view and they were very lucky to have survived themselves.
Back to yesterday again, i was really chuffed that i had taken the loop track by the N’waswitsontso…it turned out to teeming with baboons, kudu, impala, steenbok, duikers and others all eating on the fruit that was being thrown down by the baboons. The one baboon jumped onto the bonnet of the landy for a while and just sat there eating fruit!…a lovely experience and a great crowd to share another coffee with.
Back onto the tar it was getting on for 9.30 am by now so i decided to pull in to Tshokwane for breakfast which i did and had one of those hearty English breakfasts again. However about two klicks north of Tshokwane, about 40 metres over to my left i came across a lion giraffe kill. There were a couple of other cars there so i did not stay long. The other driver told me that the kill was over a day old and apart from getting a quick snap of one of the lions having a snack on it i could only see one other. I figure there must of been more though as it looked liked a reasonable sized giraffe which are are not the easiest animal to bring down even for a lion.
Somehow giraffe kills are always the ‘saddest’ of kills to see, such beautiful graceful animals …even when they are stretched out dead on the ground.
Jeez…i just heard another elephant rumbling behind me somewhere (the Matjulu river bed runs behind me in a horseshoe bend which is quite dry currently)…i hope it is not the same one again.
After breakfast at Tshokwane yesterday it was arpond 11am and i pretty much made a beeline straight for my new camp at Berg n Dal. I arrived around 1pm, set up camp (i could upgrade to a rondavel this time), showered and headed out again around 3pm after a quick walk around the camp.( i almost forgot, there was a fine male lion with a ginger mane and black ‘beard’ sleeping under a bush less than 50 metres from the gate to the camp just twenty metres off the road)
I had forgotten how nice the camp is. There is a “rhino walk’ around the perimeter which is lovely and provides great views over the dam there. Elephant, mountain reedbuck, Maribou and warthogs were present as i walked round.
I heade out again before 4pm to re explore the dirt track that winds around the nearby hills and koppies, i had also forgotton how beautiful the scenery is here, twisting and winding, up and down, through dry water courses and i really quite surprised at how much game i saw, kudu, rhino, elephant and various other buck. I came down here to Matjul to sit out the afternoon and was rewarded late in the day when a small herd of 15 elephants came down for a drink, including one very young one who was being well shielded by his mother.
I was really hoping to get a good sunset shot with the hills but unfortunately the clouds came over and i did not…maybe tonight.
However, as i headed back to camp soon after 5 .30 i arrived there to find a few cars parked by the lion who was walking around and roaring away like a good’un….fantastic way to end the day.
I lit a nice fire outside my tent and could still hear the lion roaring until past seven.
Today i was up very early again and after making a pot of of coffee drove up nto the gate before it got light and sat on a rock near the entrance watching the sky turn from blackness through various shades of pre dawn grey until the sun started to rise at about 5.30 when i drove down here to Matjulu.
Plenty of early birds around, a couple of hyaenas and another elephant before i drove up to the top of stein berg which is quite high with a faitly rough track taking you up there. Had a little walk around on top and then went back to camp for a chill out for a few hours and some food.
On the way back down here this afternoon at 2 pm i saw two groups of 6 White Rhino, each with the mother and the rest being about half her size in both instances.
And now it is 5.00pm and i am going to sit here for another 45 minutes or so and see what comes down before heading off into my last sunset for this trip, a nice fire and some baked mealies and spud.

Day 11
My last morning and i had opted to drive down to Matjulu and sit for a couple of hours before packing up camp, showering and hitting the road home.
I was up very early before 4.00am and surprised to hear some birds chirping in the darkness, not sure what they were though. Then as the grey light of dawn approached they all started waking up and singing their early morning songs….beautiful.
Much better than the noise last night it has to be said. Being so close to the southern borders of the park Berg N Dal is a favourite for locals who pull in for the weekend with their families. Lovely people i am sure, but far too noisy for me and it reminded me of why i prefer going up to the north.
I had to laugh though, they were all braaing and most were drinking i guess, so when i was woken at 1.30 this morning it sounded a bit like i was camped in the middle of a pod of hippos!!….snoring , indigestion noises, barfing and endless traipses to the loo. As i say, i did see the funny side and in a way it was quite interesting!!…not that i want to repeat the experience too often.
So, after a fairly disturbed night i was up and about and up at the gate way too early…as much as i was enjoying the birds waking up n the valley where the campsite is there were still quite a few snorers around and as the gate is on top of the hill with fewer birds it was more pleasant sitting up on ‘my’ rock.
I drove straight round to Matjulu and parked up for a couple of hours after trying to get a couple of shots of the rising sun, but unfortunately the hills and koppies were not ideally placed, or should i say that i was not ideally placed amongst them.
There was one highlight, seeing two lilac breasted rollers ‘procreating’. The noises!!….it made me think of humans. Afterwards the male just flew away and the female sat on the branch motionless for a full five minutes.
Back to camp soon after 8.00am, my last breakfast…which funnily enough was not so lekker…and i knew it was time to go home.
An hours sleep, packed the tent up, showered and drove down to the bridge over the crocodile river where i sat for a half hour or so before getting underway. It was great viewing however, there must of been a shoal of fish around as there was about ten crocs, a goliath heron, blue crane, Hammerkop and a few others fishing for breakfast and catching plenty.
It is strange to leave the park at first, for the first few kilometres it seems ridiculously fast to be travelling over 50kph and it takes a while to get used to it…80 kph for a while before eventually creeping up to 100 and then 120kph after about 20 klicks.
Past Nelspruit with its stunning flora just bursting out into colour, bright cerise, oranges, reds and of course the beautiful deep lilac of the Jacarandas. Sixty Klicks or so through the Elands valley, rising up and through the tunnel to Machadodorp. Onto Belfast, and into the cooler air of the Highveld. Four hundred klicks and i was home just before 4.00pm in just over 4 hours.
Strange though it may seem i am looking forward to getting back to work on Monday, a couple of good months and back up to the park for at least a month if not six weeks.