Kruger N.P. Game Drives

We woke to our alarm at 5am for our group game drive in the truck at 5:30am. We found most of the group were already up and ready to go, man these guys are early risers! We both showered the night before (nice shower, too!) so we got dressed in our tent and we were good to go. A quick get up and go breakfast of rusks (hard, sweet bread biscuit) with coffee and hot chocolate was ready for us then we were ready to get in the truck and out of the cold morning breeze. As the truck rolled out of the campsite gates it didn’t take long for us to see the second of the ‘Big 5’ (having seen an elephant the night before). A herd of buffalo were resting under a tree. Shortly after we saw a few cars parked on the side of the road near a bush. We slowed to a stop nearby and discovered a hyena and pregnant female lying on the ground. The male was gathering food for the den. It was amazing to see them up so close.

Pregnant Hyena

Male Hyena Gathering Food

The sunrise again was spectacular as we continued exploring the park.

The park was full of antelope and we think we probably saw most of them. There were a lot of impala, wilder beast, waterbuck and a rare steenbok. A vulture was being heckled by a smaller bird on the ground in the distance and we saw lots of other beautifully coloured unique African birds including the lilac-breasted roller. We saw more elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippo’s, rhino’s, too. What a great start to the day.

Lilac-Breasted Roller

Lilac-Breasted Roller

We headed back to camp more than happy with what we had seen so far and we’d only just begun. The group packed up all the bags and tents for our next Kruger NP campsite as Shawn and Johannes started on breakfast. There was a choice of chilli baked beans, scrambled eggs, fried tomato, cereal, bread rolls, rusks and coffee and hot chocolate. It was very yummy. It wasn’t long before we were off on another game drive towards our next campsite in Kruger.

After seeing nothing but birds and antelopes for nearly 30 minutes we were beginning to lose hope of seeing variety until we stumbled onto a roadblock of cars at the same site we saw the hyenas earlier this morning. We didn’t think much of it until we realised the female was no longer to be seen. We searched around for about 2 minutes until Greg excitedly shouted ‘Leopard!’ We all moved to the side of the truck and in the distance the leopard was prowling ever so quietly. Behind the bushes and through the grass the leopard was low lying and very still for quite some time, slowly it crept forward only 10m from the hyena den. We assume the female hyena had given birth and the leopard was hungry for a quick feed. The hyenas were on guard with their tails in the air and squealed to each other. After stalking its prey for about 2-3 minutes, the big cat finally made its move and darted toward the pack but was thwarted by the lion-hearted males who chased the leopard away, much to our surprise. The leopard had no chance with a pack that size. That was pretty cool to see. 3 of the ‘Big 5’ down.

Leopard Attack

Hyena's Defended their Territory

Next we saw more zebras and some warthogs.

Warthogs and Zeebras

Just before we reached camp we saw more elephants (no matter how many times you see one you can’t help but to stop and watch them) and some hippo’s swimming in one of the water holes. 4 down, ‘only’ a lion to go.

Elephant

Hippo

Maroela Campsite in Kruger

We got into the National Park Reception and arranged and paid for a Sunset Drive for this afternoon and a Morning Walk in Kruger for tomorrow. After spending more money in the gift shop on stuff we didn’t need we left. It was about 1pm and we had finally reached our new campsite for the night, Maroela Caravan Campsite in Kruger NP. We unloaded the truck (again), set our tents up (again) and got started on lunch. We had chicken coleslaw with a side of curried beetroot. It was beautiful. We sat down to lunch and within minutes the trees surrounding the campsite were full of red-billed hornbills. These guys are like the seagulls of Africa. When we first saw them we thought they were beautiful birds but they were really a pain in the butt! At one stage, one of them flew down and tried to snatch a sandwich out of Jo’s hand as she was about to take a bite. She nearly fell off her chair!

Red-Billed Hornbills

After lunch we organised our bags and realised that we were both down to our last set of clothes and desperately needed to do a wash. Ev headed to the outdoor kitchen block where the power points were to charge up the camera, laptop and phones and Dan did all the washing by hand, as usual. Dan can only blame the girls from Ev’s Hen's night for not instilling the values of ‘a good little housewife’. Anyhoo, the damn washing took an hour with really dodgy washing detergent. We were kicking ourselves because Ev’s friend Leanne had searched high and low for some good washing powder and we forgot to re-pack it in Townsville after the Wedding. Luckily Dan was able to borrow some washing powder and hung the clothes out to dry. We returned to camp, grabbed our day pack and headed to the front gates where our ride for the Sunset Game Drive was waiting.



Sunset Game Drive

We hopped on the safari vehicle and knew it was going to be cold by the blankets waiting on our seats. Our driver introduced himself as ‘Crazy’ and he sure was, in every sense of the word, but was very knowledgeable when it came to African flora and fauna. After an extended briefing lasting around 10 minutes for no real reason we set off as the sun began to set. As soon as the truck gathered speed the wind took hold. It was cold, really cold. Ev grabbed the free blanket from the back seat as we tried to get warm.

It didn’t take long to spot our first game for the evening, a cute one, too. It was a baby giraffe with her mother.

Giraffe

Following this we saw another steenbok, some zebra, a brown snake eagle and a tawny eagle.

Tawny Eagle

About 30 mins into the drive we weren’t seeing much action until Greg, again (great spotter that guy) picked out a Lion pride around their den. We could still just make them out but they quickly returned to their home and we were unable to get any decent photos but were able to capture some good footage on the video camera. More importantly, we had spotted the ‘Big 5’; Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard, Rhino and Lion, in one day in Kruger National Park. Apparently it is considered a privilege to do this. We certainly felt that way.

Amidst all the commotion it appeared to get a little too much for some as one of the ladies on truck heard nature calling. We drove on until Crazy pulled the truck up into a very dark and very secluded area and told the girl to "go behind the truck". The girl thought twice and said she’d be ok but Crazy said there was at least another hour and a half to go, she decided to go. Crazy went on to tell us about Kruger NP itself. It is 2 million hectares in size which is about as big as Washington D.C. It has 147 types of mammals, 507 bird species, 54 snake types, 35 different amphibians and 250 butterfly species. Before he had finished the young lady was safely back on board and we were off again.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful and we only managed to see some tree dwelling animals likes bush babies and rabbits etc. with our two hand-held spotlights, but we did manage to see another hyena which we chased down the road for about 200m before it crossed over in front of us. That was fun.

Spotted Hyena

Crazy drove us back to camp at about 7pm and we said our goodbyes. We stood around the campfire to keep ourselves warm from the chill of the night and admired the beautiful stars above. Johannes and Shawn had just finished cooking dinner.

We had sausages and pork with some veggies, salad and bread. We decided to have an early night because we are doing the Morning Walk with the Park Rangers at 6am or 6:15am, according to Ev. Night.

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