Day 7 – 17.03.2018
Today was head to and through Kruger National Park day. We packed up our cute little campsite – unfortunately I hadnt slept very well, a light was shining into my tent, I was hot and the wind and animals around me were just a little too loud for me to settle, but I was hopeful for the next campsite with functioning showers and a more fenced off approach to camping in a national park. After last night this was new for us, but apparently it is a strict rule in South Africa to fence off these sites.
We headed back through the lucious green and even spotted a waterbuck. Easy to tell apart by its large „O“ on its bum.
I even managed to photograph some of the covered vines, unlike yesterday. It was a nice cool morning and I was really enjoying the air passing through the van, cooling me down a little.
We had a long drive ahead of us. We were staying at a campsite on the top right of this photo and were going to drive all the way down to where our guide is pointing. And all along we were lucky to use our van as a game drive vehicle.
We drove on from our campsite in the morning hours. So beautiful, and reached Limpopo, where we were going to enter the Kruger National Park.
Talk about fenced off right. But all is good to keep the animals in, and the poachers out.
Another little photo of our trusted overland safari, game drive van.
We then came across one of the small five – a leopard tortoise. This fellow was quite quick, surprisingly. The small five are very cute. They are made up of
1. Ant Lion
2. Leopard Tortoise
3. Elephant Shrew
4. Rhino Beetle
5. Buffalo Weaver
You get the connection to the Big 5? : )
I know this will not be the real deal now, but since either the animal was too far away, or I couldnt get my camera out quick enough, the next bit will be more of a list of what we had spotted... At the beginning of this trip I would always say I wasnt really a bird person, but it gets fun to spot these animals, especially if you know what you are looking for.
So here it comes:
The Bateleur and the brown snake eagle.
The saddle billed stork, the yellow billed stork and the white stork.
The green-backed heron
The black-winged stilt
Several helmed guinea fowl – very funny to look at. And of course the hamerkop from yesterday.
Loads of red-eyed doves and several variations of the rollers – mainly the European roller and the Lilac-breasted roller, which are in a bit of a competition as I have now come to learn, where the European roller will come in and dominate the lilac-breasted rollers territory. They are also called rollers because they fly up into the air and then roll down with their wings spread as a demonstration of their beautiful colours. What men will do eh?
We saw several red-billed hornbill and also a trumpeter hornbill.
And we had seen a couple of long-tailed sterlings at our campsite that morning, cheekily trying to steal some of our breakfast. The monkey and antilope combination was a lot better at doing this though. The monkey would sit in the tree and managed to steal what looked like a whole loaf of bread from the neighbouring campers. You must always be vigilant. And the little antilope that came so close to us, maybe with a 1,5m distance, I guess you could say tried to distract us so that the monkey could do its buisness. In a non campsite environment they also tend to work together as a monkey will be able to spot danger from up above a lot quicker and his warning calls alert the antilopes.
A herd of zebras and of course the ever roaming impalas!
Our first close look at buffalos. There goes another big 5 ticked off our list. Apparently their blank stare makes them so unpredictable. They tend to have their females and young in the middle of the herd, and the males are outside and protect. There is always someone watching. Also such a large group of buffalo normally indicate that there is a pride of lion close-by. (With close-by we are talking 20 kilometres, which lions walk easily – depending if they are hungry or have just made a kill...)
Maybe it was just the lighting of the early morning, but the greens were really popping out over this landscape!
We spotted a chameleon crossing the road. It was quite funny to watch – instead of running off the road, it did this on step, sway back and forwards, another step, sway a little more – I guess to seem like a leaf? As soon as he reached the side of the street though, this guy legged it and it was really difficult spotting him after that.
By the way, most of the main roads at the Kruger National Park are fully covered with asphalt. A stark difference to the parks in Zimbabwe.
Several elephants that were dotted around these large water basins. We couldnt quite figure out whether they were just used to supply water to the larger animals that could actually reach, or whether there was a hole different system in place...
Elephants enjoying a mud bath. This was a herd of older males.
Pushing each other up the bank for more mud access...
An animal I had completely not associated with this area – wild ostriches!
More waterbuck.
And then it was time for lunch. Instead of showing you the nice plate from the beginning, I thought I would share with you the end result. I had bought some chicken drumsticks and wings, an avocado and together with a bit of potato salad – the perfect lunch!
A European roller – if you can spot him in the middle of the photo!
We also saw some secretarybirds, that had waddled away quicker than I could pull my camera.
A white-backed vulture in the distance. (Including the photo of how this chap looks like in the next photo)
I spotted a grey go-away-bird : ) !
Shortly after rainy season, there is just so much more water in the streams and rivers.
Catch this marabou stork (part of the ugly 5... Make sure to check out my The 5 tally on the other page....)
Waterbuck with little babies. Apparently the reason why waterbuck are always so close to the water, no matter if there are hippos or crocodiles present, is that their meat just doesnt taste very good. When they are killed, or stressed, they release a substance into their muscles that just doesnt taste good which is why several of the big predators, including lions just dont kill it anymore.
And then we arrived at our campsite for the day :) proper running showers – which we immediately went for, setting up our tents and just getting ready for when we were going to return in the night, as we had booked ourselves on a night game drive.
We were just about to start dinner, when our driver heard something on the other side of the fence. He went to investigate and shouted for us to come as quickly as possible as he had just seen a leopard hunting. Unfortunately when we arrived and shown or torches into the darkness no leopard was to be found. So unlucky as this was one of the big 5 we were still missing to see. But we knew that the leopard was close and we would maybe see it during our night game drive.
After dinner we headed out on a spotting van, which had some torches either side of the vehicle to spot animals.
Apart from several red eyes on the river bed (I hadnt seen those crocodiles earlier) we made our first great find! A very young hyena just lying on the floor infront of us. I guess it just laid there because the tarmac was still warm and inviting.
We drove on and apart from a couple of impala herds, we came across this lovely owl. He put on a show for us, turning his head all the way around, and when we werent looking but listening to our guide, he suddenly vanished silently into the darkness in the matter of a couple of seconds – gone.
It was definitely an interesting experience searching for these animals in the pitch black, and all you really go for is reflections of eyes. We also saw another cevit, this time alive, walking passed the car, to far away though to even try to get a good photo. We headed back and fell into bed immediately, since we had also booked ourselves in to a morning bush walk that would commence at 04:45...
