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good afternoon to you all.
im going to satara. this weekend and im so excited!!!!!!!!
ive been waiting so long and it is finally here.
want the trip to start already. so what is the beset way to start the trip?
A TRIP REPORT!!!
so please follow me on this TR where i stay at the rudy frankel guest house in satar a from friday to monday. I'm taking my cousins who haven't been to SA for about 8 years. And its my mom's B-Day.
thanks all for following this TR

hi everyone
i just got back from one of my favorite trips!!!
it was just a once in a life time, spectacular trip.
just finishing unpacking and ill hopefully post the first TR message.

on Friday morning my family and my cousins woke up at 4:00am in joburg to leave to Pretoria because they wanted to travel with my other cousin that was coming too.
once we dropped them off we decided to meet strait at satara.my car wanted to stop at millys for some breakfast to have our traditional toasted cheese. it was delicious!!
OK then we were off to phabeni gate to see some animals!!
when we arrived at phabeni everything went fine and we were about to see unbelievable stuff in kruger. hopefully at that stage.

to be continued...

Doispan road. Our first road.

First thing we saw was a pied kingfisher on the bridge you drive on just after entering the park.


Some baboons (bad pic they were running)


And a cute family of 7 warthogs crossing the road.


We then stopped at the golf course to have lunch and watch the hippos. I was hoping for a leopard to walk on the bridge there like in those pictures but sadly it never came. We did see warthog and impala and a beautiful jacana in the water.

then carrying on, on the doispan road
we saw some elephant
steenbok
a beautiful huge monitor crossing the road.

then on the tshokwane road

i spotted some klipspringers on one of the koppies just relaxing in the shade from the boiling hot sun.
but no sorry
when we turned on to the leeupan waterhole we saw our first buffalo swimming in the water and a family of dwarf mongooses just playing around.

we then stopped off at tshokwane to have a drink. to my surprise my cousins were there too so we had a drink with them.
at tshokwane we saw a troup of vervet monkeys every where around the picnic site.


stay tuned....

Now...
After we had a few drinks at tshokwane we headed off to satara.

We spotted a cute dung beetle rolling a ball of dung but he couldn't get it off the road, it kept on rolling back into the middle, but never the less he kept on trying and finally it got it off the road.

then at one of the pans next to the road there was a lot of activity going on.
there were buffaloes, zebras, waterbuck, wildebeest, impala, and warthog.

after that we saw a heard of about 20 elephants standing right by the road. we stayed with them for quite a while.


then this waterbuck was just a beauty.


Then we finally got to satara.

Our cousins booked us in already so we just followed them to the guest house but sadly it was the wells guest house.
Turns out when I asked if it was the rudy frankel guest house he just heard the "guest house" part so he said yes.
But it was perfect, when we unpacked an elephant came to say hello to us at the fence.

This guest house was amazing.
I have never stayed at a guest house before.

Stay tuned for more.....

After we got organized we ate a little something and then we went out for another drive.

On this drive we went towards orpen, just past the girivana turn off there is a little dam there so we sat and waited, we saw zebra, water buck, giraffe about 100 wildebeest.

Marabou Storks


And then a beautifull creature appeared.
and elephant. we went into the water and started swimming. it was incredible , i have never seen this before.






To Be Continued....

then we went home, we had the most amazing braai!!!
while we were eating a herd of buffalo walked past the fence. That was so cool!
and then an elephant.
after supper we went to bed after a wonderful first day in the Kruger National Park.
seen that day:
1.banded mongoose
2.blue wildebeest
3.buffalo
4. burchell's zebra
5.chacma baboon
6. crocodile
7. elephant
8. giraffe
9. hippo
10. impala
11. klipspringer
12. steenbok
13. tree squirrel
14. vervet monkey
15. warthog
16. waterbuck
17. water monitor

sorry for the long wait.
Day 2
we woke up at 4:50 to leave the gate at 5:30.
we had some coffee and rusks for a snack before we left.

we went straight for the famous s100. its a tradition of ours to go there every trip.
we had great sightings

this was this sun rise. AMAZING!!


we saw rhinos but on the hill. too far for pics

we saw two different hyenas
1

2


this little cute duiker that for once actually let my dad photograph.


red-billed queleas


lots of active runners



and a zebra suckling. unbelievable to watch.


then we went home to have a real breakfast.

stay tuned...

after a delicious breakfast me and my cousins wanted to go out for a drive but my parents stayed at the house to sleep and just relax. But we told them that Murphy's law would kick in and they would miss something incredible. They said it was ok.
so we went off and turned up towards olifants. we saw elephants and mostly the usual stuff.

Kori Bustard


we saw a guy stopped and he was looking at a bird so we were also interested in birds so we stopped. after a while he said "oh, by the way there is a lion about 6km down the road". so we were so excited to go see our first lions, he came with us to see them. when we arrived there there were about ten cars there. we stopped and looked and there was nothing there, we waited there for about 30 min and we watched rhinos and elephants walk past. we said the elephants wouldn't walk right to were the lions were (apparently) so we drove off after wasting our time.
so we turned off onto the timbavati road to go back to satara. on this road we literally saw NOTHING!!!!
so we turned on to the tar road and about five minutes later we realized the we turned towards orpen and not to satara so we said at the next T junction we would turn around.
we arrive at the next T junction and we saw there 4 cars stopped and we saw what they were looking at. LIONS!! right next to the road.
there were 2 lions a male and a female.
they were alone. so i knew what this ment, they were mating. i remembered that on national geographic it said that lions mate approximately every 20-25 minutes so i told my cousins that we should just wait.
so that was exactly what we did.
(sorry about the out of focus, really bad camera i was using that time ) And yeh it was next to the road but a tree was just at the wrong place.

Lioness




Lion





lioness starting the action


mating busy happening


After 2 hours we left them to have some privacy.

when we got home my parents were probably out on a drive because they weren't at the house.

we made ourselves some lunch and watched the rest of the Man U vs Man city game on tv. Man what a game. rooney goal we won .

anyway stay tuned for the next drive!!! big surprise...

so after the game my and my to cousins wanted to go on another afternoon drive before the gates close.
so we left the third cousin behind to sleep and then we left.

we decided to go for a big loop and drive on the H6 then make a left on S41 and another left on the S100.
this route has rewarded us before.

first of all we saw this little buddy waiting for us.


crocodile and terrapin next to each other



zebras fighting


another beautiful waterbuck


Red-billed Oxpecker


cute road block


elephant right next to the road.


carmine bee-eeter


then when i was looking in trees for a leopard i found this instead.


by now the gate was about to close in 20 minutes so we drove faster than usual, but don't worry we kept to the speed limit.
but i never the less kept looking.

stay tuned for what we found on the rest of the drive...believe me its good

ok...
so now we have 20 minutes left until the gates close.
we are driving at exactly the speed limit.

i suddenly see a tail.
i shout "STOP!!!!!!!!!!"
we stop and look it's a lioness!!!!

i saw in the background that there was a herd of waterbuck so i said to my cousins that we should just wait and see what would happen.
so we did.
the lion suddenly got up and stalked the waterbuck and then started running!!! it was incredible!!!
sadly she wasn't quick enough to kill one but it was an incredible sighting.
i got only pictures of the lioness but none of he waterbuck. it all happened so quick, but will always stay in my mind.
On the hunt!!!



after the failed attempt


a beautiful sunset that i HAVE TO share!


then when we got home i thought to myself "what a classic day in kruger"
i mean lions mating and killing and others too.

when i told my parents. you should of seen their face
they were so amazed with everything.
then we had Delicious chops on the braai and then of to bed.

stay tuned...

good morning to you all.
i wish every forum member that lives in japan lots of luck with everything that's going on over there and im praying every second that the tsunami calms down and everything goes back to normal.

ok
Day 3

we woke up early again and decided to show my parents those lions that we saw mating the day before but they didn't see. so we were going towards orpen gate.

we were at the back of the line to leave because the gates hadn't opened yet.

we went past tone of the lakes on the road and took a nice sunrise shot.


saw a great fish eagle


then we came across to giraffes fighting in the road!!! incredible experience.




Finally my parents got to see those lions




look at those teeth.


then we crossed a bridge and saw 17 cute baby crocodiles.


Stay tuned...

to continue that drive...

we saw 2 of the big five at once


this big guy was welcoming all the guests to satara


and so was this one


then i asked one of the rangers if they knew where the resident scops owl was, so he showed it to me.


then we all went on a game drive


a flock of vultures waiting to attack


nice little family of vervet monkeys


beautiful kudu


hippo getting ready to go to sleep.


that game drive wasn't to pleasing, i always see at least lions on a satara game drive on this one all we saw was 1 hyena that ran away and a porcupine that i spotted that also ran away so quickly half the game drive didn't see it.

stay tuned...

Day 4
our last day.

we wanted to leave through phabeni gate so we went south from satara.
when we were driving along a dry river bed a suddenly just decided to look the other way from where i was sitting and there it was, my first BLACK RHINO!!!!
never seen one before and was sooooo excited.





cute family crossing the road


OK the next sighting we spotted while driving along the tshokwane. it was just by the road. i don't know how to describe it it was so amazingly incredible so im just going to show you all the and what a great last sighting of the trip.





then she went back to get the tail of the poor buffalo and then started to play with it.


before leaving we stopped off at the skukuza golf coarse for a toasted cheese.

what a great trip we all had. it was a very memorable one and i know ill remember it for the rest of my life. thanks for following my trip and i hope you all enjoyed it.