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April 30th Skukuza

Morning Drive: H1-2/S36/Nhlanguleni/S33/H1-3/Tshokwane/H1-2/H12/H4-1

The south has always been kind to us with sightings in the past, but for some reason on this trip every time we travelled on previously successful roads in this area we came short and today was no exception.

The first hour produced almost nothing, but luckily things picked up a little at Mantimahle Dam and we arrived just in time to see a few lions walking on the dam wall.



It was great to see that this pride also had a few juniors with them.



The lions seemed to be heading down to the water and out of view, so we decided to head round onto the S36 to get a different view, unfortunately so did everyone else, so after a few pics we moved on.



Jones’s Dam had a few of the usual clan hanging around and no other people, so we hung around a few minutes just watching the scenery and absorbing the peace, but the rats have a time limit of about 2 minutes, so we continued on.

Next up we found a parrot and a kingfisher, which wasn’t exactly what Supernova and I had in mind, but the SO was happily snapping away.





Lugmag Dam produced plenty general game, a lone buffalo, 2 Saddle bills, a kingfisher, a herd of wildebeest and these waterbuck.



The last time we were at Nhlanguleni there was a herd of sable at the waterhole and 4 lions a hundred meters off sleeping under a tree, but today it was very quiet and the surrounding bush looked completely different.

Watching the SO’s face as she heads off towards the long drop toilets always makes the trip worthwhile for me though. The rats all go together and the commentary coming from the loo always cracks me up, but today the shrieking seemed louder and Hawkeyes came out the loo with a pelican face.

It seems that Bushpiggy ambushed Hawkeyes on the long drop with her camera and was now proudly showing everybody. Hawkeyes vowed revenge.

On the way back down to the S33 turnoff we found this guy in the road, but there was no hidden leopard in the distance today



To be continued

Morning Drive Continued

The first couple km of the S33 produced a lone elephant in thick bush that I initially thought was a rhino and then a few vultures and the one I initially thought may be a Cape Vulture, but it couldn’t be (something about the fact that the eye needs to be yellow)



Vutomi Dam has so much potential and it just feels as if something is about to happen any minute.



The minutes got longer and the rats more irritating, so we continued on, but the dam does have a few resident hippo and a couple large crocs.



The rest of the S33 was a disappointment and I was glad that I didn’t have false teeth or need the loo. (Added just for Flutterby)

Tshokwane was again crowded, so after a loo break and a smoke we were back on the road to Skukuza for an overdue breakfast, but just outside Tshokwane we encountered the SO’s favourite road block.



After a few ignored instructions from the SO we eventually sat quietly and watched the crossing, that’s until this started in front of us.



The “REVERSE” instruction soon followed, but these 2 were only interested in arm wrestling with each other, so I ignored the orders, which eventually stopped.



The rest of the drive down to Skukuza was again quiet, which was proving to be the norm on this trip, but on all our other previous trips it had been the place to be.

The low water bridge just before Skukuza again produced the local residents.



Back in camp we made a late breakfast and decided to relax at Supernova’s unit as it had a view of the Sabie River.

Suddenly Supernova shouted “Check those idiots”

These guys decided to take a stroll to the middle of the old railway bridge, take some pics and stroll back.



Supernova suggested that SANParks should build a bar at the end of the bridge and charge people for the walk and sundowners, which is an idea that I fancied, but wasn’t sure about the walk back.

To be continued - Elzet, don't miss the next one

Hey Bushcraft;

Another great instalment, the Elephants fighting were great to see


Those idiots on the bridge must have climbed over the fence or sneaked through an open gate. Close up you can see they were normal tourists and there were no Rangers with them, it would have been great entertainment if the resident Bridge Baboons had come home

Afternoon Drive: H1-1/S65/H11

The weather had turned a little and it was drizzling on and off, so we left camp late and planned a shorter route.

I never drive in the park with the window closed, so the drizzle was putting a major damper on things for me and to top it off Albert was farting big time in the back, thus after 5 minutes of looking through windscreen wipers I was ready to go back to camp and then to top it off an idiot overtook me and squeezed in behind Supernova.

Unexpectedly, about 2km from Skukuza, Supernova braked hard and stopped, resulting in the overtaking idiot nearly climbing into the back of his car, which caused me to overreact and visually display my irritation.

I was about to voice my irritation when all of a sudden something took off into the bush from in front of Supernova’s car. In situations like this it takes the brain, well mine anyway, a few seconds to react, but the walkie talkie woke me up “Bushpig!!!” and I found myself in a semi stage fright situation screaming “Bushpig!!!” back into the walkie talkie.

I have tried to photograph honey badgers on the move in the bush; however this guy was like a badger on Gummie Berry Juice, but fortunately for us he was running just inside the bush line and parallel to the road.

Eventually he stopped and I managed to snap a pic through the twigs, but it looks more like Gizmo from the Gremlins movie.



I continued to snap away, but ended up with blurred pig, pig’s bum and bush.

A few seconds later the pig moved closer to the road, giving Supernova the perfect opportunity for a good pic as the pig was right next to their car. I spotted Supernova lining the shot up and then all of a sudden the idiot between us overtook Supernova as he took the pic, which resulted in a perfect pic of the idiot’s car. Now it was Supernova’s turn to voice his irritation.

Melly had their new awesome video camera running, which also takes 14Mp pics and much to our surprise managed an awesome pic just before the idiot overtook.



The idiot also gave the piggy a fright and he was now on the move again, but this time at full sprint. We continued after him for a few more seconds and then he was gone.

We sat quietly for a few seconds absorbing what had just happened, which was a first for us in KNP and then Hawkeyes shouted “Bushpiggy just spotted her cousin”, which broke the peace and resulted in a cat fight in the back seat.

I could have gone back to Skukuza and celebrated with a beer, but we collectively decided to continue with the planned route.

The rest of the H1-1 and the start of the S65 produced many of the usual suspects and the rain had stopped so my window could go down, which resulted in another hairy eyeball look from the SO who had got used to the warm car interior, but fortunately, just before things escalated we spotted 2 cars stopped at a familiar rock a few km into the S65.

We found a lioness and 3 cubs lying on this rock last year, so we all had that lion feeling as we slowly approached, but we were still surprised to find this clan chilling out, especially since it had been raining on and off.



It was starting to get dark and these guys were doing what lions do best, sleep, so after a few more low light pics, we moved on.



A few minutes later it started to rain again, so after a quick stop to snap an ellie pic we headed back to camp for a braai.



Tomorrow was our last full day in the park, so my pelican was starting to grow, but there was one more sighting that we were all secretly desperate to find and maybe my pelican would have been smaller if I had known what tomorrow would bring.

Bushpig!!!

More lovely moggies on a rock.

I know just how you feel with the idiot driver!!! Been there, done that, got the T shirt!!
Have had several photo opportunities ruined by thoughtless people!!

Hey Bushcraft;

The Bushpig was awesome

I had to edit the video down a bit to cut out me shouting "You stupid &^%$#&^ toss" at the car that drove past and scared the pig away. They probably had no idea what it was and wondered why we were making such a fuss about a pig.

WWWhahaaaahhaha



That’s Bushpiggy with the blade and Albert’s the one getting attacked. She's going to be highly offended

Albert's been her nickname since she was born Whahahahaha

May 1st Skukuza

Morning Drive: H1-1/2km of the S114/Skukuza/H4-1/H1-2/H1-1/S65/S1

The above seems like a crazy route and it’s not what we initially chose for the morning drive, but it’s always good when sightings change your original plan.

When the alarm went off I seriously didn’t want to get out of bed, as it was still drizzling on and off and after 10 days of getting up at 5am I was lacking in motivation and I may have over celebrated the Bushpig sighting at the braai last night.

At 5:30am the SO was up and giving me the stare, so I decided it would be safer to get moving.

I was about to wobble over to Supernova’s unit when a SMS came through “We are going to be 10 minutes late”, which is a good thing, because we were also running late.

We eventually left camp after 6:30am and I still felt like another cup of coffee would have been a better option.

The H1-1 was quiet, but about 2km into the S114, something sprinted across the road approximately a 100m in front of us, so I jumped on the walkie talkie to Supernova, who was behind us and blurted “A hyena just crossed the road”

Now we have been fairly lucky with wild dogs over the last few years, but 2 years ago Melly shouted “Wow look at the hyena” at a particular sighting and got ripped off for days, so as we got closer and the 2nd “hyena” came out the bush, I quietly realized that these weren’t hyena, but I later found out that Melly hadn’t forgotten my walkie talkie response. I blame the malaria tablets.

The SO was suddenly shouting “Wild dog, hello painted doggies”, which woke me up out of my stupor and I was back on the walkie talkie, but this time with the correct ID.

We immediately noticed that the 1 dog was a heavily pregnant female, but because of the bad weather it was still so dark and we were battling to get pics that were in focus.



Supernova and I were frantically photographing every dog possible, because sometimes they hang around and other times they disappear in a second, but these guys decided to park off awhile, rolled up in balls and went to sleep.



There were 7 in total and every now and then 1 would get up and wander around.



After 10 minutes 1 got up and seemed interested in something further up the road and then suddenly took off across the road in front of us.



A few seconds later the rest got up and followed, which caused panic in our car as I didn’t know if we should be following the lead dog or hanging around with the ones that were bringing up the tail, but fortunately the majority of the dogs stopped in the road in front of us and decided to play, which was an awesome experience for the rats to witness.



The excitement of having the dogs play in front of our cars caused a strange deterioration in the SO’s speech and we all wet ourselves each time we watch the video of the next 5 minutes, as the SO sounds like a dodgy movie star that comes on after midnight.



Suddenly they were back on the move and we slowly followed, but 1 guy hung back and I managed to get a pic of him at close range twice with the flash on.





They then started to move up the road with more purpose and I had to change to 2nd gear to stay with them; however about a minute later 4 of them abruptly stopped and starting sniffing around next to the SO’s window, so I stopped, but I continued to watch the other 3 in the distance who were still on a mission.

Suddenly the lead dog took off after an impala, which caused me to pop the clutch in my excitement and resulted in a greasing from The Cow who hadn’t seen the action in the distance and was still busy admiring the 4 dogs next to her.

This greasing caused an overreaction from me which I can’t post, but the argument was short as the SO spotted the impala running across the road with 2 dogs after it and suddenly changed her tune “There!!, there!!”.

They crossed the road in front of us so quickly that I couldn’t get a shot off, however the SO managed to get them through the windscreen of the car with the video camera, but fortunately for the impala, the dogs gave up after a few seconds.

We continued to follow them for another 5 minutes and then they all ducked off into the bush.

We waited for 10 minutes to see if they would reappear, but eventually decided to head back to Skukuza for a loo break and a smoke as we had been in the car more than an hour already.

To be continued

Morning Drive Continued

We turned left as the S114 joins the tar and did a small 2km search on the tar just in case the wild dogs decided to cross the H1-1 also, but gave up after a few minutes, turned and headed for Skukuza.

Just past the S114/H1-1 intersection it was Melly’s turn to make name as she now shouted “Wild dogs” and there was a large pack of hyena in the road.



There were 9 of them and these guys looked like serious gangsters!! The one had been collared, but she was full of scars and I wouldn’t like to meet her in a camp at night.



3 of them started jogging up the middle of the road, but a few others decided to hang around our cars.





The 1 smaller chap sat looking at us from a few meters away and I couldn’t help wondering if he was selecting which rat he was going to pluck out of the back seat, but he did give me a chance to use my “massive” flash again.



The rest of the gang realized that the 3 leaders were a long way ahead and started following them up the road, so we joined in on the chase.

After about a 1km I said to Supernova “Are these guys training for the comrades?”, as they just kept on going at pace and now were spread out over 300m of road.

It started to rain again, but still the lead 3 kept the pace on for about another 1km.



The leader stopped abruptly, looked up the road at the rest of the slow coaches and walked into the bush. Strangely the rest of the gang all did the same thing a few seconds later, but over 300m of road.

Back at Skukuza it was decision time for us again, so we again went for our old leopard faithful, the H4-1/H1-2 loop and yet again it failed us on this trip. All we found were a couple of Boons on the H1-2 and hardly any general game at all, so an hour later we were back at the Skukuza intersection just outside the camp.

I looked at my watch and said to Supernova “It’s still too early to go back to camp”, so we decided to do the H1-1/S65/S1 loop, which confused my rats and they were all shouting “We have already driven this stretch this morning” I think that they were more interested in their stomachs at that stage.

About 1km before the S114 we spotted a car stopped further up the road and as we approached he started waving frantically, so I waved back, which stopped him waving, but started him pointing and then I spotted the reason for his excitement.



At first I could only see the 1 lying next to the road, but a few seconds later others appeared further up the road. They were on the move so we only had about a minute to snap a couple of pics and then they were gone.



We sat looking at each other in disbelief, as we hadn’t found the dogs in 9 days and now we had found them twice in less than 3 hours.

We debated going back for breakfast, but eventually decided to finish the planned loop.

The S65 was quiet and by the time we hit the S1 all the lips were on the floor, stomachs were growling and I was getting the stare for continuing with the plan.

A km later the mood changed when the SO shouted “Leopard”, which resulted in the usual panic and I was shouting “Where, where”, “In the tree!! There!!”



An OSV also stopped and I was having a good laugh at 1 of the “tourists” who was obviously the leopard king and was giving commentary at the top of his voice “Cameras ready, he’s going to move, wait for it, wait for it, hold, hold” He was talking so loud the leopard had no choice but to move. I expected him to say “Action!!” any minute.



In the end the leopard did move and I cocked it up, because I moved to get a better angle and 2 seconds later the leopard jumped out the tree and ran off.

To be continued

Oh dear, as entertaining as ever.

What a joy to catch up. I am, of course, very about some of your sightings. I am sure that the bushpig must be one of the rarest. It is the first time that I have seen it on the forum... as for your spotted one's and the wilddog hyena

When watching some Wilddog recently a car stopped and the driver said, "no, its nothing, only some Hyena".. of course, I love Hyena.. there is no such thing as only hyena

Keep it coming

Afternoon Drive: H1-1/S65/S1/H11

Our usual routes had failed this entire trip, so for our last drive together we chose to drive the tried and tested, besides the only 10 magnets on the sighting board were on the same route.

The H1-1 and half the S65 was “scenic”, but again rather quiet. Maybe at this stage on a KNP trip one needs to sit back, take a deep breath and realize it’s about to end, so every minute needs to be absorbed and appreciated.

As we slowly approached our S65 midway rock we had that same lion feeling and the pride was there again to greet us.



We spent about 10 minutes with them and then realized that they may sleep the rest of the afternoon, so we continued on.

About 3km before the end of the S65 we came across 4 or 5 cars stopped on the side of the road and as we slowly approached we spotted the reason for the traffic jam.



They had made a kill of something small and were busy eating 20m off the road, but the crowd was growing rapidly and the situation was getting tense as many seemed to lose the plot in the excitement.

The next thing a granny and gramps, with their grand kids decided to leave the road and drive closer and a few seconds later others followed.

I won’t bore you with all the pics of what happened next, as they are already on the gallery of shame, but the granny decided that she wasn’t close enough and got out the car. (If you look carefully you can see the lion in the background).



The 1 lion stood up and started checking granny out.



I lost it and told granny to get her ass back in the car, but to my amazement she smiled and the gramps, who was 70 in the shade, told me to such up. While I was trying to decide whether to also break the rules and snap gramps like a tooth pick, they suddenly reversed and sped off.

The tension continued to grow at the sighting and the occupants of another 3 vehicles decided to climb out their windows, etc, but this wasn’t my cup of tea and the tension was ruining our last drive, so we chose to move on, but the damage to the mood was already done and now I just wanted to get back to camp and report these idiots. (We reported this at Skukuza camp and showed them the pics, but nobody seemed interested.)

A few kilometres later, we found some ellies.



We hit another traffic jam just before the camp and this little guy was trying very hard to wake up.



He then gave us this lovely smile to say goodbye.



Our last braai was a rather sober affair and my pelican was well and truly out.

Supernova and Melly were going out Phabeni Gate in the morning and we were heading down to Croc Bridge and back to KZN via Swaziland, so it was early to bed in preparation for the long drive home.

To be continued

May 2nd Skukuza to KZN

Our final morning had arrived and as per normal, everyone was quiet and very subdued.

After saying our goodbyes to Supernova, Melly, Luckycharm and Tortoise, we were on our way. The road was very quiet until we found a massive boon army on patrol. RP would have been very proud of this gang.



2 kms from Lower Sabie, we found a few cars on the side of the road and saw pretty quickly what all the excitement was about. He was lying there like the king he is, surveying his territory.



While we were watching him, we saw all the cars suddenly take off behind us. His brother, who we heard had crossed the road just a few minutes before we arrived, was on the move, but eventually also decided to rather relax next to the river.



Time was running out and after only a few more minutes, we hit the road again. We didn’t stop at Lower Sabie, as all the bladders were behaving, which I got a bit of a tongue lashing for from the SO, as for her, the longer we take to get out the park, the better, but I had all the driving to do, so the blinkers were on.

Next up was a fish eagle and a few giraffe.





Halfway to Croc Bridge we found 2 more of the big 5, a couple of buffalo and another agro ellie, so the hunt was on for a leopard to complete our big 5 for the morning, but unfortunately no such luck.





The drive over the Crocodile River is never a highlight when heading south and today was no exception, but the time was ticking and we still had a long way to go, so there was no time to hang around.

We had decided prior to our holiday that the drive from Skukuza to Durban would be too long for the rats, so had booked a stopover at a northern KZN park, but decided to way up our options when we got to that area, as I was fairly keen to have a day at home before going back to work.

Supernova and Melly also got 4 of the big 5 on their way to Phabeni Gate, but just like us, were short of the elusive leopard.

Final episode coming just now

Skukuza to KZN Continued

This is not normally permitted as our trip moved to another park for 1 night, but I hope that it will be tolerated by the Mods as it is the end of our TR. For this reason I’m not going to post too much detail.

I was stuffed by the time we reached northern KZN, so the decision was taken to stop for the night and utilize our booking. The kids would have to miss a day of school, but they weren’t complaining and would far rather spend the night in the bush.

We only had time for a short 2 hour drive and in that time we got chased by agro ellies again, spotted a large herd of buffalo and found these guys below.

A vulture and its lightie



Then 8 wild dogs that came past our car at serious pace on a hunt (another first for us in this park)



A rhino with a rather large horn



The night time braai is great fun as we stay in an unfenced camp and the locals always crash the party.





Lastly, thanks to all of you guys that have shared our adventure with us and for allowing us the opportunity to relive our trip.

I will have to spend my time now irritating others on their trip reports

Thanks again mites

Bushcraft, The Cow, Supernova, Melly and the Rats.

Hey anne-marie,

Thanks for popping in I knew that you were in the park at the same time as us, so I was keeping an eye out for you, but we missed each other

I'm just catching up on your TR and I see that you had some awesome sightings

We have recently returned from a short 3 day trip to another conservation area and noticed how aggressive the lions seemed when compared to the KNP lions.
The SO got the fright of her life in the clip below (I had switched the car off, so the electric windows didn’t work)




I'm not going to be popular again


I proud of this pic taken by Hawkeyes with her standard SLR camera just after the stroppy lioness terrified her mother, not bad for a 10 year old.

A short clip from our night visitors