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Kruger 19th November

I wake early. This day has been anticipated for so long. Fannie and his girls give me an early breakfast and I’m off. I follow him driving through Soshanguve, wave my good-byes as he turns for school and I’m heading down R80 then N4 heading East. At the junction of N4 and N1 there is a traffic jam. Road works taking the carriageway unnecessarily down to just one lane, there are lots of workman standing around, some waving flags, some not and other leaning on their shovels. Just like home – lots of workers and not much happening! I hope I clear this soon as it’s wasted time. Then I’m off again. It’s a cloudy day - very welcome indeed. I stop at Highveld Mall for supplies. A quick visit to Outdoor Warehouse and Pick n Pay for shopping – lots of fruit, water and fresh items that I hope will last – I don’t expect the shops in Kruger will have improved much since last year. I have a Spur burger for lunch. I’m not a great fan of burgers and fast food but today needs must and I have to keep moving. Soon I’m on my way again. Then the debate in my head starts. It always does though today I have to resolve the questions myself. It’s my decision and mine alone. I wonder if other occasional visitors to Kruger have the same debate. The first part goes like this.

You get to the park gates, check in your car and pay your conservation fees. Do you then get out cameras, lens, binoculars, maps and guide books and prepare as you would like for a visit to Kruger and waste precious park time doing so? (I’m assuming you travel like I do with all valuables safely stored in the boot) or do you quickly throw what you think you’ll need onto the passenger seat and get into Kruger as quickly as possible? If you do that you risk discovering later that something you need or want is out of reach in the back of the car. It’s a difficult one and for me the answer is determined by my mood rather than anything else.

I’ve already decided as I’m staying at Pretoriuskop tonight I’m going to enter the park by Numbi Gate. Off N4 and through White River and onwards. Finally I’m on that long straight down to Numbi Gate. It feels so good to be back.

Then there’s the second part of the debate in my head. What to do when I enter the park? Do I chase a sighting, any sighting just to reassure myself that all the animals and birds in the park aren’t around Satara and further North? Or do I just take my time and head to one of my favourite spots? Again it’s a hard question to answer but decide I must. I have two favourite parking spots near Numbi. The loop off S3 at Mestel Reservoir – good doggie country and a great view of Shabeni hill in the afternoon light. Or Shitlhave dam for the birds, hippos and waterbuck. Decisions, decisions.

After checking in at Numbi Gate I’m finally back in Kruger getting into the park as fast as possible. Forget being organised today. Yippeee! This is great, so green and wild. Spring is such a lovely time of year after the first rains. Keeping my eyes just vaguely on the road I’m scanning left and right for any living thing. What will I see first? I keep on driving slowly and then even slower. Nothing just green, broken trees and the sound of insects. Past S3 and on. I'm overtaken a few times by others seeking glory ahead. I’m just content to move at my own pace. Past S7 and S8 and onwards down H1-1 towards Shitlhave. My decision has been made without me consciously making it. There are no sightings and then there just moving off the road as I approach a Leopard Tortoise. They may be small and slow but I do find them hard to photograph. Always heading away and this one is no exception – lots of photographs of their hind quarters, very few of their head looking towards the camera
.


Later at the side of the road a large Waterbuck. What a magnificent animal. This is going to be a good trip.



A short stop at the dam to gather myself and calm my nerves. Relax, Adrian, relax. There is plenty to time and plenty to see. Gradually Kruger comes into focus and I see more and more.



I drive on. It is now about 3pm and while I’m tired I have time to truly settle before I must get back to Pretoriuskop and check-in. Somewhere down the road I see two familiar shapes in the distance. Just wonderful, I am well and truly back. Loxodonta africana is a favourite animal. I have read books by Cynthia Moss, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Caitlin O’Connell, Sharon Pincott and numerous others about the earth’s largest land mammal – I can spend all day with elephants. And there’s a White Rhino too – they may be far away but it is special to see them walking together. One with the other, two special threatened beasts together out in the wild.



It is getting late and I must head back to camp now. This is a special place and I am blessed.

Hi Adrian,
We are lucky, because we stay in Pretoria with Kruger only 4 hours away (including breakfast). We always enter KNP through Malelane gate, because I hate it to drive along the outside instead of inside . To answer your questions, this is how we do it:

Although the camera's etc. are also in the back, I never enter the Park without camera's and bino's ready for action. We will never chase any sighting . Me and Hilda's vacation starts when I drive through the gate and seldom go faster than 25kmph during our whole trip .

Great start to your trip with a beautiful waterbuck and then ellie and rhino peacefully together .
Thanks for sharing

I know what you mean by the debate, Adrian.. and then intuition takes over once hiting the Kruger road.

Shitlehave is not a bad place to start. Very symbolic to see two threatened creatures together so soon.

I am so sorry about your dad bit know that Kruger is "soul food" so far I am loving your report. Thank you

Thank you for the great description of how you enter the Park AdrianFW! It sounds and feels so familiar!

Awesome Leopard Tortoise and Waterbuck! What a great shot of the Greater Blue-eared Starling too!

Beautiful scenery picture with the Ellie and Rhino, with some more animals which look like Impies to me further backwards!

Thank you AdrianFW for reminding us how blessed we are to have this wonderful place on our doorstep.

Sometimes we do tend to forget and take it for granted

Hey Adrian

Love the TR your really going in depth as for the bins and cam well they never leave the front seat of the car from the time I leave my house till I get home again i never want to be caught with a great sighting and no cam to take it with lol ......... Btw am I the only one who can't see the pics posted on this thread?

Thanks for your comments.

Barryels - agreed never chase sightings (though it is a little hook for later in my TR) but we also shouldn't ponder and muse on lost loves, buy lottery tickets, sneak treats when dieting and many more......but we do!

MM - special places that have meaning. For other creatures too. It was in my late teens when I realised the spirit of other living things around us. I was sat on a cliff top in Scotland and watched seagulls come flying along the top of the cliff and then turn down a gully and dive towards the sea. They'd pull up and sweep round and then climb up to the top of the cliff again and repeat. A dozen or more and round and round they went. We sat in wonder and decided they could only be doing it for the fun. There was no other reason.

Hilda - thanks, not Impies but Kudu I think and there is another Ellie lurking.

Sharifa - too true, you are so lucky to live where you do. I could never leave England permanently but SA for a few months every winter would be joyous. Think of me occasionally gazing south, south-east!

Sheenaugh-Lee - I miss sightings all the time but wait a while and another will be along shortly.

If I may for my next post I'll sneakily ask for your help. Don't worry you won't be in the wrong forum!

Help Is always offered and given here Adrian that's what makes this site unique to any other site in the world everyone is friends and everyone assists where they can, looking forward to the next episode

Bird ID Challenge

I’m writing the next few days of my TR and it’s not yet complete. Work and more work. At this time of year as the end of the government financial year looms large it’s a busy, busy time. I’d love to have the opportunity some have to just ‘pop into Kruger’. If you live close and wonder if you should/shouldn’t then my advice is don’t hesitate. I wouldn’t!

In the meantime I thought I’d post some of the bird photographs I’ve been unable to identify. All pictures taken in KNP during my November trip. I think they fit here rather than in the Bird ID forum. I have an idea for a couple but am not sure. Any ideas on ID and why? Thanks!



Bird 1



Birds 2 – by Transport Dam



Bird 3



Bird 4 – At Biyamiti Dam



Bird 5 – Sobota lark?

Nice little quiz here . Pity I'm rushing off to work.

Nice I'm sure that you will get your answers.

Hi AdrianFW, I'll give it a try, but the 'mites that really know their birds must please correct me if I am wrong:

No. 1 = Female Red-backed Shrike?
No. 2 = Lesser-masked Weaver?
No. 3 = Neddicky (breeding adult)?
No. 4 = Wood Sandpiper?
No. 5 - Sabota Lark (I think your ID is correct).

Hmmm Ive got to tell you I love birds and watching them but naming them well that's dangerous I think I will leave this one to the experts

Thanks for your kind comments and answers. I'm off now to check my books and references. This is a lovely helpful community - thanks.

Pretoriuskop 20th November AM

I stay in Pretoriuskop in one of the little round huts. It is a lovely camp I just wish people wouldn’t smoke in the huts. I sleep well and wake early. I’m breaking camp now for tonight I’m staying in Skukuza. As I haven’t settled at all it takes just a few minutes to bundle my stuff into the car. I leave camp a few minutes after 4.30am – what a joy to be out early. I head off round the S8 loop – it is quiet with a few spurfowl, helmeted guineafowl and an arrow-marked babbler.







Not much else to see but it is lovely just to poodle alone with all day to get to where I’m going. It’s damp drizzle at 19C. Like home but warmer. I do like the sand roads, in the main I prefer them to the tar. They are quieter and I think closer to the action. I come here to get away from crowds. I do dislike a traffic jam with everybody bullying and pushing to see a lion’s ear. I prefer to just move on. That said it is easier to do that on a wider tar road than squeezing past a queue of cars on the sand.

After S8 I’m heading down H2-2 Voortrekker road. I’ve heard so many mixed reports of this road, that there isn’t much to see and it’s quiet. Today it serves my purpose perfectly, to be alone in the bush. As I pass over one of the river crossings I notice it is just beginning to flow.



I wonder what the rains will be like this year?

Then I see grey shapes in the grey, my first herd of elephants! I can’t help smiling. I do like ellies. I’ll probably write that many times in my TR but they give me such a lift, a joy to watch. I think elephants know the roads and areas people frequent and avoid them if they want to. Today they want to avoid and they come out of the gloom, cross the road and are quickly swallowed up by the bush.



I’m a little disappointed they didn’t hang about but they’ll be many more to see. At least I hope so. From the south-eastern end of Voortrekker road I see a few Impalas and Kudu and not much else. The weather isn’t great for photography so I keep moving and before I know it I’m at Afsaal for a loo break and breakfast. It is nice to get out of the car and stretch my legs and wander around.

I’ve decided to stick to the sand so I’m continuing south down H2-2, north up S114, past Biyamiti dam, up S23 or S114 whichever takes my fancy and then up S114 on the way to H3. From there I have no idea, we’ll see when we get there.

Crossing from one side of H3 to the other is like entering a different world. As I leave Afsaal the sun is breaking through the gloom with patches of blue sky here and there. It feels warmer too. Down the bottom section of H2-2 and then I turn North. I do enjoy seeing the sun in the North. I’m a northern European and it’s always been in the South. Not today as I head up S114 towards Biyamiti dam, one of my favourite spots in all of Kruger.

On the way I come across a family of Dwarf Mongooses running along the sand by the side of the road. I pull over and switch the engine off.





Delightfully quiet with the sounds of the bush. I take a few photographs and then a safari OSV comes along the road. Not stopping or slowing he just heads on by. The Mongooses are off into the bush. That was a shame so I head off too but before long I see another migrant from Europe.



It has been a lovely morning and I still have the dam ahead. I feel any sighting is possible around Biyamiti, I wonder what today holds in store. Maybe even a YR. I’ll stop there for an early lunch. It’s not really time for lunch but any excuse to stop and enjoy the view. Spirit is feeling good.