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So true! A friend and I took our sons, then 5 years old, for a father-son camping weekend at Berg-en-Dal. Entered at Malelane, turned of on the road to camp, and drove into a traffic jam few km down the road. Leopard in a tree. The camera was conveniently stashed in the load bin of the bakkie.......

These days the camera is taken out at the gate if not before.

We have had a leopard just past Phabeni gate followed by three white rhinos abou a kilometre further with an elephant as a third sighting! The lion and buffulo had to wait until later in the day

In all the years, there are two sightings which stand out in my mind.

In '99, we entered at Malelane and within a few minutes saw wild dog take an impala (still have the video, hence I can recall the year) To this day, its only the successful hunt I have witnessed!

The second one was most far more recent; had just entered at Numbi and suddenly out of the bush appeared a large male leopard. It was a very short sighting, but a great start to our trip

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Many many years ago ...
over 15 years ago

we entered Paul Kruger gate, and stopped to get drinks out the cooler bag, and we spotted wild dogs lying under a tree.

Another time we entered Paul Kruger for a day trip and saw an armadilo run across the road

In 2007 i came to Africa for the first time. After graduating i travelled for a few months and in Africa i did an overland tour from Cape Town to Nairobi. During the tour we visited a lot of parks like Etosha, Okavango Delta, Chobe and a few more. We saw a lot but we didn´t see a leopard.

In 2008 i visited KNP for the first time. We entered through Malelane Gate and the first animal we saw was a leopard high upon a tree . As i haven´t seen a leopard before this very first sighting made me loving KNP from the first moment.

We've found that, coming from the city, it takes time for our eyes to "adjust" to the veld.

So for the first hour or so that we are in the park, we usually only see Buffaloes, Ellies or Giraffes before we start seeing little wonders like reptiles, birdies and smaller animals.

Arriving at Punda Maria gate +- 6 am and booking in towards the end of April 2010, had some coffee and did our thing. We left approx. 6.12 am enroute to Singwedzi. Before the H13-1 (2Km from gate), we saw 5 young male Lions and two females lying on the tar road. We spend a bit of time and left. After turning onto the H1-7 towards Singwedzi, two Hyenas was ''jogging'' for about 1.5 Km on the road infront of us. That is how our trip started.

For us it is usually Impala but during May this year we saw leopard about a kilometer after entering at Malelane gate

Lion within meters/seconds of the gate a number of times (forget how many), also several leopard sightings very close to or even right at the gate.

Johan

Usually impala, warthog, giraffe, buffs............occasionally an ellie or 2.

On our trip in April just after Phabeni Gate, there was a pair of Fish Eagles at the Hlulamadvodza river, near the road, the best for a fairly new birder like me.

I don't remember much of my preschool years in KNP, but I remember my dad use to pay us 1c for every impala we saw and luckily we couldn't count that far, so we only wanted to see impala from the minute we entered the gate - that kept us occupied!

Phabeni Gate - Leopard at the Albasini Ruins, Buffalo right next to the car park and at the low water bridge
Last Saturday Leopard 4 km from the gate - at the crossing

Malelane - Leopard with in the first K, another occasion Lion about two K's in

Numbi - Cheetah 2 k's from the gate (three weeks ago)

Mostly these have been in the early morning

Hallo there!

My first sightings from the gates where:

Punda Maria : Buffallo

Phalabaorwa : zebra's

Numbi : Impala

Orpen : Hyena and lions

Once when entering the park through numbi, we saw nothing for the first hour or so we were there and then saw a beautiful young female leopard.

In november, good friends went into the park at numbi and there first encouter 4k down the road was a leopard and a further 100m down the road was wilddog

When entering at the Numbi gate in 2008 the first animal we saw was a Lichenstein's Hartebeest. Quite something.