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Just returned - super as usual - reaquainted myself with places, animals and people ( @cricket ) First of all - as Petro , my SO , keeps reminding me, my memory / brain could be a worthy substitute for the dung spitting competition ( Afrikaans = deur die k@k ) I recognised a few faces , but forgot a few significant others , like DB - my apologies once again - but somehow the picture I stored in my memory bank didn't match !
We only arrived at noon on Saturday and spent an hour at the cricket, went for a drive and then got ready for the dinner at the golf club.
For those of you who haven't seen the Skukuza golf course, I include the view from the club house - it looks lovely !! ( for a walk - I subscribe to the idea that one shouldn't spoil a good walk with a game of golf !! )



The club house with the tent and tables for the dinner ( apparently we "inherited" it from a wedding which took place the night before ?? )


Lovely ........


I don't think I have my picture under " Members mugshots "


We stayed in Skukuza on Saturday night and then moved to Satara for two more nights.
Just a few of our sightings - mainly on S 39 ( Timbavati road ) Tried the S 100 once again and didn't even see card board cut-outs !!




This guy almost collided with us - I was driving and the next moment SO yelled, I saw a dark object filling the window on her side and swerved - the dark object did the same and we stopped about two metres apart ...







The highlight for me was this visit on our last night in Satara - I was just getting ready for our braai, when there was a thumping sound from the dustbin - we beamed the torch in that direction and got a casual glance from Mr Honey Badger. He wasn't worried about us in the least - I sneaked around the back of our hut to fetch Petro's camera from the car and she took a few shots from the veranda, which proved just a bit too far for her flash. We then went inside and opened a window just a metre from the dustbin for this photo - and still Mr.Badger was only interested in the left overs from the bin - no doubt an "old hand " in the camp !!

Another unusual sighting was an abandoned bicycle - or was it ? We noticed this bicycle just off the H1-4 near the Ngotso dam and speculated whether the ranger left it there and went on foot after some animal/poacher ? Or did it belong to a Moz refugee who was perhaps hiding from us in the grass or was the owner eaten by a carnivore ?

More unusual sightings involved birds - although I'm not a stiffneck - (We prefer our birds big and easy to identify like ostriches) but we couldn't miss the masses of queleas ...

We watched a black backed jackal that rushed into the flocks , but he was too slow - they saw him coming - I guess he could be successful at times ?

More unusual sightings ( for us non-stiffies at least ) were the big numbers of carmine bee eaters - never seen so many together in the bush - only seen them in big numbers in breeding areas - cliffs .