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I'll join you in Hazyview Johan, saves me the drive up from the Strand (Did the trip in May).

(Rusky, the Huisgenoot Skouspel is an annual concert of the top Afrikaans singers sponsored by Huisgenoot, the biggest and oldest Afrikaans magazine).

Thank you everyone for the kind visits, nice comments, corrections and repremands!

OK, after the initial disappointment (of having to remove some of my photos), I can now concentrate on what we encountered in the Park (KNP) rather than outside before we arrived!

This is so Kruger (and bush) that I thought I will include this here!



We made the “obligatory” stop at the southern most Baobab.



Satara did not let us down! We stopped at Satara for lunch and saw on the sightings display board that several lions were marked on the board in different places in the near vicinity of the camp. How lucky can one get on the first day driving up to Letaba! We counted 25 lions altogether! Four prides!

The first lot were at the back of the Nsemani dam on the H7. Two males and three females.



They must have eaten just recently, because of the tell tale signs of their bloated tummies.



So close to our vehicle!



….and very effective camouflage!



We did not stay long because the next lion marker was on opposite side on the famous S100 “cats” road. So we turned back towards Satara and onto the S100.

Oh so beautiful and to be in Kruger!



Soon…… more lions on the S100……..

OK, here is some more!

It is quite amazing that one can on one day travel on a road like the S100 and see many lions and a few days later see nothing at all on the same road!

On the way on the S100 to where the lion(s) were marked on the board at Satara, about three kilos from the T – junction, we found a bonus pride only about nine kilos out.



We almost missed this one hiding in the bush closer to us, while concentrating more on the three lazy ones further away.



Soon after taking this photo, this chappy started flapping his ears and kicking up some dust, so my distressed SO urged me to moved off to a safer distance.



….and this ellie, a little further down the road, tried to tie a knot in his trunk!



Then we found the large “litter” of about 14 young lion cubs lying under and even in several Mopani trees. Where the mothers were, was anybody’s guess….maybe preparing for a hunt?



Maybe you will be able to see this little lion cub in the tree (if you can call it that)?



….and more cubs under the tree next door!



We arrived at Letaba content and happy, so after the normal unpacking rituals (that by now we are getting quite good at), we lit the fire for our first KNP braai.



Now I had all the time in the world to experiment with my new NIKON D7000 and I tried out the ‘much talked about' strength of this Nikon’s low light photograpic ability!



Then the braai – looking at it now, I can do with a chop now!



Next morning we went for a drive and found these Marabou storks high up in this tree.







Standing at the lookout on the beautiful Olifants River, my Sister - in – Law took this photo of me and Brendon with our long lenses – (just had to publish this)!



….and this is what we saw!

This first photo is of the Letaba, but the rest was taken at the N'Wamanzi Lookout on the Olifants River.



These elephants made a nice picture as they were wading through the mighty Olifants River down far below us!









…….more ellies, lions at a kill and even two leopards to follow somewhat later!

Thank you (again) for your wonderful comments and visits to my Trip Report; Puppy; Pumbaa and Rusky! I'm not shure Rusky if you are aware of the fact that J Kerkorrel committed sueside many years ago! He was, what was known, part of the 'alternative Afrikaans music movement'! (These are people who does not know about Kruger or any of our National Parks!)

Here we go again!

These photos of the elephants far below in the Olifants River was taken from the viewpoint at Olifantskop!



There were many ellies far below!



More elephants!



Where else can one see something like this?



We will remember this trip in October by the many Kudus we have seen. This one had a beautiful pair of horns and unusually wide!



This fellow seemed to be fairly tamed around our bungalow! Natal Spurfowl



The beautiful Letaba river!



A Kruger perspective!



I’m watching you!



A mother’s love on display!



Monkey gymnastics!



Be careful!



That’s very good my boy!



Oops!



I will continue this TR as soon as possible and if there is more forum demand - Haha! Until then!

Once again my kind acknowledgements goes to PetraJ; RayK; Pumbaa and hilda! Also for other Mites making sneak views without commenting! I am still missing a few of my friends in this TR! Maybe they will still show up! Haha!

I think one of the many wonderful aspects of a visit to our National Parks, is the fact that one never know what you will see or encounter next! If you can then photograph what you have experienced, it is an extra bonus. We were up early the next morning.



Elephants in the Mopani woods almost in disguise!



This was so amazing to be so close to these giants!





Zeebras are so nice to photograph and always makes wonderful photos!



View from the Matambeni bird hide on the Letaba River!



Lots of activity in and around the dam in the river and Hippos everywhere!


These waterbuck were in prime condition and always great to see!



I see you have a camera, is my pose OK?



….and a picture of the girls together!



This mud covered lone buffalo bull walked across the road just to remind us that we have not seen a big herd of buffalo!



Just before returning to camp (Letaba), we drove out on the H9 towards Phalaborwa when suddenly we encountered a massive road block! A huge herd of these temperamental wild animals are so fantastic to see! They just came out of the bush non – stop for minutes on end! Perhaps 20 minutes or more! This is exciting stuff!



They were coming out of the bush on the one side and just seem to disappear in the woods on the other side of the road!



…and a closer view!



There were plenty of young ones like this one in the herd – just looking if all is OK?



Then they just disappeared in amongst the Mopani’s!



This is it for now – more ellies, a lion kill and some leopards to come still!

I am now really warming up to this Trip Report and re – living the whole great experience we had picture by picture!

If one consider the many young elephant babies that we have seen on this trip and also previous trips, I think the elephant population is exploding in KNP.



Isn’t the little baby elephant cute?



OK, are the experts ready to help? What is this? I have not seen them in Kruger yet!


Earlier in my report I published some photos of a number of female waterbuck that I thought was in a good condition, but these waterbuck rams were in top notch! Strange thing, we saw no females anywhere near these rams!



It was clearly their afternoon siesta!





Can you see the third giraffe? There were actually four of them in the group!



Sun seekers but not enough space for all of them.





A cute little steenbokkie ready to run for his life.



Also plenty of Nyalas this time around!



A special pose from this pair of southern yellow – billed hornbills.



When we saw this kudu bull stretching to reach the fresh and succulent leaves higher up, Brendon commented that he now know why kudu bulls have regular stripes across their backs – Reason: to measure their horns to see how far it can reach.



I will let the photos do the talking.











Some more at a later stage!

@ Duke Ellieton: Thank you, I knew someone will soon come up with a name for my mystery deer picture! A common reedbuck!

@ hilda: Yes Hilda, they were indeed kudu ewes and thank you for the correction! The Nyala seem to have more stripes across its body than the kudu and are smaller! BUT I must confess they do confuse me! We have seen more of both than ever before!

These are Nyalas!



@ Pumbaa: Thank you so much for following my TR so regularly!

@ Sharifa: I hope I can do more "talking"! Thank you!

Judging by his ears, I am sure this kudu has absolutely no hearing restrictions!



These elephants crossed the road not far from the turn off to the southernmost Baobab Tree! What a splendid sight!



Mother and child taking a stroll across the road.



….and more following!



At least taller than the grass, but still a baby!



....and talking about babies, this joungster had to hold on for dear life!



A family outing of another kind!



…..but like all children, always want to run ahead of the parents!



With no water around, the overflow of a car’s air-con will have to do!



Mother showing Junior the ropes of traffic access in the Park! (This is at the turn off to the Baobab tree)



Now Junior takes over the responsibility of showing tourists not to access this road with a bus!



…..and of coarse Caravans as well!





Some more Kruger trivia at a later stage!

Thank you again hilda, Tobieo (I will deffinately fly my Yellow KTP) and Sharifa!

OK, here goes with another instalment - maybe the last one before Christmas, but yet a few to go still!

The ellies let us through the mini roadblock and we could continue our way via Tshokwane to Skukuza! A day full of surprises!

These two massive lone buffalo bulls were grazing on the side of the road.



While we were scanning the Kumana dam, this fair size BWB herd came for a drink.


They made no plans to leave in a hurry, obviously no predators around this time!



There was not much water left in the dam so that it would appear that this hippo was dead, no movement at all, only this saddle-billed stork wading in knee deep water!



Then just a short few K’s further, luck smiled on us as I spotted our first leopard. Pandemonium in the Kombi! Unfortunately it was about 200 meters away, but walking for at least 10 minutes on the far side of the dry river bed until it disappeard in the river.



It was so awesome to see him on his patrol.



He stopped at the base of this huge tree and for a moment it appeared as if he was going to climb up into the tree.



He made a full stretch on his back legs up the tree and then turned around and carried on walking further.





This is where we lost sight of him.



To be continued later!

Thank you picnic, Pumbaa, hilda and anne-marie for making it worth the while to publish this TR!

First of all a Happy New Year to all you addicted ‘forumites’ and may all your days in our National Parks be filled with awesome sightings!

When the leopard disappeared in the thicket, this fellow tried to get our attention on the opposite side of our vehicle.



Then we saw this rather dark, almost black giraffe. Is this perhaps a variation of the norm, or could it even be a darker specie of giraffe?



Luck was again with us…….our second huge herd of buffalo of this trip to Kruger!



They just kept coming with lots of calves amongst them!



….and more!



WE were still on a high after the road crossing when this turned out to be an even luckier day for us, because just after our second large herd of buffalos and within five kilos from Skukuza, we arrived at this rather large road block……and can you believe it, a lion kill of a different kind! A hippo kill!!



To see those panting male lions with their bloated tummies swollen to capacity was rather disgusting and a sight to remember!



…and she could only just lift her head!



……but as for the males, ENO’s would have helped a little I suppose.



We returned early the next morning and it was hard to believe that they carried on with their eating frenzy throughout the night and this was all that was left of the entire hippo carcas!



……and from a distance, this spotted hyena was hoping that the lions would leave some scraps!



Some more uploads a little later!

Thank you once again anne - marie; hilda; Anri & Pumbaa for the visits to my Trip Report and the nice comments you made! It sure is comforting to see your responses.

Now for another episode!

Only a few episodes to go now and thank you ALL for visiting my TR and for taking time to do some commenting! Even to all those "silent" visitors to this TR!

En Route from Skukuza we saw this very macho nyala ram foraging in the tree tops!



To-day we drove down to Lower Sabie with a scheduled picnic brunch at the beautiful Nkuhlu Picnic sight! (Oh how I wish I could be there now!)



You will probably remember that I said earlier that our little grand daughter Lisa (only four months old at the time), was with us and this is how she was protected against possible mosquito bites or any other bugs or intruders for that matter!



Lisa seemed to be enjoying the view from within her safe enclosure!



….and this it what she looked like out of her “net box”!

A couple joined us on the table next to us, leaving their eggs and the rest of the breakfast unguarded for just a few moments when a vervet monkey snatched their eggs quicker than you can say monkey! He scurried up a tree where he enjoyed his stolen meal scanning the chances for the next opportunity!



Stay with me please, only three more episodes to go, but yet another surprise for us!

I must confess, being in our National Parks are so much better than publishing trip reports! BUT it gives me great pleasure to write and upload this report and help me to recall the good times!

This glossy starling came to check for some scraps left by us at Nkuhlu.



From Nkuhlu we carried on to the Sunset Dam near Lower Sabie where this hippo could not believe his eyes when he saw this grey heron walking on the water (actually getting a lift from one of the hippos).



Here the heron is infiltrating the hippo colony on the back of his hippo taxi!



This snipe?(help!) (Afr:Bosruiter) was very interested in the water monitor and followed him all around the Sunset dam!



The previous time (May 2010) when we visited the Mtandanyathi Hide on the S28, this dam was full of water and lots of hippo activities! This is how dry it was now (in October)!



Lots of dead catfish was the only sign that this was a dam only a few months ago! Strange was that lots of water monitors were still around and amongst the dead catfish!



We crossed the Sabie Low water bridge on our way to the Mlondozi Picnic spot where we found the water levels to be very low.



Standing on the edge of the lookout I heard some splashing directly below me and what a surprise to see some elephants playing in the water not far from the hippos.



They were pushing and pulling one another in the water!





A white rhino crossed the dry part of the dam on the far side!



……and too many hippos and too little water!



Hang in there…..two instalments to go!

Thank you to all who stopped by in my trip report and for your comments! Much appreciated!

Second last instalment coming up!

It is just much easier if you stand on your knees! (They seem to be multiplying at a steady rate in KNP, because we saw lots of these warthogs throughout the park!)



I always wanted to see these ‘undertakers’ from close up, but they DO look scary!



On our way to Berg & Dal and near Afsaal, we stopped at what appeared to be the last scraps of a kill and all that was left, were these vultures.



These southern yellow – billed hornbills were ready to steal our breakfast from the table, but they are very ‘photogenic’ so I can never resist a few shots of them!



This juvenile hornbill was not afraid to steal the food right out of my plate!



I saw on the sightings board that there was a leopard not fat from Afsaal and on the same loop where we saw the African wild dogs the previous year, so off we went.

Just before the turn off we saw these ellies in the dry river bed,



We were not far down the turn off when we came across these beautiful rhinos!





To spot a LIT is not easy at all, but lucky for us, we stopped at just the right place.





On the back road to B&D I photographed this very unfamiliar (for us), but beautiful flower. Can anyone ID this?



At B&D we all went for a swim and the sun was setting over a beautiful camp and a very content party of “Kruger observers”!






Only one more upload!

This will be my last instalment of this October 2011 KNP Trip Report!

What was really outstanding during this visit to KNP was the Lion/hippo kill near Skukuza, the 25 lions on our first day and two leopards during the trip!



We left the beautiful B&D via the Malelane Gate (not us in the picture) en route to Cape Town where we saw the home of The Flintstones at Kaapsche Hoop near Nelspruit.



It was a loooong drive to CT so we checked in at the Forever Resort on the Gariep Dam for an overnight stop!



As we approached the Hex River mountains on the N1 to CT the most spectacular sunset greeted us and we just drove into it!











After a 7 day tour of the south of Namimibia we will be entering the Kgalagadi at Mata Mata on the 15th of April 2012 - 5 nights
Then Nossob - 6 nights
Twee Rivieren - 3 nights
Augrabies - 3 nights