Flavour of the Month - August 2014 H1-4: Satara-Olifants Tar Road

[Richprins]

Great stuff, nana and Flutts!

Ok...have been busy!


So we were cruising South in blistering heat, as said. Suddenly, an Impala ram came charging from the right at top speed, and bounded across the road...literally!

They can really jump far when required, as one sees in the movies, and his hooves only touched the tar once! So a bound of about 10 metres?

Similarly, two cheetah males appeared at massive speed, with the leader nabbing the impala just on the left-hand shoulder of the road. I don't know if the cheetah purposely used the tar as an attacking opportunity...there have been many theories that predators have learned to chase ungulates across tar, hoping that they will slip, and it has happened. This one didn't slip, though...


We were also fortunately the right distance away, not too close, as that could have been a major accident for us, and not too far...a perfect grandstand view! Many years ago a similar thing happened along the S-100, where the antelope was chased into the side of a car, also by cheetah, and broke its neck, causing quite a bit of damage!


Anyway, Dwarf and I were speechless, understandably...the whole thing took about a second! The animals all tumbled down the embankment on the side, and we had difficult views after that, but they were feeding, so a successful kill!

Now for the scary part:


While we were going backwards and forwards, we noticed quite deep scrape points in the middle of the tar road. Due to the heat, the impala's hooves had made clear indentations in the surface, and the cheetahs' paws/claws too!

This shows the forces involved in a chase!

Ironically, I was up there again a few months later, and the marks could still be seen...

[nan]

Helmeted Guineafowl

Hyena+White-headed Vulture

to the Hyenas



White headed Vulture

[Amoli]

I also saw cats on this road, not the same as yours - these were :

faraway cheetahs,



and faraway lionesses..



Brown snake eagle



Kudu

[Amoli]

... and I think my most special sighting in Kruger for this trip, except for... and for... -

[Flutterby]

August 2013

Ngotso Dam





Just before the Olifants turn-off



South of the high-level bridge

[Amoli]

Driving up to Ngotso we saw these two lions feast on a carcass.
They were deep into the bush, but it was still great watching them.




Afterr a while we travelled to Ngotso and when we came back, the one male had left.

[Richprins]

From a story by aat in 2014:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=5183

Thanks a lot for the comments and sorry it took some time for next story... but tuskers and moving tusker site and my other website to another provider with much more space and a complete make-over of our garden and some work in our house and getting our two new cats (Duke and Fleur, blue russian) did not leave much "space" to write new stories.

I promise to show some pictures of our new "children" soon

*** Travel Tales ***
New series of Travel Tales

08 – Keep on running with AWD

A tradition. All trips so far we have seen the Painted Dogs. Mainly on “ expected” places like Satara area and some other places you have a chance to see them.
We were on our way from Satara to Mopani. We were searching for them in the Satara area but no way…
Getting up early since we would go from Satara to Phalaborwa (shopping) and then towards Mopani. Not really much in the first hour and we were approaching Olifants and suddenly and fully un-expected Painted Dogs running towards us, coming out of nothing.

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A small pack came around the corner and for a while we were … ehhh… uhh… whatttt…. ?
Before we were back alive and realizing we were looking at painted dogs they passed us so turning and follow…..

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Following them and then from the other side this large “tourist” vehicle on his way to Olifants… they only had a quick view because the dogs were running…running…

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We heard the driver saying nice words when we passed him…. and he tried to turn his vehicle but did not manage to it quickly enough. One dog was answering with the same words of the driver “sh*t”
They were really going fast, on the road, off-road and back to the road
Sometimes they were walking slowly so we had a better look at them and finally I could make some close-up pictures

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and

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Looking at their faces itwas clear they already had breakfast.

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Suddenly they left the road into the bush and we thought “gone….”
But… only 2 minutes later they came back to the road.

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Waiting and yes… one of them came closer….

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Waiting a bit more and two other dogs showed themselves

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Stop…. !! Also painted dogs have to do this … so in all privacy he did his thing

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We normally are not really interested what other people “produce” but painted dogs ? Yes, they do…

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They started running again… and we were just saying with a smile “they are going to the bridge” to cross the Olifants river. Just before the bridge they left the road and after about 4 km following them they moved to the riverbank.

Funny…. We lost them for a while and moved to the bridge and got out of the car… and yes… we could see them again

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a last shot and after 25 minutes following them we were back on our way to Phalaborwa….
Standing on the bridge and watching the painted dogs we realized we have never seen them this way and in this area.

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Not knowing (at that moment) we would have a even better sighting later on

Thanks for joining again and next time probably a lovely mother with two beautiful children…


Aat & Elly

[Richprins]

From a story by Bushcraft, 2013:



https://www.africawild-forum.com/viewto ... 5&start=10




After a tense negotiation my route to the Nyamarhi area won.

All the pelicans were out by the time we reached Ngotso Dam as it had been very quiet, but I decided to persist with the plan and continued on.

A few km later we spotted a car stopped on the side of the road, so slowly pulled up next to them to ask what was happening. “We think that there’s a leopard under a bush over there”.

This got the teeth hanging out again and I slowly moved up the road.

Suddenly Hawkeyes shrieked “LEOPARD!!”, which caused me to hit the brakes so hard that the rats nearly landed in the front seat “WHERE!!!”

Hawkeyes was now under pressure to give directions “You see that big tree to the right and the log to the left of it”

“There’s plenty trees and logs!!”

Fortunately before the tension increased the leopard moved under the log and we all spotted it



The leopard seemed to be holding something with its front foot and then after checking the scene out seemed to be biting something.

This increased my excitement “It’s got a rat!!”

Suddenly the leopard jumped up, looked at us, bent down, grabbed the “rat” and started to walk towards us.



This got me vibrating “VIDEO!!! What is it carrying?” The arguments about the model of this little buck still continue, but Bushpig thinks it was a duiker, Hawkeyes insists it’s a baby bushbuck, the Cow recons it’s a steenbok and I’m confused as the markings lean towards a bushbuck, but the face looks like a duiker.





Please forgive some of the next pics but we were battling to take pics as the setting sun was directly behind the leopard that’s why some are too bright and others dark.

The leopard continued straight towards us, so I initially thought she wanted to cross the road, but she stopped at a tree about 6m from us and bailed up.



She then stopped on a low branch to plot the next move before charging right up to the upper branches to stash her kill.



The leopard wasn’t visible in the upper branches and we could only make out shadows and the odd spot, so I started the car, which again set the Cow off “What are you doing, don’t you dare move!!”

We were looking directly into the sun so I was about to protest that we needed a different angle when the leopard moved “She’s coming back down!!!”

[Richprins]

The leopard didn’t bail out the tree though and decided to cool off on a branch next to us



15 minutes later she started to get restless and suddenly bailed off the branch into the bush, which as per the norm got me over excited with the ignition and we roared off to follow her.

“There!! She’s walking!!” “I’m driving, I can’t take pics, so snap away” “Each time I try and snap you move!!” “Do you want to drive!!”

Eventually I decided to drive ahead of her, stop and wait for her to catch up, thereby allowing us the opportunity to get pics.





As luck would have it she started to check out the tree right next to us and suddenly bailed up. She was so fast I only managed to get her tail.



She then decided to cool off on a branch which was almost above us, so I had to move slightly to get pics.

As she was so close and calm we tried for some close-ups. The last pic was taken by Hawkeyes with her “point and shoot”.









I was starting to get worried about the time and we had already spent around an hour with her, so we decided to head back towards Satara. We later realized that we could have spent another 20 minutes with her though.

I was stoked as we had equalled our record of 6 days for the number of consecutive “leopard days”, so we didn’t really care what came up next and all were jabbering about the sighting.

The leopard had made a massive impression on Albert and she was already starting “Dad, we are definitely going back to see her tomorrow” I didn’t have the heart to say “She won’t be there tomorrow”

We eventually stopped for a massive buffalo herd that were also in the road, an Eagle owl and then some ellies.

[Richprins]

The northern part of the road in January this year...amazingly dry!

Autocorrected:





Edit: Same road in October 2018-