6 Days On The Letaba River *

ossendryver
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:36 pm
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Re: 6 Days On The Letaba River

Post by ossendryver »

Thanks everyone!!
Day 3 Part 4

As I mentioned before that I took a video of the cheetah calling and a lot wanted me to upload it.
Here it is:

Kruger Sightings - Cheetah Calling For Partner - 7 December 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzHTY1JBpoY
As you can hear we were all very excited to see it!
Enjoy

So after that beautiful cheetah disappeared way into the bush we continued back to the camp.

While we were driving back we were taking in what we had just seen.
We were already 10km from where we saw the cheetah.
We were still driving slowly and
Can you believe it.... is that what I think it is? ANOTHER CHEETAH!!!!!
We could believe our eyes!!

There he was ANOTHER ONE!!
It was INCREDIBLEEEEE!
all to ourselves!

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This picture just got to me, I don't know why.
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That took over the rest of the day!!

When we got back to the camp, the look on my parents' face were PRICELESS!!
:lol: :lol:

Hope you enjoyed Day 3 Part 4

To Be Continued...


ossendryver
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:36 pm
Contact:

Re: 6 Days On The Letaba River (ossendryver)

Post by ossendryver »

Day 4 Part 1

We had now heard our alarm waking us up 4 times.
Today was Day 4.

I love that feeling at the beginning of the day thinking of, but not knowing what we might see in the next hour or day.

We all decided to go up north again because I think you all know why.
2 cheetahs the previous afternoon.

I didn't think we would get to see the cheetahs again since they probably moved off during the night.
Boy was I wrong!!

We were the first ones out the gate, again...


Here was our first animal!
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We got to Melopenyana Dam.
We again took sunrise pics.
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After staying at the dam for a few minutes we decided to continue on our way.

Just as we turned off the H15 I heard something.
I heard a WAA, WAA, WAA, GRRR!!

The second I heard that sound I shouted "STOP!! CHEETAH!!"
They all screamed at me "WHERE WHERE??"

Me "No I can hear it"

Them "Oh :("

what a let down they all thought.

But I said to them. "I can hear it, we must try find it and listen to where the call is coming from."
They then agreed.

A car drove past and asked us what we were looking at.
We said that we could hear a cheetah.
They stopped for a second, listened and then looked at us like we were mad.
Then drove off.

We decided to go back to the waterhole and see if we could see it from the field.
WE COULD!! it was hard to find because everything there was so yellow.

It started moving towards us and then disappeared.

Immediately after it disappeared into the bush a car came and said. "You just missed a cheetah crossing the road"

We were all so upset , the other car drove off, we also drove off to continue toward Mopani.
But just wait a second. What do we see sitting waiting for us? (With no other cars)
Well let the photos tell the story!
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We were with this cheetah for a half an hour ALL ALONE!
It was very special!

When we left it, it was still next to the road, but we had to go to Mopani.
We thought to ourselves, maybe we will see it on the way back.
(Boy were we right!)

Then the only animals we saw after that were a family of cute Jackals at Middelvlei but it was to far to take pics.

Then this herd (probably the same as the one the day before) of over 300 Buffs crossing the road.
This took up another 30min.
One even started sleeping in the road.
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We had a nice breakfast at Mopani.

Hope you enjoyed Day 4 Part 1

To Be Continued...


ossendryver
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:36 pm
Contact:

Re: 6 Days On The Letaba River (ossendryver)

Post by ossendryver »

Day 4 Part 2

After a very nice breakfast at Mopani we headed back home for a snooze.
We did a few loops here and there but nothing amazing.
But we did take some nice photos:
Nice patterns:
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Beautiful tusk:
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This giraffe didn't even notice us:
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Biggest tusker of the trip. Does this ellie have a name maybe?
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Then we arrived at middelvlei!
Not a lot to see there when we arrived so we parked off. Some of us went to sleep while my dad and I looked out for action!!
We found it!
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Then they made UP and started making OUT!
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When all the "Action" was over I decided to look around.
Best decision ever!
I scanned with my binos all over under every bush.
And there it was sleeping away!
Our 4th cheetah sighting!!
Were weren't the only one sleeping.
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Well now I had to wake everyone up and say that there is ANOTHER cheetah! they didn't believe me at first!
After they saw it they weren't asleep anymore.

So many cars drove right by is with out even looking near where the cheetah was!!
Again this got me thinking how many leopards, lions, cheetahs and wild dogs I have missed while not even looking close to where they are.

We waited for an impala to come down to the waterhole, for the cheetah to kill, for over 2 hours. this got us tired so we all decided to go back to the camp.

That later afternoon drive is yet again one that I'll NEVER forget.
You DON'T want to miss it!


Hope you enjoyed Day 4 Part 2

To Be Continued...


ossendryver
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:36 pm
Contact:

Re: 6 Days On The Letaba River (ossendryver)

Post by ossendryver »

Thanks everyone for all your compliments!!

Day 4 Part 3

What a morning it was with 2 Cheetah sightings!! Unbelievable!

The day wasn't over yet!! Far from it.

Well it all started when we were still in the camp.
Everyone was asleep and asked me to wake them up at 3:40pm to go on an afternoon drive.

While they were still asleep I relaxed at the fence with my binos and just scanned everywhere.
Not much came to drink.

It was now TIME!

I went to their room and woke them up, and then I woke up my sister.
All I heard was groaning from everyone besides for my dad.

So that only meant, it was just me and my dad. :dance: :dance:

Last time when nobody wanted to go with,because they were sooooo tired, my dad and I saw the big five in an hour's drive all in the road.

Hope fully Murphy's Law would help us again!!

The drive started off with us discussing that we really wanted to see lions because in 4 days we only saw 2 for a minute and that's just not like us. We usually see lions left right and center, but no other cats. So the cheetahs made up for the lions.

We turned immediately left on the S94 and then again on the S46 - which was along the river.

We drove around for about 1,5hours and saw only these:
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After the 1,5 Hours turned around.

I don't know what made us turn around at particular point in time or at that particular place but as we did I screamed:
"CHEETAH,CHEETAH,CHEETAH, OH WAIT I MEAN LION!! LION!!! LION!!!!
(I was just so used to screaming cheetah)

They were asleep right next to the road!!!!
Again as we made the U-Turn we saw them!!

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I looked at my dad and said:
"HAHA this will show them!!"
My dad just laughed

This is now the second time that Murphy's Law has helped me this trip.
1. The first 2 cheetah, (Just my sister and I)
2. These lionesses, (My dad and I)

We decided to stay with them for the rest of the afternoon because we drove out looking for lions and we finally found them so we might as well watch them.

At about 5:30 they started moving more and more.
We knew 'something' was about to happen.

Suddenly the one lioness woke up and started getting ready and cleaned up.
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Then they both got up and stretched.
We then knew that we were going to see some action.
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They walked and walked and walked in the road for so long when they suddenly just stood still, both looking at the same direction.
Then the lioness in front looked back at the other one and nodded. Literally

They then started crouching. We finally saw why, there was a herd of impala just standing around grazing.
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Then when everything was quite.. The snorting had stopped.. The birds stopped singing... EVERYTHING WAS SO INTENSE!
The lioness went for it!!
Then out of nowhere we hear:
"HA HA HA CHEWWWWWW!!!"

Was that what I think it was?
YES, the darn lioness SNEEZED!!

As she sneezed you just saw a smudge of orange and yellow running everywhere.
The impalas got such a fright!!
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Bless you!!

My dad and I looked at each other and said that we had NEVER seen a lion sneeze before and just because we were about to see a kill we had to see them sneeze for the first time.
Murphy's Law maybe? (you win again Murphy you win again!)

This is what the lioness was thinking in her head.
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agg man WHY!?!?

While the lioness with the cold moved off...
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The other one tried again.
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This time she actually walked right in between the impalas. As she started running they all FINALLY left the scene.

Then about 10 minutes of after following them, they found another lone impala and stalked him too.
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But this one was clever and ran away!

We carried on following them until the tar road to Letaba!!We saw people from the camp watching them.
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Here is the FUNNIEST video of lions that you would EVER see!! This is the "Kill"
No Battle At Kruger - Lion SNEEZES Its Opportunity To Kill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SounNqUEaUg

But it was sadly time to leave them alone as the gates were about to close.

Luckily there was enough time to take one more picture of the beautiful sunset that was busy happening.
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Afterwards when we got into the camp the guy at the gate asked us if we had a nice drive and if we saw anything
We showed him the pictures of the lions and he asked us where it was. We said that it was right outside the gates.
Then he said this "If you want you can go back for 10min and watch them, because I can see if you drive off"
We said "REALLY?!?!?! That is awesome thanks!!"
We got to watch them for another 10 minutes and then we didn't want to push our luck!!

Don't worry NO bribing was involved!!

When we got back we had the pleasure of telling the rest of our family what we had just seen.
AGAIN the face they showed was just priceless!!!!!! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

This concludes Day 4
Stuff seen on Day 4:
1. BB Jackal
2. Blue Wildebeest
3. Buffalo
4. Burchell's Zebra
5. Bushbuck
6. Chacma Baboon
7. Cheetah
8. Crocodile
9. Elephant
10. Giraffe
11. Hippo
12. Impala
13. Kudu
14. Lion
15. Steenbok
16. Tree Squirell
17. Tsessebe
18. Vervet monkeys
19. Warthog
20. Waterbuck

Hope you enjoyed Day 4

To Be Continued...


ossendryver
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:36 pm
Contact:

Re: 6 Days On The Letaba River (ossendryver)

Post by ossendryver »

Day 5

This one is going to be short because we didn't see much that day.

I'm leaving to go to the Pillansburg for the weekend so I will probably only post again on Monday!


So today we had to see a leopard!! 5 Days in the park saw everything but no leopard.
My family always had bad luck seeing the leopard.

We woke up early and decided to go on the S94 again to check out if the lioness with a cold felt better and had a meal with her.

This is what we found on that road:
Cutie getting some breakfast
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This ellie was busy eating some food.
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Tortoise and Impala
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We carried on and saw a honey badger cross the road we all got such a fright but it was too fast to take a picture of.

We couldn't find our lions so we went along the river on the H1-6 to Matambeni Hide because the ranger told us that there is a resident leopard there so we thought to ourselves that it's worth a try.

Along the river and saw these amazing sequences of photos:
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We arrived at Matambeni Hide and the closest thing to a leopard was a couple showing us the one that they saw cross the road and 5 minute ago.

But we did see animals at the hide.
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And on the way back to the camp at about 5:00 we saw this heading straight to us.
He was huge!!!
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Further a long that road.
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Then we got to the "Get out" bridge we noticed something unusual.
There can't be something right!!
Something’s smells fishy!!!
There were 2 cars stopped there!!!!

They must be looking at something!!

We drove down and asked them "What are you looking at?"
The next few words were the worst kind ANYONE can listen to.

They answered "You JUST missed it, 1 MINUTE ago, CROSSING the bridge, LEOPARD!!!"

This was now our second JUST MISSED leopard sighting.
But now we were really ANGRY!!!

Why always us!!

So it was 5:30, we had an hour. We were determined to see these "So Called" leopards.

We drove up and down looking to where it was apparently walking to.

After about ten minutes looking and looking we decided to just stick to the bridge and look at the sunset that was going on.
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Then after waiting at the Bridge I went to the person stopped looking on the bridge and just asked by chance that he would say yes.
So I asked if he could see the leopard. He said
YES!!!!

He pointed it out to us.
It was on the cliff so it was hard to photograph, but it counts as a leopard!!!
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We had now seen what we had been specifically looking for the whole day!!
We had also now seen the big 5!

I hope you enjoyed the short but nice day 5.

To Be Continued... Next week.

[/u]


ossendryver
Posts: 95
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2012 7:36 pm
Contact:

Re: 6 Days On The Letaba River

Post by ossendryver »

Day 6

This was out last day :(

But it was still a very productive one :)

So we woke up and again decided to go north to see if the leopard that we had "seen" the day before was still there.
We went to on the road towards Matambeni Hide.

We sadly didn't see the leopard but it was a nice and very scenic drive.

We came across these magnificent Nyalas
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Then on our way back to the get out bridge we saw these beautiful storks in the river.
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This cute tortoise was also on the bridge.
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After we left the tortoise we had to leave the park ourselves.
We were all very upset.

But we hadn't finished yet.
We turned onto the H9 and about 1km on, we came across a den of hyenas at play.
All to ourselves.

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As another car came they all went into their den.
That was it, it was like they were never there.

Continuing to Phalaborwa Gate we saw a HUGE Dagga Boy.
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This was such a funny road block.
I don't often upload pics of impalas but this is an exception
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Then to say good bye is 2 Scenery pictures of the H9

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Thanks everyone for reading and following my TR it really means a lot.
Thanks again for all the funny and complimentary comments.

I hope you enjoyed my Trip Report!


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