The Great Escape

[PJL]

You are very good at those close up shots

Lovely nyala

They have obviously started to cut the rhino horns in Kruger. Better no horns than no rhinos.

Thank you Lis
I wonder a bit about the dehorning... I can understand the logic but it doesn't always prevent poaching and it puts the animal at a disadvantage in territorial disputes

WOW!!! I don't know where to start... incredible sightings!!!

Lovely cheetahs, excellent photos of the monitor and well done to the roller for ridding the earth of the ugly spider
Then the bateleur and also the honey badger and the horned ones. Terrific.

And breakfast looked amazing too. YumYum.

Haha that spider looked pretty cool - might have been a baboon spider

Lovely pics and GREAT to see rhino, Peej!

I think they only dehorn them in Kruger if they dart them for transporting to the Protection Zone, or for medical treatment, as an aside!

Afsaal charged us R50, with R25 back as deposit...this is a very clever marketing trick as I think few bother to go and get the deposit back!

Love the hamerkop and bateleur!

Thanks RP. Yes it was very good to see rhino... a big 5 day
Interesting about the deposit story at Afsaal. They never mentioned anything about that so it sounded like a rip off.

[PJL]

Thursday July 8th

Seeing as we had a bit of luck the previous day in the Malelane direction from Skukuza we decided to head that direction again, but this time taking in some of the gravel roads first thing. The S114 has some pretty bad corrugations along the northern section, so perhaps our rumbling car scared things away as it was all very quiet up to Renosterkoppies.

As we rumbled along south there was movement as something flew across the road in front of us - leopard! We searched the spot where it had crossed for a while and saw something bounding away but we weren’t totally sure if it was the leopard or some buck. After missing the nice sighting the previous day and now this one not wanting to be seen there was some leopard frustration creeping into the car

At the H5 junction I very nearly went the wrong way as I always forget that the S114 ‘turns off’ at that point. Close to the junction we had a nice view of some big buffalo bulls





Soon after, we popped onto the S26 for a bit of an explore… within a few km, S shouted ‘stop stop’ and we came to an abrupt halt with this magnificent young male looking very alert not far off the road



He then started walking towards us before stopping to check out the surrounds

[PJL]

Thursday July 8th contd

We spent the next amazing 25 minutes with him with no other vehicles around and not surprisingly our leopard frustration from earlier was totally forgotten.









He was totally chilled with our car and spent time either sitting close to the road, or wandering up and down attempting to hunt mice at the side of the road. As you may have already noticed from the photos, he has a very unusual characteristic - something called complete heterochromia - where one eye is a different colour from the other.













Eventually he started moving further away from the road and lay down by a small tree as two other cars finally arrived on the scene. We were totally thrilled with the sighting - by far our best leopard sighting ever

[RogerFraser]

Catching up again after a few episodes .

Love the Spider , Cheetahs ,Lions wow you had a really good few days .

Afsaal Brekkie looks really good too .Well done to the chef

And then you get to spend all the time with the young Leopard .Beautiful pictures as always

[harrys]

Wonderful Leopard sighting, with beautiful photos

[Pumbaa]

What stunning leopards shots, PJL

but also wonderful other brilliant sightings and shots as well - Love the honey badger, the cheetahs, the rhinos, the nyala and the monitor - Simply fantastic

[Lisbeth]

Gorgeous leopard

Nice pics of the dagga boys

[Richprins]

How lucky with the cats, Peej!

Superb leppie sighting, and I love the buffs as well!

Interesting about the eyes.

I also always get lost around that junction, still!

[Peter Betts]

Lovely stuff, Peej!

Interestingly, I saw on Wild earth that nyala are pushing out bushbuck in the south/central districts...they don't really belong there!

My favourite is the giraffe group shot.

And Nkuhlu looks marvelous under new management!

Nyala were shot out before Kruger started . Dave Varty imported a small group from Natal in about 1970 and released them on his farm Sparta in Sabi Sands to restock what was originally there>> now called Londolozi. They spread down the Sand River through my Aunts Game Farm Charleston and into Kruger quite quickly . Nyala arent as fierce as the smaller feisty Bushbuck rams so moving the BosBokkies out by Nyala could be a Miniscule reason only. Nyala do belong in the South just like they have always been found in the North of Kruger through not being entirely shot out there

[Peter Betts]

Great shots Pete. Tell me are they only allowing 50% capacity camping during this latest Lockdown?? As when we go in Aug/Sept it is Pensioners and @40% discount it is filled by every Oomie (Including me ) but it will be nice if that is what you found as it will be less traffic on the roads Too late for us to now change for a trip into the beautiful South for us for a bit of Nostalgia of the old non Traffic South . We have friends havent seen for 35 yrs joining us at Tsendze for 10 days at the end of our 6 weeks in Kruger North so we will just enjoy our 1 night in Berg en dal at the VERY beginning and then 1 night at Letaba before Starting Proper at Shingwedzi ..I would love to go to GrootVlei dam wall again from Shing at gate opening from the Back gate and be the only person with my Lion pride again if they are in fact enforcing a 50% occupancy my wife told me about that she had read somewhere