Africa Wild

She disappeared with her kill almost instantly as she hit the ground, but we hung around chatting for another 10 minutes with the slim hope that she would reappear, however my patience didn’t last and we turned and headed back towards the H4-1.

We weren’t sure what to do once arriving at the S21/H4-1 intersection and eventually decided to turn left to head towards the H12 bridge as it was still very early, but stopped just after turning because a junior lion was coming down the road towards us


As the junior got closer to us it became apparent that it was seriously injured. The one rear paw was nearly completely chowed off. This wasn’t a pleasant sighting and we felt helpless to assist. I’m aware that it’s “nature” and one has to let things play out, but try and explain this to kids in this “live” situation. We didn’t want to hang around and watch this junior cry for assistance and battle along up the road, so we decided to move on.


To be continued

1st October Lower Sabie Continued

It took a while for the clan to “shake off” the injured junior lion sighting and I had my leopard for the day already, so when the Cow’s favourite bird, a Burchell’s, appeared next to the road I stopped for pics.


There were a couple of cars stopped on the H12 bridge, which isn’t unusual, but they were all parked along the H1-2 side of the bridge, which is unusual, so we headed straight across the bridge and quickly spotted the reason, a pack of wild dogs were cruising around in the riverbed and based on the number of vultures also around, they must have killed something earlier.


The crowd was still gathering and as the dogs had already “finished up” and were starting to move off, we decided to head 4/5km down the S30 towards a little dirt side road inlet where we like to park off in the shade and watch the surroundings.

One has to be careful within this dirt roundabout as there’s a car killing rock protruding out the ground within the turning circle that I have hit before and based on the number of scratches on the rock I’m not the only one, so after carefully navigating around it, I switched off.

The Cow found a heron hanging around close to the edge of the road and a bushbuck was peacefully walking around within the turning circle.

The rest of the S30/S128 back to Lower Sabie produced the normal gang including a junior ellie herd and a monitor in the road.


After a late breakfast in camp Bushpig hid away in the EH2 hut to continue with her matric studying while Albert, the Cow and I wobbled around camp, visited the sighting board, etc, and then relaxed outside our unit trying to get accustomed to the heat.

It was still boiling late into the afternoon, so we only left camp at around 4pm for our last drive of the day and the plan was to just head up as far as the S79 causeway loop and then return to camp.

Our 1st stop of the afternoon was around Lubyelubye as we always slowly search the trees in this area for a leopard, but all we found this afternoon was the remains of a porcupine. The kill wasn’t that old and there was still something left to eat so we made a mental note of where the tree was so that we could check again on the way back to camp.

Suddenly there was commotion 100m up the road with impala running all over the place and snorting, so we quickly headed that direction.

The snorting continued, but we initially couldn’t see anything.

It took plenty of slow “backwards and forwards” to see what was happening through the thick bush, but we eventually had a semi-view, 3 cheetahs had killed an impala and were busy eating, however it was a mission to focus the camera and get all 3 sitting or standing up in the same frame.


After 15 minutes the crowd of cars had grown exponentially and I’m certain that 90% had no clue there were even cheetah around, they were just stopping because others were stopping.

Vultures started to land and I’m always amazed at how quickly they turn up sometimes and it soon became obvious that the cheetah were going to move on and that we were going to get parked in, so we moved 50m up the road, switched off to waited and see if the cheetah perhaps crossed the road when they moved off.

They did move off after another 5 minutes, but ducked further into the bush in the opposite direction to the road, so we continued up towards the causeway.

A few km later in one of the little loops near a drainage line where we normally spot leopard, we found 2 lionesses hiding in the shade. There were probably more than 2, but we only had a clear view of 1. It was peaceful in the loop, so I switched off and just relaxed with the view we had.


We checked the time and it would have been a rush to make the causeway and back to camp before gate closing time, so we decided to rather just take a slow drive to Sunset Dam and watch the locals before starting a braai.

Albert sounded the alarm later that evening as they had a bat invasion, so I had to use braai tongs again as a removal tool and build a home-made ladder by stacking chairs onto a table to climb up inside the hut to block numerous holes with black bin bags where the cement met the thatch. I have probably used at least 10 black bags over the last few years in Kruger for the same thing, so if you notice any when in a unit, they are probably mine. (I once found a towel that I had used in BD3U number 21 at Lower Sabie still there years later). Albert had heard the bats the previous evening and thought they were outside, but had big eyes now that they were flying around in the hut. Bushpig sleeps through anything, so it hadn’t bothered her.

I could understand it if this was bats that had flown into the unit, but this was not the case, there were clear open holes to the outside (EH2 number 46). This has become part of the slack unit management/maintenance expected in Kruger now, so we have just learnt to sort ourselves out.

To be continued

2nd October Lower Sabie

The plan this morning was to do a longer morning drive up to Skukuza Golf Club for a late breakfast. I knew it was under renovation, but they were still supposedly serving chow on the veranda, so we decided to check it out.

The 1st sighting of the morning was a hyena sleeping in the road and another on the grass just off the road.


The rest of the drive up the H4-1 all the way to Skukuza produced the normal sightings and we stopped numerous times, but never took any photographs.

We stopped for a loo break at Skukuza and then entered into a negotiation of what to do next as it was still too early to go through to the golf club, so we decided to do the H11, S1, S4, S3 loop back to the H11 before going to the club.

The H11 was fairly busy with day visitors, speeding staff & delivery vehicles, etc, so we didn’t stop for the usual suspects as it creates a traffic jam instantly and I was relieved when we arrived at the S1 turnoff.

I slowed to a snail’s pace at the S65/S1 intersection as this is a known leopard hot spot. We 1st continued down to the drainage line just past the S65 turnoff as we have had luck there with leopard numerous times, however it was quiet today, so I turned and decided to check out the 1st 1km of the S65 before turning to continue down the S1.

There was a car stopped on the side of the road next to a tree about 200m onto the S65 and they had a camera out the window, so I slowed on approach.

“THERE! In the tree, a leopard kill.”

“Where’s the leopard?”

The 2 occupants of the other car didn’t seem pleased with our arrival and ignored our questioning looks, so I reversed, pulled off the road and switched off. We carefully checked out the dense foliage and in seconds the Cow found the leopard sleeping in the tree on the opposite side to the kill.

I’m not certain how the occupants of the other car could see the leopard, but they may have chosen their spot so that they were in the prime viewing location of the kill in case the leopard decided to chow again. I knew this sighting would get busier as time ticked by and I wasn’t sure if we should move closer to the kill to ensure a viewing spot or stay where we were and this time the Cow won and we stayed put.

After 10 minutes, another car stopped, so we pointed out the kill and then another 2 cars arrived and they started to crowd around the leopard kill and not the side of the tree where the leopard was sleeping, so I started to moan

“We should have moved, now there’s no place for us”

“It’s too late now, let’s just see what happens”.

One of the new arrivals was driving forwards and backwards nonstop and talking loudly which was very irritating, but this caused the leopard to stir and move around in the foliage and then suddenly she jumped onto the branch below and into the open in front of us, so the Cow’s intuition to stay put was correct this time around.


The leopard observed the surroundings for 2 or 3 minutes, then started to climb down the upper section of the tree and then perched on a lower branch for a few seconds before bailing out the tree.

The leopard sat at the base of the tree for a few seconds and then moved off into the thick bush and out of sight. We knew that the leopard would return later in the day when it got quieter, but since we were staying at Lower Sabie there was no option for us to return, so we tried to find the leopard again in the thick bush, however eventually gave up, turned and headed back down the S1 towards the S4.

Our next stop was on the S1, at a set of rocks just before the S4 turnoff, as an excited hyena with a bloody face was hanging around. A Tawny eagle was also plotting something on the ground, so we switched off to carefully search the rocks.

Minutes later I spotted a movement on the other side of the koppie, so moved the car closer while the Cow glared at me.

“THERE! LEOPARD!”

“WHAT, where?”

The leopard also had some blood on her face and she was hiding between some rocks plotting the hyena on top of the koppie, so she must have killed something and the hyena had stolen it.


Suddenly the shrieking hyena charged down the koppie after the leopard which caused some stress in our car.

“#@*& anyone get a pic?”

Seconds later the leopard reappeared on top of the koppie, grabbed a piece of meat and quickly took off down the koppie towards us and then jumped onto another rock while the excited hyena reappeared on top of the koppie.


The hyena seemed to realise that it had been outsmarted and left, so the leopard could eat its small section in peace.

The leopard chowed surprisingly fast and started to move off, so we slowly followed until she stopped on another rock on top of the koppie to relax.

We helped a few other people spot her and moved off down the S4 and up the S3 stopping a few times for pics of a GHB that had caught something, some lion deep in the bush and just before the H11 a klippie on a koppie.