Day 4
We planned to take the S21 this morning to drive to the H5 and then stop for a morning chill at Mpondo dam. But it didn’t work out that way, mum had to go to the loo urgently, it would teach us to drink coffee in the morning, yet again… But as we always say: ‘Everything happens for a reason’ when we eventually got on the S114 and were counting down the kilometres to Skukuza, we drove upon a small traffic jam. And what waited for us? 5 wild dogs chilling next to the road, and with spotting them she for a few minutes forgot about her bladder…
Then we were off to camp for a necessary stop. With this detour our plans change and now mum suggested that we drive up to Tshokwane, I said it is fine as we didn’t plan an afternoon drive as we booked a sunset drive. We saw a little bee eater on the H1-2,
And some bobbies and zebra from the high-water bridge,
Then on the Nwtandinlopfu bridge we got a lappet faced vulture and hooded vulture with their unfortunate prey. We sat on the bridge in a bigger traffic jam than with the dogs to spend some time with the birds of prey…
And we got to see a beautiful male nyala that crossed the road in front of us,
Also our first sighting of the klipspringers this trip was near Kruger Tablets…
It started getting hot and on our way back on the S128 there weren’t really animals next to the road, we did get to see a young kudu male close to the road,
And then on the low-water bridge we had some warties, drinking water a safe distance from the river…
That night it started getting windy and we wanted to cancel our drive but at the end we decided to still go ahead. We had a young trainee and he was very knowledgeable but it was evident that he was new at doing this.
First stop was at Sunset damand there were some water monitors chilling trying to get the last bit of sunrays…
The sightings were far off, and with the wind chasing all the animals deeper into the bush, it wasn’t such a great drive. But a yeah for me was the white-tailed mongoose that I spotted on the s130 and then the guide showed us a boomslang on the H4-2 just north of the S28…
I was very happy as it was my first boomslang in the park and as you guys know, I just love seeing those slithering serpents in the park. And we got to see some porcupines and civets, and then just before camp I spotted a scrubhare frozen next to the road which allowed me to take a ‘not-that-bad’ kiekie.
We then decided to have some hot delights at Mugg and Bean, and it was strange how quiet the restaurant was, even though it was only just past 20:00. We hoped that we would get a night time spotted visitor whilst enjoying our warm cuppa on the deck but we weren’t that lucky and then it was time to go to bed as we had our last full day in the South.
To be continued…