Suddenly we already saw from far another hurdle – the Kruger helicopter stood in the middle of the road but a ranger on the road waved us near and with hand signals he mentioned that we can drive under the wings with no problems which we did and behind the helicopter we also noticed why same stood there obviously two poachers had been caught as many more rangers could now be seen and even some dogs. When it was no drill than a big big thanks to all those brave rangers fighting against poaching!
During the final stretch until we were safely back in camp we stopped for a group of kudus who stayed extreme hidden,
stopped for a tortoise
and captured a European roller with kill.
As it meanwhile was already late we skipped a visit to Shitlhave and went straight to reception when returned to camp as we still had an existing booking for Lower Sabie for the next 2 days which we could not look after as the road or better to say most of the roads were closed. With us at the reception was another couple who had the same problem as we had and must say that the two ladies at reception also here did their best with patience to re-book accommodation. We decided against a 4 nights stay at Skukuza first because with the rebooking we had to move 2 times into new bungalows there which we wanted to avoid and secondly we will stay there anyway 2 nights so I decided to return back to Berg en Dal.
Meanwhile Timon photographed outside the reception a group of mongoose who were hanging around there
and also two cute squirrels who found something to chew on,
one of the mongoose peeped out from behind the grass
whilst the rest of the gang had something in mind.
After we filled up our car I originally wanted to explore a bit the shop but there was electricity failure so I could only buy the bare necessities and wandered around in a pitch dark shop with a torch. Strange was that we had electricity in our bungalow – So far the load shedding did not bother us that much but whilst staying in Pretoriuskop a couple of times in the evening we had power failure but luckily not for very long only for minutes and sometimes by night when we needed the loo but that happened also already during other visits.
Whilst we lit the braai it again started to rain a bit but not much although our neighbor braaied with umbrella so due to the rain Timon skipped his visit to the pool and we had an early dinner on our verandah and where more than happy that we made it back safe and sound. Luckily tomorrow there was no need to cross the DeLaPorte bridge as we will turn right into the H3 prior the danger zone and therefore we slept very well that night.
Monday, 13. February 2023 – Pretoriuskop – Berg en Dal
Explored roads: H1-1 – S66 – H1-1 – H3 – S110 – H3 – S110
Luckily when we awoke the next morning we soon noted that no rain had fallen overnight so after our obligatory morning coffee on the verandah we packed everything together and left Pretoriuskop – in fact a more than nice camp and we can imagine that when there will be no road closures we might stay there again especially the loop roads are a nice drive we so far only did once.
A lot of cars had already piled up at the gate whilst most of them continued into the direction of Numbi gate we turned right into the direction to Skukuza and soon stopped for a pale chanting goshawk indeed a beautiful raptor
and as this bird is not coming along that often we stopped for an extensive photo shooting as on top that raptor posed so nicely.
Today we paid a final visit to Shitlave as this is a dam we do not visit often but always worth a stop. We were greeted by two Egyptian goose,
the obligatory three banded plover and once again the fish eagle who today sat on top of a tree as the small stream which still flew over the dam yesterday ran dry today
unfortunately same soon took off and flew away.
Will be back later 
