Every now and then Doug and I plan an outing for just the two of us. And since he had been nose-deep in Pediatric Board Examination questions for months, we decided to go to Kruger for an overnight on October 2 and 3, 2010. As you likely know (if you’ve been following the blog), cat sightings have been few and far between for us. We’ve seen lions once (in Hluhlue) and a leopard once (in Cape Vidal). Now, our friends on the other hand, have seen lions fighting, lions eating a kill, lions mating (for crying out loud), leopards, leopard cubs, etc. Basically, our friends can’t get away from the cats when they visit safari parks. So, in addition to getting away from Mbabane for the night, we were secretly on a cat mission. Let me just go ahead and kill the suspense and say that cats weren’t on the menu during our weekend in Kruger. Elephants were the main course, with a smattering of charging buffalos and canoodling giraffes. While we did see one lioness, she was lying down in the grass a million miles away and that just doesn’t really count. Overall, it was a lovely weekend with fantastic animal action; despite the elusive kitties.
We are very lucky to have one of the most famous parks in the world just 3 hours from our door. On Saturday morning, we headed out of Mbabane about 9:00am and arrived at the Malelane Gate just after noon. Because Kruger is about the size of New Jersey, it can take quite a while once you are in the park to actually arrive at your accommodation location; therefore, we spent our afternoon game drive making our way to our camp. We had made a reservation at Pretoriuskop Rest Camp and also booked an evening game drive. This meant we had to be at camp by 4:45pm.
The roughly five hours in the car in the park were filled with the animals captured in the pictures below. It is kind of a funny thing when you first arrive in a game park because you get so excited at the sight of any animal in the beginning, and snap pictures of animals even if they are very, very far away. You’ll notice in some of my pictures that there are such animals way off in the distance and ultimately others just about in the car with us. Tis the beauty of the game park; you just don’t know what you’ll get.
Our first animal sighting; that dark thing in the center, just left of the big tree is an elephant. Like I said, in the beginning, you'll take a picture of anything!
Mud pan a la rhino
One of the reasons that this time of year is perfect for visiting Kruger is because it is winter transitioning to spring; therefore, the underbrush hasn't filled in and the leaves don't block your view of the animals. Here lies a wildebeest under a tree. Had the leaves been full, we probably would have missed him.
Another shot of the landscape this time of year. Plus a lonely zebra.
Another one of the things that makes Kruger exciting is the fact that there is the potential to see herds of animals or mixed groups of animals. Here are a bunch of zebra, impala and also a buzzard (random).
Buzzard's nest
Our bungalow was rustic, but completely comfortable and it served its purpose for <$30/night.
After settling in, we met the safari bus for our night game drive.
Sunset from the safari truck
And out of the side window. This is one of those shots that reminds you of the Earth's beauty. There's a big ol' world out there.
On our night drive we started with a few buffalo
Saw a baboon family organizing before bedtime
And a family of elephants grabbing dinner
They just kept getting closer and closer
On Sunday morning we awoke at 5:30am and were in line with the other vehicles just before 6:00am waiting for the Rest Camp to open its gates. We spent the next 6 hours driving through the park enroute back to the Malelane Gate where we exited to return to Swaziland.
Our game viewing started with four, large rhinos
Who were this close to the car
We saw a kudu with a bird on its back
And an ever majestic bald eagle
And then it was the elephant show. For the rest of the day. We saw one herd of 30+ elephants. This one was fighting with another; but, it was too difficult to time the camera to catch the head-butting.
Then, the angry elephant literally walked in front of our car and Doug and I held our breath
For as big as they are, it is sometimes difficult to see the elephants. They just kept coming and coming and coming. A train of them out of the woods and across the road!
Out she comes
And across she goes
And a few more
And another Mom and child
And a warthog joined the crossing for good measure
After the zillions of elephants, we carried on to a loop that was an off-shoot from the main road. On this loop, we encountered a group of buffalo. As suggested by the rangers on previous drives, we cut our engine and tried not to appear aggressive to the buffalo. But, as you can see, they packed themselves closer and closer together (to appear bigger and bigger) and carried on towards us until we had to turn the car on and throw it in reverse to avoid a charging pack of buffalo.
And last but not least as we made our way out of the park we saw a giraffe having some lunch.
We feel really lucky to be able to getaway to such a cool place, just because.
Posts
