On Holiday in Kruger

Our first elephant at Sable Dam

I've only been "on holiday" in Kruger National Park a couple of times in the last decade, although I have racked up well over a 1,000 days working in or close to the park, so it was a real pleasure to organise an 8 day trip for an old and dear friend of mine who desperately needed her "bush fix" after 8 months in chilly Canada.

Going on safari late summer is always a chancy affair and the weather forecast was quite gloomy, with lots of rain due for at least the first half of the week.

Nevertheless, we set off on a cool, wet morning for the long drive to Letaba Rest Camp in the northern half of Kruger.

We were lucky for the first 24 hours inside Kruger, just scattered thunder showers with hot steamy sunshine in between. We saw the full moon rise over the Letaba River and enjoyed red wine from our verandah. We couldn't afford to stay up too late as we were joining the morning Bush Walk at 5am the next day.

We were treated to a spectacular sunrise on the drive to the walking area - and the old saying "red in the morning, shepherd's warning" proved to be right on the nail later that day.........

Our walk was significantly more rugged than normal as the surrounding area had had masses of rain in the previous 24 hours and the basalt plains around Letaba were sticky mud. Instead we walked in the sandstone ridges west of the camp and had to ford this stream (usually dry) twice. Both C and I had an unexpected dip in the river on the first crossing! Fortunately no pictures ;)

White-fronted bee eater panting in the heat

Cape buffalo in thick mopani bush

 Game drives later in the day, were very, very hot, turning into lowering grey skies and we didn't see a large number of animals.

The bird life close to the river was entertaining though, and we were lucky to find a herd of buffalo in the thick mopani bush heading north.

We managed to get back to camp before the skies opened and a massive storm battered the camp for an hour or more.

Later that night we were woken by another storm with thunder and an absolute deluge of rain.....

We heard the next day that the central/northern lowveld had between 150 and 200mm of rain overnight.






It took us a while the next  morning, as we were packing up to leave, to realise that the Letaba River was in full flood. The visuals and sound of the surging waters were stunning.
  
Before we headed south we took more pictures from the high-level bridge over the river, and you can see for yourself what 12 hours and some heavy rain can do to a typical Kruger river......


Satara was our next stop for 2 nights and although the rain let up for a few brief spells, it was WET.

That didn't stop us going out looking for wildlife, and exclaiming over more flooding rivers and waterholes that had burst their banks.

A brief respite from rain on the central eastern plains of Kruger

Nsemani Dam - overflowing it's banks

Wildebeest calves frolicking in the drizzle

Cape Vulture trying to dry it's feathers

As we headed south to Lower Sabie Rest camp, the weather outlook was brightening, with the temperatures starting to soar again.

The long drive was relatively quiet overall, but we still had some exceptional sightings, including our first leopard - a youngster trying to ignore the excited sightseers and sleep in an Apple-leaf tree.......

As always on safari, we were up before dawn the next morning so that we could cover as much ground as possible in the wildlife-rich south eastern Kruger. The forecast was for a very hot day so we knew game sightings would fall off dramatically from 8am onwards.

A quick detour to view the dawn over the Sabie River.

We followed this pack of African Wild Dog for quite some way. That giraffe in the distance was rather concerned, but ultimately the Wild Dog ignored it.

 After a quick picnic breakfast at Crocodile Bridge we headed back to camp, and with the heat we saw few animals apart from elephant, impala and zebra.  The clearing, blue skies with sunshine on the lush green/gold grass made the drive a delight.

Great White Egret

 Bird action at Sunset Dam














We were scheduled on the 8pm Night Drive, and after a much needed siesta, and with the weather so beautiful we had our first braai overlooking the Sabie River.

Over the whole trip I think we saw just 2 lion, one sleepy in the grass near Satara, and a young male lion walking ahead of us on the night drive. This time of the year is really not the best time to look for lion!!


So, on to our second last day in Kruger. We moved from Lower Sabie to Skukuza Rest Camp for the last night, and we were starting to get a little tired after 6 days of driving and looking for animals.

A sleepy mother baboon, with active babies (not all hers) on the river road....











 A big plus in our hot, wet summers are all the reptiles we get to see.....




















We were still to have some of our best sightings of the whole trip:- rhino, hyena, leopard and cheetah in the last 24 hours.........

Sunrise on our last morning.... and an active clan of Spotted Hyena making their way back to their den.

We we lucky enough to have all 3 of the largest spotted predators that we saw on that last game drive, walk close past our car!!

Leopard

Cheetah

So that was our Kruger holiday, and a really great break before the current crisis.