Our safari
itinerary
said we would be picked up between 5 and 6 a.m., so we set 2 alarms
for 4:15. At 5 o'clock we were both showered and dressed, and our
bags were packed. Near enough. On the stroke of the hour a horn
tooted in the road outside.
“Is that Jobovic
Safaris?”, I asked. As if it could have been anyone else at that
hour. “Yes” a voice replied. “I don't know how to open the
gate.” It had not occurred to us when we arrived the previous
evening that the security fence might prevent us from getting out as
well as dissuading burglars from getting in. Luckily the manager
appeared soon, opened the gate, and we dragged our bags out to the
safari bus.
Luggage stowed, we were
given a free choice of the 16 passenger seats. Of the two guides the
one with “Piet” on his shirt was clearly in charge. “There's
just one thing”, said Piet. This sounded ominous. “The other
people who booked this trip have cancelled. They are going on our
next departure. You are the only clients.” He closed the door and
returned to the driver's seat while the news sank in. We had a
16-seater bus and 2 guides all to ourselves for 13 days. We're
tough. We can take it. ;-)
It was, of course, a
departure well before our normal breakfast time, but (see the last
post) we had missed dinner, so we were quite hungry. Piet had a
particular breakfast stop in mind and it wasn't close to
Johannesburg. It was the best part of 2 hours, through staggeringly
heavy dawn-tide traffic, before he pulled off the main road at a
service area. And before we ate he had to show us why he had stopped
there. The service area is located just outside a private game
reserve. Until recently we had the chance of seeing rhino at the
water hole, but they had been relocated to somewhere less accessible
to poachers. We admired some ostriches and eland, while our stomachs
kept asking, “Where's the food?”
In reality it was
probably pretty ordinary fare, but seldom has coffee and a fry-up
tasted so good.
Piet tries to organise
an itinerary so that we don't have more than 500km to drive in one
day. Day one was one of the longer drives, but we could hardly be
bored while seeing so much new country. We decided the best view was
from the front row. Eve took the left side and Bill spread himself
on the right.
We tried to work out
what crops were growing. We saw large fields planted with small
trees almost hidden inside white protectors. Maybe they have rabbits
or hares in South Africa, too.
Eventually we worked
out that they were citrus trees of some kind – probably oranges.
Seedling trees in the foreground. Hail protection in the back. At least the hail netting is white.
Mature orange trees
Eve saw a monkey. Bill
didn't. Grrr!
The route to Kruger
National Park took us close to the Drakensburg Escarpment. Piet
grumbled that there was only one place where he was still allowed to
park without having to pay. Presumably this was not the best view of
the Blyde (pronounce the 'e') River Canyon, but it was a pretty good
place to exercise the camera. The Blyde River Canyon is the third
biggest canyon on the planet, and the biggest 'green' canyon with
vegetation growing down the sides.
Along the way
It's a big, deep, green canyon
A glimpse of the escarpment
An unidentified autumn-flowering plant
At the entrance to
Kruger we had to stop for formalities like paying park fees. Piet
told us to look out for wildlife now. It could appear anywhere. If
we saw something we should shout “Stop” and he would.
Almost immediately we
saw some antelope beside the road. “STOP!” we yelled. Piet
drove on. We didn't see anything else before we arrived at the camp.
When the bus stopped Piet explained that the antelope were impala
and we would see thousands of them. He wasn't going to stop just for
4 or 5. Didn't he understand they were our FIRST impala?
There was also the
matter of time. Piet wanted to be sure that there was enough of the
day left for us to be coached in putting up our tent before we went
on a sunset game drive. He and Meshack, the other guide,
demonstrated how the tent went up. It was a modern design and really
quite straightforward. Sorry, we won't be giving readers a good
chortle over a collapsing tent. We were often quite slow, but we
never made a mess of it.
There was no rush and
we were at the pickup point early. Bill had vaguely imagined a “game
drive” was something like cowboys driving the steers towards the
railhead, but it's the tourists who are driven, not the game. We sat
in an open-sided vehicle, so that glass would not distort our
photographs. The ranger explained that if we kept ourselves
completely inside the vehicle, the animals would not identify us as
separate creatures and not bite us. Are lions really that stupid?
We dutifully stayed within the perimeter of the vehicle and nothing
attempted to bite us. We didn't even see a lion.
Our first drive was a
great success. Within the first minute or two Bill was amongst those
who saw a warthog. Eve wasn't. Grrr!
The ranger, cunningly photographed in his wing mirror.
Almost immediately
after that we saw our first elephant. Everyone on board saw the
elephant. It was very close to the road and seemed quite unmoved by
the excited (but quiet – we remembered the ranger's briefing)
tourists.
Our first elephant
There wasn't an animal
around every corner, but there were plenty.
Our first hippo
A kudu
Another elephant!
This group of spotted
hyenas was occupying space on either side of the road. We parked
almost on top of them but they completely ignored us. The youngsters
were being fed before the family group set off for their nightly
hunt.
The very young cubs are black
We weren't yet in the
tropics, but the twilight didn't last long. However, darkness didn't
mean the end of game spotting. One of the first animals to appear in
the headlights was an African wild cat. It's about the same size as
a domestic cat, with very attractive markings. This one was also too
nippy to be a good subject for a photograph.
But this critter hardly
moved at all. Puff adders appear very sluggish, and are not
sprinters. But they can strike extremely fast, according to the
ranger. They curl up where they will not be seen and ambush their
prey.
We saw two puff adders during the drive
This silly animal moved
straight on down the road. The ranger had to stop the vehicle before
the porcupine ended its straight ahead flight and trotted off into
the bush.
"Porcupine by Night" - Rear view
We saw several night
birds; spotted eagle owls and thick-knees. The latter, also known as
the spotted dikkop (Burhinus capensis), is a medium-large
plover. We saw several standing in the road and looking very
offended that we had interrupted their meditations. Attempts to
photograph them were less than successful.
Back at the campsite
Meshack gave his first demonstration of cooking skills. It was
immediately obvious that we would eat well on this safari. Since he
cooked on a 2-burner gas stove the dishes were not complex ones, but
they were well cooked and the portions were very generous. The bus
was equipped with refrigeration – it would freeze if given long
enough, but it needed an outside power source – and we were invited
to chill our beer in it.
All the campsites were
on level ground. Usually the soil was sandy and it was seldom
difficult to hammer in the pegs. Some days we pushed them in by
hand. We had mats under our sleeping bags. They weren't very thick,
but they were very much more comfortable than sleeping directly on
the ground. Our inflatable pillows (only R30 each in Cape Town) were
not very thick, but comfy. We each had a torch for night-time trips
to the toilet, and were very disciplined about zipping the tent up
behind us when we set off, so that no snakes or scorpions could sneak
in while we not looking.
The itinerary for Day 2
was to drive from the South of Kruger to the North, watching for game
all the while. It was not a trivial journey, since Kruger is almost
the size of Wales, and the speed limit is 50 km/h everywhere. From
time to time Piet would use the PA system to let us know “Buffalo
on the right” or whatever he and Meshack had seen. Later on,
Meshack came out of the cab and joined us inside the passenger
section. He was nearly always the first to spot an animal. He could
make out a buffalo in the deep shadow under trees at 300m or more.
Yes, we did see more
impala, and sometimes Piet stopped so that we could admire them.
They have a black stripe at the top of each hind leg and down their
tail, making an M shape. Piet pointed out the similarity to the
Macdonalds logo. “Fast food for lions.”
Our first zebra in Kruger
Probably the same hyena family as yesterday evening.
Piet is not
particularly sympathetic to birding. He wants to show clients the
big mammals. When you come across a vehicle that has stopped, you
slow down and check out what the passengers are looking at. They may
have seen something interesting lying in the shade. Piet is probably
not the only one. We saw a car with a bumper sticker, “Please
pass. We are watching a bird.”
This was a shame
because Meshack was very knowledgeable about birds. At least Piet
stopped if the bird was especially large or colourful.
Woodland kingfisher - tick!
One of the Park's game drive vehicles
Yet another elephant!
He also stopped for
toilets, which were available sufficiently frequently to avoid
discomfort in the bladder department.
Our safari bus/truck
Bill didn't need the toilet so he studied the lizards. Piet would not have stopped for a lizard, even one with a lovely blue tail like this.
This is a large enough group of impala to stop for. Aren't they lovely?
The impala buck
Our lunch stop was at
Olifantskamp. The kitchen and dining areas were infested with
beggars and thieves. But very colourful ones …
A Greater Blue-eared Glossy Starling
Close up
There was a large family of vervet monkeys alert for any food that wasn't closely guarded. We even saw one steal a bread roll from a picnicker's plate.
The afternoon was more
wildlife spotting.
Another kudu
Saddle-billed stork. Bill spotted it before Meshak.
Nest of a Red-billed buffalo weaver colony
Our first giraffe
Another giraffe
Did you ever wonder why it's called thornbush veld?
We've forgotten the name of the river. This is dry-season.
Egyptian geese
Our first Nile crocodile
We like this safari!
