Kruger Highlights

After this off week, students came back from amazing journeys such as Mozambique, Kruger, and a few places around the area, with loads of stories to tell about sightings, big swings, river rafting, tubing and much more. We kicked our semester off with a few game drives on Makalali, just to refresh our minds a bit. This week would still have lots to do; we planned trips to the world famous Kruger national park!

                

Wednesday started very early for one of our groups, leaving camp at 4.30 in the morning so we could be at the gates when they open. Let’s just say not everyone around camp enjoys early mornings, but once arriving at the gate, excitement took over! The first day amazing sightings were seen, just about everything but leopard, and after a long day, everybody was happy to be back at camp, telling stories of the day’s adventures.

The next day, exactly the same happened, but with the other group. If only we knew what was in store for us. Only about 10 minutes into our Kruger trip, we encountered a big male leopard walking down the road, scent marking his territory as he is walking, and we followed him around for a few minutes, until he disappeared into the bush, and we knew, this was going to be a good day!

                  

Sightings that followed included ellies, buffalo, a rhino bull, some lazy lions and cheetahs sleeping through the hotter part of the day and a very rare white headed vulture, contemplating a swim in a nearby dam. We went down to one of the camps to stretch our legs a bit, where we a saw thick-tailed bush baby, which is amazing to see during the day as they are usually nocturnal, and the camp’s resident scops owl! We continued our way out on a afternoon drive, and saw some more elephants drinking at a nearby dam, and our third elephant bull in musth for the day, but this one being more irate than the previous ones, and he displayed a few warning signs as we viewed him, which then became the highlight of the conversation, as this weekend is our last test, on exactly that! Dangerous game and their signs and behaviour. A few head shakes and even a show of tusking the ground later, we left him to his grumpy self, and headed for the gate.

 

As we thought our game viewing was over for the day, a mere ten minutes from the gate, we saw a cheetah moving through a open field, and as we stopped, we noticed the impala grazing nearby, and noticed that the cheetah had gone into stalking mode! Our patience was tested, with gates about to close, the impala was unaware of what was about to happen, with the cheetah slowly moving closer and closer, until they were just a few meters away from each other. With the last bit of sunlight disappearing fast, we waited anxiously, it been almost half a hour of patiently waiting, when all of a sudden, out of the blue, we saw a flash of spots, and the impala running for his life, literally! Only a few seconds later, everything was over, and unfortunately for the cheetah, the impala had won this round. With everyone amazed at both the cheetah and impala’s speed, we remembered that we had a gate to reach. Another long day, but full of adventure, action and amazing sightings. I guess it’s true what they say, just another day in Africa!

            

Kruger Highlights