Rhino Day

Early this morning we packed our breakfast goodies and slowly made our way to Tshokwane. The day started off well with a civet running across the road in front of the car and a rhino crossed in front not much later. We headed north and enjoyed the slow progression of night to day and on a loop road came across two more rhino, one of which was still sleeping and the other was barely awake.

Back on the main road were three more rhino, two sleeping and one patrolling the road. We sat and had a cup of coffee while watching them and then more people arrived. There we were thinking this was a wonderful way to spend the morning when a guy with his caravan came along and asked if we had seen the lions on the road 10 km back! Sometimes the luck is just not there.

We arrived at Tshokwane at 06:50 and had to wait until 7:00 to get a gas bottle and skottel on which to cook our scrambled eggs. It was very quiet there with just the staff cleaning up from the baboons' party last night and about 6 vervet monkeys running around. I warned Charles about their thieving nature but I think he didn't quite believe me until they pinched 3 slices of bread that he had just put out on the table!

Breakfast was good and with full bellies we travelled down to Orpen Dam. There were no animals to be seen but the dam did look lovely.

On the way to Nkumbe Lookout point we passed a herd of elephants very busy stripping the vegetation and generally making a mess. The lookout point was deserted when we got there and it was so peaceful to look over the plains. The only animals we could spot were some impala down at one of the pools of water.

Some other people arrived and we moved on down the hill to the Muntshe Loop and I had a Ghost and the Darkness moment looking out at the long grass.

Next stop was Mlondozi picnic spot where I celebrated my birthday last year. It is one of my favourite places in the park (one of many). There were some Egyptian geese there as well as a single waterbuck and two impala.

From there we went to Lower Sabie. It was getting hot and game was a little scarce but we did spot a wildebeest and yet another impala..


The intention had been to have lunch at Lower Sabie but we were a little early and a little full from snacking in the car on biltong and dried fruit so we settled for a drink each before heading up the road back to Skukuza. I wanted to take the N'watimhiri Causeway as a change from the main road but when we got to the causeway itself it was overflowing. I was tempted to try cross it anyway but in the end decided that caution was the better option and we returned to the main road the way we had come.


By this time the temperature was back up in the thirties and most of the animals were having a siesta. Besides the impalas the only animal out in the sun was a giraffe standing tall and proud.

We decided that we would not go out game viewing this afternoon but instead will go on a night drive with the SANParks vehicle tonight. As soon as we were back in Skukuza we went and booked this so now we are lounging around getting dinner together so that we will be ready in good time for our excursion.

To end today here are two more bird photos:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little fun in Mombasa

Image
It was so good to be back in Mombasa. It was 9 month since my last visit. This time I stayed at the Bahari Beach Hotel. Amazingly I had not stayed at this hotel before. Initially I had thought that I had been there but the beach hotels in Nyali are starting to all look the same to me. The Bahari Beach Hotel is a lovely place and I enjoyed it even though I was there for a series of back-to-back meetings. My bedroom was super comfortable with a lovely hard mattress. The only issue I had was that the in-room safe initially worked intermittently but eventually was fixed and for my inconvenience was given dinner and a glass of wine at the duty manager's expense. The gardens were really beautiful and a tranquil sight to wake up to every morning. And I loved watching the cats cavorting around the grounds while having breakfast. Unfortunately the tides were against me so only managed one walk on the beach but I did get to swim and I had fun one evening watching some Maasai dancers.
Read more

Roasting in Comoros

Image
After a dreadful series of flights on Kenya Airways to Mombasa last week, I started on this trip with some trepidation. My concerns were for naught really though. The inbound flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg arrived on time which gave me a lot of confidence that my flight would leave on time. In the end we left a half hour late but this was due to a passenger not having the correct travel documents and his luggage had to be unloaded. The wait in Nairobi was quite endless but I spent my time getting some exercise by walking up and down the departure gate corridors. There are only two so it was a bit monotonous but better than just sitting around. The flight to the Comoros departed quite late as the inbound flight was late. This meant that instead of arriving in Comoros at 23:35 we arrived at about 00:30. The Dreamliner arriving at OR Tambo International Airport There were ten of us that were arriving in Comoros for the same meeting and all of us needed to apply for a visa
Read more

Maputo

Image
My one night at home was a welcome change from sterile hotel rooms but there was so much to do and before long my suitcase was packed again. I thought that I would be nervous flying this morning since I was flying with SA Airlink who have had a bit of a bad time recently with accidents and incidents but I was completely okay. Maybe 2010 is my year for having discarded my fear of flying completely but the real proof will be next month when I fly from Mauritius to Seychelles and back on Air Seychelles since it is thanks to Air Seychelles that I developed this ridiculous fear in the first place. What contributed to my enjoyment of the flight was that it was on another cute little turbo propelled aircraft, this time a Jetstream 41. It only takes 29 people and there were only 11 on-board making it really comfy. Take-off was to the north-east so we had a lovely view of Durban and I couldn't help thinking as we flew over uShaka Marine World that that was the closest I have been to my off
Read more