Lions and monkeys

Last night we went on the night drive. It had been my choice to go on the later drive instead of the sunset drive and I kicked myself after our drive as the early one had seen lions but that is how it goes. Our drive was in my estimation pretty good. We saw quite a few elephants, impala (of course), a giant eagle owl (sorry Mom no photo), a hyena, a white faced owl, a honey badger (!!!!!!) and the Easter bunny. It was a fairly quiet drive both on and off the truck. On the truck was the driver (called Lettuce), Charles and myself and another couple. Off the truck there was not too much going on but then how many game drives have we done that have been like this. For me the night drive is always great animals or no animals. It is just so wonderful to be out in the bush at a time when we are not normally allowed to wander around. Below are some photos (not good ones) from the drive.






Every day we have headed off in a different direction and today was no exception. I was getting pretty desperate to show Charles some lions and thought that the road to Pretoriuskop has always produced results in the past. Thankfully it was no different this morning. Our first sighting was two hyenas walking down the road. They were not really interested in having their photos taken and we carried on going. At the intersection of the H1-1 (Pretoriuskop road) with the H3 (Malelane road) we saw a pride of 10 lions walking up the road. There were already two safari trucks there but I managed to get the car into a very favourable position where we could watch the lions. After a little while though we left as the lions climbed the kopjie and there were about 15 other vehicles around and tempers seemed to be getting a little thin. We had a good sighting though and it was okay to leave everyone else to the squabbling!





From the lions we carried on to Pretoriuskop for a quick pit stop and then took the S7 and S3 up to the Doispane Road back to Skukuza. We came across an old dagga boy (buffalo bull), a chameleon and the usual suspects.



Lunch was munched at the Lake Panic bird hide but there wasn't too much to see in the way of birds: a malachite kingfisher, 3 hadedas and a swallow. There were hippos in the lake but they were hiding around the corner and we just heard them every now and again.

The afternoon was spent at our bungalow waiting for the heat of the day to subside with a G&T in hand. Below is the view from the bungalow.

At 15:30 we headed out again. We just followed the main road down towards Lower Sabie. We saw all the baboons sitting on the roads and some elephants. Thankfully none charged us today. Also on the sightings list for today was more carmine bee-eaters, a waterbuck and a pretty little bushbuck.



The finally sighting of the day was a white rhino that, very shyly, hid behind a bush.

I can't believe the trip is almost at an end. Tomorrow we travel back to Durban. There is one last game spotting opportunity in the morning when we travel from Skukuza to Crocodile Bridge and I am really hoping that we see a leopard along the way. If we do, you will know about it!





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