Last Blog update for 2017

We have decided to leave the park early, packed up at Letaba on Sunday 3 September and moved to Berg en Dal for the night where we will clean the caravan and take it to Storage on Monday 4 September.

We will stay a day or 2 with Kim and Peter before leaving for Cape Town.

This is a week earlier than planned.

We have a mountain of things to do and organize at home in a very short time, so the week will make a big difference.

We have booked from the 20 April 2018 to 16 June 2018 which is only 6 months before we are back in the park

Thanks for watching

Until then.

Andrew and Lettie

Letaba

Arrived at Letaba on Monday 28 August, we managed to get a great site, the same one we were on last time we were at Letaba. We put up the full tent as Ann and Carole joined us for 3 nights. On Tuesday we went shopping for supplies in Phalaborwa.

Wednesday we went on the S47 to Mingerhout dam and found a pride of 12 Lions in the river bed.

Thursday we went along the S48 Tsendze Loop towards Mooiplaas for brunch. We had great sightings of Buffalo and Leopard.

We popped into Tzendze rustic camp to see Rodger and Selina, they took us around showing us the Scops owls and also the Barred Owl around camp. What wonderful people who run a great camp. Rodger signed Ann’s passport for young Luke.

On the way back to Letaba we found another huge male Leopard about 6 km from Letaba on the H9.

Then the highlight of the trip so far, a pack of  Wild Dog, it was 10 minutes before gate closing so we had to take as many photos as possible with flash as the light was fading fast. Nearly 60 days in Kruger to see our first dogs, what a privilege.

 Giraffe with growths all over its body, very unusual, would be interesting to hear what the experts say.

African wild cat at our camp site.

New site at Letaba

Lions on the S47 in the riverbed.

Leopard in tree near Tsendze

new on our trip list Tessebe

black shouldered kite hovering above a potential prey

The biggest herd of Elephant seen so far

Buffalo at a waterhole north of Letaba

This is supposed to be a Grysbok The black markings are unusual

Last Week At Satara

We start packing on Sunday for an early departure for Letaba on Monday 28th, where we spend the last 10 days of our holiday, before taking the caravan to storage in Nelspruit and heading home. We will be arriving in CT on 11 September.

Ann, Carole, Louise, Terrance and young Luke arrived on Monday 21st to spend 10 days at Satara, great to see all of them again.

We have had great sightings of Lion and Cheetah, the Leopard and Dogs are still evading us.

Crocs at Nkaya Pan

Baby Baboon suckling

We saw this elephant on the S36. This must be one of Krugers new big Tuskers recently indentified.

This is the best shot we have had of the Illusive Leopard

Buffs at Girvana

Cheetah on the move north of Satara H1-4

Louise, Luke, Ann, Terrence, Lettie and Carole.

 enjoying a Fry-Up at Timbavati.

2 Cheetah hunting on the H6 Nwanetsi Tar

Wildebeest at Girvana which is drying up fast

Cheetah at Girvana

It was to windy to go out this morning, Friday 18 Aug. so we stayed in camp and did maintenance,  knocked in the pegs that had come loose.

At about 3 we decide to take a drive to Girvana again. on arrival we found 5 cheetah crossing the road we watched and photographed until they disappeared.

We took up our favorite spot at the waterhole to wait and see, not expecting the cheetah to come back.
We heard Impala giving the alarm call in the distance thinking that they had spotted the Cheetah.
We then saw vultures starting to circle and picked up the cheetah feeding on a Impala.

We were alone at the waterhole and watched for at least a half an hour before the vultures harassed the Cheetah into leaving the kill, they headed strait to us and started drinking water, Buffalo arrived and chased the Cheetah.

watch the video

  

First Sighting

Feeding on the Impala

Buffalo arrive at Girvana

Elephant arrive

More Lion

It does not seem to matter what road we take or what direction we go we always seem to find Lion.

Completely opposite to last year when the Lion were always on the other road to what we took.

The cold front has come through, it is very windy here today, Friday. Still warm, night time temperature about 14 C and day 24 C

A video of Lion hunting Zebra at the waterhole.

We went directly at 06:30 to Girvana waterhole, Lettie had just started making coffee when these 2 Lions arrived at the waterhole, we watched them patrol the area then move off, only to return awile later.

The Lions are lying in the background, uninterested.

watch the Blacksmith Lapwing harassing the Baboon. 

There was a whole troop of baboon in the tree, the lion is looking at them, they were barking loudly at the Lion

Tori this is the broccoli tree!

Lion at the Girvana sign