Hoedspruit Outing

We went into Hoedspruit yesterday (6 May) for an out of Park outing.

I played golf at the Drakensig Golf Course, a wonderful 9 hole course with a view of the Drakensberg escarpment. It is situated on the Airforce base at Hoedspruit. I walked, and hired a cart for Lettie; we joined a couple from Holland who have a holiday house on a wildlife estate in Hoedspruit.

After golf  we went and had brunch in Hoedspruit, did some shopping at Pick n’ Pay, before heading back to Satara. Hoedspruit is 70Km from Orpen Gate, and 2 hours drive from Satara.

Looks like a Pro set up

The 1 st hole

Making the putt

Drakensberg escarpment in the distance

Some of the visitors to our site

Banded Mongoose raid our camp every morning

African Wild Cat at our site, at one stage there was 2, and were fighting as cats do and making an huge racket under our caravan.

You can just make out the Jackal in the background above the cats head

very similar to a domestic cat.

 Hippos are really taking strain in the drought, not only is all the waterholes drying up, but there is no grazing. Hippos have no sweat glands so if they do not keep cool in water they overheat very quickley. We are seeing a dead hippo almost daily, the scavengers are having a field day.

In this Photo of the Heron you can see a Hippo skeleton in the water, also a Hippo dying in the mud, it was still alive when we photographed it, very sad to watch.

 Rhino we saw on the drive yesterday.

Exact locations of Rhino are not given as poachers scan the media for locations.

Latest Sightings does not report Rhino sightings nor does the sightings board at the camps have a marker for Rhino.

This is what Gudzani dam at the end of the S100 looks like.

This dam is normally full up to the dam wall.

There are normally several pods of Hippo in the dam, where have they gone??