Thursday morning started wet and cold in Cape Town, with temps in the low 50's and a steady rain. What the heck, we might as well leave !
A very easy flight out of Cape Town took us to Kruger National Park, specifically Skukuza Airport. What an easy airport. Sort of a 1 gate airport, you really can't be too confused. The "concessions" are a dorm room sized refrigerator. Easy peasy.
Within 5 minutes of leaving the airport (I kid you not, 5 minutes!) we had already seen impala and giraffe. I'm saving the impala for a bit, since it turns out that we will probably see 1000's of them. Maybe 1,000 today. But anyway, back to the giraffe. What a considerate fellow, just grazing along the road.
Also along the road on the way to the Inyati Game Reserve, we saw Kudu and Cape Buffalo. And this is before we even get to the game preserve.
This brings us to the game preserve itself, where we quickly dump our luggage (just a quick little pause here to rave about our room)
and get ready for a GAME DRIVE. Those 2 words might always be in ALL CAPS, I'm not sure. But probably. While still on the grounds, we saw these two beauties (whose names I cannot find). The male is the larger and darker one, while the female is smaller and lighter. Apparently we will see them often and maybe tomorrow I will be reminded of their names.
During the GAME DRIVE, we saw more impala than you can shake a stick at
Quite a few birds, such as Guinea Fowl
We moved on to see hippos. Our guide was a bit confused as to whether these guys were playing around or "making more hippos". Interesting that he couldn't tell. You have to wonder if the hippos knew. It was still amazing, either way.
There were potentially more amorous moments, but they don't make as dramatic a picture, so you just get to see tusks.
Finally, from the photographic set, we saw this mother Leopard and her cub. Amazing that they were so comfortable with the Land Rovers that they never moved away. We were there for about 20 minutes and she never got even a little bit nervous. Sabi Sands preserve was started in the 1940's and the animals here have never known fear. Land Rovers don't ever bother them, so they tolerate us incredibly well. Our guide, Gabriel, says that this is literally the best place on the planet to see leopards. Let's see if you agree.
The cub is 12 weeks old, maybe 13.
It was a bit surprising to be told that they've followed this particular mother leopard for quite a few years now and she's had 6 litters of cubs. She still hasn't raised an adult. Even this year, she had 2 cubs and has already lost 1. The moral of the story? Its tough being a leopard in lion country.
We saw even more
(elephant at a bad distance in bad light)
leopard in a tree in the dark with an impala kill
lions lying the grass below the leopard tree, hoping the leopard screws up somehow and drops some impala to the ground below
several types of antelope that I can't name today
birds out the wazoo
a crocodile (not very interesting when swimming like a log)
It was incredible and we have 4 more GAME DRIVES, starting tomorrow at 6:30 am. Our wake up call comes at 5:30, a light breakfast at 6:00 and to the LandRover at 6:30.
This is going to be awesome !!!!
Comments
Post a Comment