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Published: December 13th 2006
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Dear All,
Firstly, thanks to mum and Debs for your comments! I havnt been online since the 5th so sorry for the delay in posting them. And happy birthday to mum!
Unfortunately, my long awaited Kruger trip is now over, but it was the most amazing trip I’ve ever had. I went with Dave, his mother, and her friend. It started with a very early morning last Wednesday, we were up at 4:30 and ready for the long 5 hour drive to get to the gate. I managed to wake up upon entering the park though!
The others had all been to the park numerous times and bet that the first thing we’d see would be impala, as there are many, many of these. However, the first thing we actually saw was 2 lions, and this was a big surprise as they had told me we would be lucky to see lion at all.
We had 90 km to drive from the gate to our camp, which, at 30 km an hour takes a while. On this drive, we ran into a herd of elephants coming up from a waterhole, a herd of buffalo, a further 7 lions
Dave and I
Outside the entrance to Skukuza camp, the biggest camp in the park (but still no internet access of course) drinking, a few giraffe, a hyena, zebra, rhino, warthog, hippo, wildebeest, and lots of antelope!
When we got to the camp, we had a very cool hut to stay in (with aircon, temps reached 48 deg..). I was glad about this animal proof arrangement, as I’d started to get paranoid about Dave’s stories of leopard getting into camps and eating people. Apparently, years ago, one of the gate guards left the window of the gate house open and fell asleep, and in the morning they came and found him half eaten. Then he wondered why I was reluctant to go on a night walk around the fence!
On the second night we went out on a night drive (a tour, as normal cars have to be in camp by 6:30 pm). We used spotlights on the side of the vehicle to search for “eyes” in the darkness. Just after dark, we spotted a lion in the bushes, which was pretty exciting. But then, another lion came out and started walking straight towards our vehicle. He crossed in front of it and flopped down about 15 metres from us. The lion in the bushes started roaring and then the
The lion..
..who came out to entertain us on our night drive. lion next to us did the same thing, still lying on his side! I got all this on my video camera, it’s the most amazing footage. That was probably the best part of the trip, though we did get charged by an elephant which I thought was pretty cool. We wanted to get back to camp one afternoon, but there was this huge elephant half in the road with his head in the bushes. There was one car waiting to also pass on the other side, but it was not moving, and later on I guessed that was because it had seen the elephant get irate already and they weren’t taking any chances. Most elephants don’t have a problem with cars and will just walk on by, but not this one. Dave tried to go around him but he stepped out and glared at us. Then he went back to eating. Then we tried again, and he seemed fine, until we were very close when he backed out and did a complete turn next to us and started chasing us. I don’t think Dave’s ever accelerated so fast in his life. I got it all on camera and this particular
The elephant museum with its collection of tusks
This one is of ‘Mufanyane’ who’s tusks were of a length of 6ft 2 inches (extending into his skull a bit). He died in 1984 of natural causes at age 56. scene seems to be the most popular one of the whole trip.
We decided to make a day to go to visit the elephant museum, where they keep the tusks of the ‘magnificent 7”, a group of elephants well known for their massive tusks. All of them are dead now, being in their prime well before I was born. The park had to keep a close eye on them as they were targeted by poachers. The elephants were relatively safe in the park, however, they are free to wonder into Mozambique where they have no protection. Out of the 7, one was killed by poachers (who didn’t make off with the tusks anyway as they were interrupted by a game guard) and another one was wounded and had to be put down (a sad story, they shot him in the jaw and shattered it, leaving him unable to eat, and he was found malnourished a while later and put down). The rest died of natural causes.
By the 3rd day, I'd seen so much, including some very rare creatures. I was told this was entirely abnormal and I must be just lucky. However, we then went in search
Baby Wildebeest
This little guy was only just born, he still had an umbilicle cord and could hardly walk. A little while after this, something spooked the herd and he went running off of the elusive leopard, which was, of course, nowhere to be found. At the camp we were staying in at this time (a different one to the first 3 days) there was a very close round trip of 30km called 'the leopard triangle'. Many leopard are sighted here. we got up at 5 both days and drove around and around this, but we didnt see one. We chatted to a few people along the way who had seen leopard here at the time we were there but we, of course, missed them!
We did see a dung beetle though, which I thought was rather cool.
Ive attached lots of photos but this is about 1/1000 th of the collection. Dave's mother is photo-holic and filled 2 x 512meg memory cards. We have lots of photos of flowers... this became rather torturous towards the end our morning leapard hunt, as Dave and I were incredibly tired and his mother kept slamming on the brakes and we would look around thinking "where's the leopard??" and she would say "look at those lovely flowers!"
All in all, it was a wonderful trip and I'm so happy to have finally done Kruger,
The vultures waiting for their turn for the lion’s kill.
Below this tree there was a lion wondering around. They had been around since the early morning after a kill the night before. The vultures just wait patiently. it's something ive always wanted to do. We have some great footage which I'll be sending to Aus and to Russ and Debs in the states.
My love to all, Kel
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Mom
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Hi Babe - this blog thing is great - loved the Kruger stories and the photos which are really good. Look forward to the next one. Den says to say hello and loved the read as well. Till next time. Luv ya. Your Mother.