Magic Sable Antelope Encounter; Dwarf Mongoose

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Geo: -25.0557, 31.1318

Drove to the park from Hazyview. Was crowded at gate but having the Wild Card made things move much faster! One of the first things we saw was a leopard in a river bed but was quickly lost to sight.

We then came upon a large group of elephants and there was one young male that was
misbehaving and ended up being admonished by the large females! It was so funny to see him cower and clearly know he had done something wrong. There was one of the elephants that kept kneeling on one leg but we are not sure what the reason was for this behavior. Finally made our way past the elephant show and continued on our way.

Stopped at Skukuza for brunch, yoga and a walk before carrying on. As we headed out from Skukuza saw a giraffe standing still looking down in the grass. Did he see something? We have seen this behavior when there was a leopard in the grass. Never did see what had him spooked.

Drove past the Nalpe Boulder Road and saw a safari vehicle turn down the road and decided to turn around and see if they knew something. We have driven this secondary loop in the past but had skipped it on the last couple of trips.

We are sooooo glad we did this trip because we came on a group of eight sable on the side of the road. Got to spend a nice amount of time looking at them.

Then we were almost out the park when here comes a large maned male lion marching down the road. We followed it for awhile and then here he comes right at our car on Robert's side and the window was down. Up goes the window!

As we leave the park, we only needed to see buffalo to have another Big Five day and as we drove out the gate, there on our right was a waterhole that was actually still in the park but visible from the road and there was a large group of buffalo! So it was a Big Five Day after all!

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