Kruger National Park

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Tuesday (22/6/2010)
Kruger Day, we rolled out of the tent at 4.30am, picked up Jac and Tony and headed to Kruger for another self-drive safari. We made it to Malane Gate right on 6am (not quite first in line today!). Map in hand we drove in, in search of cats. Jac and Tony were still yet to see any so far on their African trip and given our recent luck we started the day confident.
The morning started very slow, not even an impala to break up the monotony of the rugged bushlands. We stopped at Nhlanganzwani river side hide, spotting three hippo’s in the shallows one strangely still and bloody. Looking like it had come off second best to perhaps a croc. We crept down for a closer look, Tony sprinting back to the car after one hippo sat up in the water perhaps not the smartest thing we've done, as we were told of a couple of tourists recently attacked and killed by some hippo's but we made it back to the car safe and sound!

We carried on along the river stumbling across a huge herd of elephants with a number of calves. They crossed the road just ahead we watched in anticipation as one got incredibly close to a nearby overland truck and laughed as the calves ran across the road ! A couple others stomping their authority and flapped their ears about to a van perhaps just a little too close.

Next, we stopped for lunch at Mlondozi Dam with stunning views. After lunch we carried on in search of cats along the path where there had been previous lion sightings that day, more elephants in fact lots of elephants, giraffes, warthogs, antelope, an odd zebra but not a cat in sight. We headed back to the gates as we were running out of time before the gates closure and didn’t want a fine. Eleven hours of searching it wasn’t to be a cat day, definitely an elephant day.
We returned back to Nelspruit exhausted, grabbed some takeaway Chinese and tucked in for an early night.

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