Blogs from Mpumalanga , South Africa, Africa - page 9

Geo: -25.4498, 31.9633Drove down to check on the Phabeni leopard as we call it and did not see it and were thinking about driving off when all of a sudden across the road, there it was. Finally the leopard must have come through the gully and appeared on the side where we usually see it. Had a stick in its mouth and was playing with it much like a young animal then moved up the tree and appeared to be trying to get to a warm spot and then wandered off. We were able to see most of this by ourselves.On the way to Pretorioskop saw a male and female lion and two leopards before checking in and washing clothes. Pretorioskop has a very nice laundry facility with lots of space to hang your clothes out ... read more

Geo: -24.9854, 31.6018Out the gate and head down the gravel road near the T junction to see if the leopard is to be found. No leopard so head on down toward the Lower Sabie bridge. Stop at one of the pull outs and see a very beautiful Goliath heron down in the water.Then here come seven lions walking down the middle of the road. We think they may be the same group of young lions we saw a year earlier at this very same spot. Follow them and then they turn around and we are now right beside them and the largest of the young males makes a move toward our car. Fortunately was like a elephant false charge!Back to check out the leopard that was hanging out at the gully near the T junction to ... read more

Geo: -25.0557, 31.1318Out for early morning game drive and saw a game drive vehicle moving back and forth on the road and we watched to see what was going on. He circled back around and told us there had been a black rhino and it had gone down toward the river.We tried to find a place where the bank made it easy for the rhino to come out and also for us to see it. All of a sudden the black rhino came out on the road. Was huge! He came across the road and disappeared to the other side. Luckily for us, it was where there was a side road that ran parallel to the tar road. We raced around and got to the point where we saw the rhino munching away on some branches. ... read more

Geo: -25.4498, 31.9633Drove the S28 in hopes of finding the cheetah mother and cubs that have been seen on this road. There was information in Kruger Sightings that gave the number of km from the north or the south entrance of the road. We tried both directions and ran into people that had seen the cheetah that morning....................but had disappeared from sight.We did have a wonderful sighting as we were leaving the S28. There were impala stotting. Now what is that? Behavior where the impala lifts all four feet off the ground at once and in this case they kicked the back feet higher in the air before they landed. One after another, the females did this, sometimes several of them at once in a line. It was so nice to watch. Looked up stotting in ... read more

Geo: -24.9854, 31.6018Moving from Satara to Lower Sabie which is a fairly long drive. The road down to Tsokhwane was very quiet as far as the "hairly scaries" went. Went to the overlook to see what the water looked like and things were fairly dry. In fact, we did not see any animals moving in the distance which is very unusual.Did see four ostrich, and one of those nice to see antelopes, the reedbuck. Do not see them very often. We also were entertained by five ground hornbill moving through the grass and then some double banded sandgrouse which are also very rare for us.Continued driving and came upon a very big elephant on the side of the road. Stopped to watch him and he passed behind our car very close but we were being very ... read more