monday, September 19, 2022

a FULL day IN the park

Today our itinerary had us doing a bush walk in the morning. Instead of jumping in the safari vehicle, we’d walk around on foot with an expert, checking out the little guys of the park: the smaller reptiles, birds, etc. That said, those of us who did the late afternoon game drive the previous day with John learned from him that doing these short 3-hour drives inevitably kept us close to the lodge (since there wasn’t time to venture out farther), and therefore was really limiting the variety of animals we could see.

Someone mentioned this to Jamie the night before over dinner, and asked if, instead of the morning bush walk, we could do an all day game drive, thus allowing us to go farther and see different sections of the park. After some quick shuffling and organizing he was able to arrange it, so this morning we were ready to venture out for some serious animal viewing. (We were all really determined to see a cat at this point and were hoping for the best!)

It turned out to be totally worth it, as we did see animals that we hadn’t seen on the previous drives, and ended up having some truly memorable encounters.

Not quite the wildebeest migration stampede of Central Africa, but an action-packed buffalo moment!

We then ran into this giant herd of elephants and enjoyed watching them for a while – they were on both sides of the road, in the road, really all around us. One of my favorite safari memories for sure.

Going farther into the park than we had been before, we were lucky to see a couple of warthogs – our first time seeing this animal. They are not the most glamorous-looking, but definitely fun to watch!

As we all learned from The Lion King, where there’s a warthog he probably has a lion pal nearby. And sure enough, just around the bend we saw a bunch of safari vehicles gathered, which meant there must have been something good they were looking at. Approaching, we saw a giant dead body of a giraffe lying on the ground, which the guides had heard was killed by a lion the previous day. And there he was, a male lion stretched out on its back, distantly hidden under a tree. I would love to say that I was oohing and aahing over the sight of all sights, but truthfully I could barely make him out and was secretly a little disappointed that this was our big lion sighting.

Spoiler alert: I’m being whiny about this now because we would get our payoff later in the day.

Quick video of a male springbok (wait, maybe a steenbok?), one of the smallest antelope in Kruger and also the mascot of the South African rugby team.

Since we’d been driving for a while, we pulled into a remote area on a hill to stop for a wee (the Brits on our trip always made it sound so charming). While there, we ended up seeing an unexpected sight: a bright green chameleon who was making his way across the road by doing this weird little dance. Our guide said that they do this so that they look more like a leaf or plant blowing around on the ground to confuse predators. Rock on, little guy! Stay safe!

I obviously added the song (it was begging for one), but did not in any way adjust the movement of this chameleon. Wild!

Quick shot of a beautiful male kudu relaxing in the bush, and a video of a tree full of baboons, definitely not relaxing.

At this point it was around 10am (we had gotten a very early start!) and we pulled into the Skukuza Rest Camp to have some breakfast. The lodge had packed us all bagged breakfasts and lunches for the day, which was extra nice considering the short notice of the all-day drive. (Incidentally, as we were driving we also found out that it was our guide Rick’s birthday, so we all felt a little terrible about the surprise long tour he had to do, and hope he made up for it by having a great after-work party!)

I (ignorantly) had no idea that rest camps like this even existed in the park – turns out that there are twelve of them! Skukuza is the biggest and not only has the picnic area where we ate, and a store (half souvenirs, half supplies) where we ducked in for some shopping, but apparently also has various levels of accommodations, two restaurants, two swimming pools, a 9-hole golf course, and even a small airport (!).

I did a terrible job of taking pictures when we were eating here, but sharing a couple just for the sense memory.

Biltong (basically like beef jerky) is a thing *all* over South Africa – they make it from every possible kind of meat.

We kept seeing these absolutely stunning iridescent bright blue starlings in various places in the park, and a couple of them were hanging around the picnic area. I tried to get a great photo of one with my phone, but they’re so quick hopping around and flying off – hoping these give some sense of how beautiful they are!

After breakfast, we headed back out into the park. Almost immediately we ran into a group of baboons. They are… not the most refined bunch?

Moving on, we ran into a much more dignified giraffe enjoying a mid-morning snack.

I love that Rachel Sarah caught me taking this!

Leaving that adorable giraffe, it finally happened. We were driving along the road and spotted a majestic male lion hanging out underneath a tree that was much closer to the road, giving us a perfect view. We were all so happy – we really wanted to get to see a lion, and here he was in all of his glory, relaxing and probably trying to keep cool under the shade of the tree as it was in the mid-90s that day.

I was thrilled that Rachel handed me one of her real cameras (with a killer 200-600 lens) for this one, as it’s the shot you can only hope to have the opportunity to get when on a safari. Incidentally, here’s an article she wrote about the lens, with a shoutout to yours truly for these lion pics.

We got really lucky that he was sitting up, as when we drove back past him shortly after, he was lying down on his side and it was much harder to see. Absolutely gorgeous animal.

Those eyes 😍

Still on a lion-sighting high, we drove a little further on the same road only to run into another big herd of elephants, all gathered together under the shade of a couple of trees to stay out of the blazing sun. The cutest little baby was right in front!

I’m not sure I realized during this day how many different species of antelope we saw – in my head the big ones were probably kudus and the little ones were impala, and I ignorantly didn’t really consider beyond that. But seeing the differences now in photos, that’s not the case at all. This is a male nyala.

Started getting a bit literal with these songs, sorry not sorry

Coming into the safari part of our trip, I really had no specific expectations, but secretly hoped to get to see some babies. We had lucked out with that newborn hyena, and definitely saw some cute little elephants, but I was so excited to see this baby zebra! Its little legs moved so fast as it clip-clopped across the road 😍

Around 1:30 we headed back to the rest camp to have our picnic lunch. Didn’t really take any photos other than this sightings board, which uses a color-coded magnet system for people to mark where they’ve seen the Big 5. I love that you’re not supposed to actually mark the rhino sightings to help keep poachers away.

On the way into the camp, we also stopped to watch this one-horned giraffe who was standing hilariously still behind this tree, I think assuming we couldn’t see it if it didn’t move. It was an almost cartoonish level of stealth mode.

After lunch, we headed to a large watering hole (different one from the day before) where there was a big herd of impala enjoying a drink and scampering around. There were also a few small birds (Blacksmith Lapwings) who were chirping very loudly – according to our guide it’s because they had their eggs in the ground and the impala were getting a little too close! Built-in alarm system.

After a great full day of safari, we finally headed back to the lodge for a relaxing night in.

Arriving back at the main entrance of the lodge

All in all, it ended up being a really successful day of safari!

To be honest, in the scheme of our whole adventurous itinerary I wasn’t over-the-moon excited about the bush walk we were supposed to have done (I asked Jamie after the fact what we would’ve missed and his answer was “birds & turds”), so I was really grateful that we ended up being able to venture out further into the park and see some animals that we hadn’t seen before.