After spending Sunday night in Kubu Safari Lodge, we woke up early on Monday morning and headed off to Orpen Gate in Kruger National Park. We arrived bright and early, allowing the fam to witness a beautiful African sunrise with the giant red sun.
We made our way to Satara through Orpen and saw a huge amount of animals from the word go, including two of the Big 5 – elephant and buffalo. It took us a few hours to get to Satara due to all the sightings (including a lappet-faced vulture!), but we then had breakfast which set us up for the rest of the day. We made our way south to Paul Kruger gate after a quick loop up north where we saw a secretary bird! I’ve never seen one before, my eagle-eyed sister did well to spot it! On our way out we had an amazing encounter with an elephant browsing right next to the vehicle. Considering they’re mum’s favourite animal I think she enjoyed it! By the time we got out of the gate and made our way back to the hotel we were all starving, so we had a lovely dinner at the Hat & Creek in Hoedspruit before getting some well-deserved rest.
Tuesday was a little more relaxed as we went to the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre and took a two-hour tour around the sight. Although they’ve changed a few things since I was there last, it was still a great experience for the family who got to see king cheetah, cheetah, leopards, lions, and white rhino up close. They also witnessed a feeding at the vulture restaurant which was an incredible way to show how important these birds our and the service they do for the ecosystem. I think it helped bring them into a better light in my family’s eyes, rather than just being ugly, horrible birds.
We then had a quiet afternoon doing some work. Poor Alex is trying to finish off her dissertation, not what anyone wants to be doing on holiday! I think she’s doing great though and will have it done in no time.
Wednesday we again went to Kruger through Orpen Gate, but this time we headed north through Olifants and Letaba before going out through Phalaborwa Gate. Again, we had lots of sightings of elephants, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, impala etc, but we were on the hunt for cats. Just before pulling into Satara for breakfast we had a tip-off about some hyena pups playing near the road a few kilometres away. We raced over but were a few minutes too late as there was no sign of them.
We continued our journey north and yet again Alex showed us that she should be a birder. She spotted a large group of Kori Bustards in the shade of some trees walking towards the road. It’s been years since I’ve seen one and never in such a large group! We then found a Goliath Heron on the Olifants River, which I’ve never seen before and it truly was huge! Sadly, we didn’t see it catch any fish, but we were a little distracted. On the other side of the river, a large herd of elephants made their way down to the water and under the bridge that we were standing on. We ran over to watch them pass underneath us, and they had babies! What an amazing sight to be so close to so many gentle giants. Quite fitting though considering we were over the Olifants River, which means ‘Elephant’ in Afrikaans.
We eventually moved on and saw on the Olifants sightings board that there was a herd of wild dogs nearby. Unfortunately, we weren’t lucky enough to see them, but we were still on the hunt for our cats. On the way out when all hope was starting to fade, we got lucky with a young male lion and a female lying on the side of the road! I think we must have spent 30 minutes just sitting next to them watching them sleep and yawn. It was awesome for my family to be able to get so close to wild lions, and at the last minute! We eventually left them in peace, and made our way towards the exit, though the excitement wasn’t over yet. A bull elephant popped out of the trees by the side of the road and clearly wasn’t very happy with our presence, shaking his ears and walking towards us. I decided I wasn’t going to risk the hire car so we ended up reversing for a few hundred metres with him following before he was happy that he’d driven us far enough away and went back into the trees. The family were a bit flustered, but it’s great to see the strength and power that an elephant can exert when needed.
After an eventful day and thousands of photos to go through, we made our way back to the hotel. After a few hours of relaxing and working, we went to Rumble Restaurant in Hoedspruit for dinner, although Alex stayed home to work – such a good student!
Thursday marked the end of my time with my family. It was short but sweet and was so nice to be able to show them around the area that I’m living and working now and for the foreseeable future. I then had the rest of the day back at camp to sort out lots of work for the upcoming semester which is going to be very intense with a lot of final assessments – scary!
The rest of the week has been a combination of work and looking after Ryan, who has had a horrendous ear infection for too many days. He was really struggling from the pain, meaning he got no sleep and couldn’t get much work done. We managed to get him to the doctors and get some stronger painkillers and antibiotics, so fingers crossed he’ll be back to normal soon.
Next week is going to be the start of the intense semester – tests on Monday, our interview for placement on Wednesday, more tests on Thursday, I’ve got my mock drive on Friday, and more tests on Saturday. Wish us luck!
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