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The Thrill of the Hunt in Klaserie, Timbavati, and Sabi Sands


Terry

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@@Jochen, Thanks for the photography suggestions and for what to look for in my next lens. I also appreciated the additional information on the white lions of the Giraffe pride. It is great to have this all documented here.

 

And thanks to everyone for the kind words on the trip report! It makes it fun and worth the time spent doing it.

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Phiny called this Blue Wildebeest a “Gnu”. At first I thought I didn’t understand him, but then I learned Gnu is the original name, coming from the sound "ga-noo” that the males bellow especially at mating season. This Gnu was not into migrating or even joining a herd. I suggested maybe the least he could do was find a stream to cross for us now that it had rained.

 

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His reply to that was to simply lie down.

 

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Then we found a Blue Wildebeest herd with six times the size of our first sighting so they were starting to gather.

 

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And then they left, off to their version of migration.

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This baby rhino is only a couple of months old.

 

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Kambaku was the only lodge of the three where we stayed which did not have a rifle on the vehicle. We asked our Phiny about the lack of a weapon and he said he didn’t need a weapon, that the vehicle was his weapon. However, this meant there was no game walks offered, nor did the ranger and the tracker ever leave the roads to track on foot.

 

The next morning we stopped for our coffee break at a small waterhole where we had stopped before with nothing much to see.

 

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I got my coffee and then turned around to look at the water hole.

 

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Up popped a hippo, then another, and yet another.

 

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We had to be content with the popping up and the dropping down, plus a few bubbles, for they weren’t feeling any aggression toward each other or even an urge to yawn. Phiny explained that this was probably a family unit and after they finished a night of grazing, they just headed for the nearest waterhole, rather than returning to the one where they had spent the previous day.

 

It was cold and windy, we had to be thankful for everything we saw starting with a Scrub Hare,

 

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a Steenbok,

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and even another impala.

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In the Klaserie reserve we had a fleeting glimpse of a Grey Duiker with white patches on his back, but this one was our favorite because he stood still long enough for a photo.

 

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That afternoon even colder and windier. The tracker gave us back the heavy ponchos and the blankets all clean, dry, and fluffy after yesterday’s soaking so we kept warm, but we weren’t seeing much of anything. The animals were all hunkered down in sheltered locations out of sight. After driving for quite a while without success, our ranger drove down the black-topped road dividing Klaserie Reserve from Timbavati and we met a number of cars out on game drives from other lodges, including Gomo Gomo. Every car stopped as we passed so the guides could compare notes and all agreed that with the wind, the animals were about impossible to find.

 

Eventually we spotted this lone male elephant on the Klaserie side of the black-topped road where they had done controlled burns so we saw something. I wanted to talk elephant language to ask him how he got the hole in his ear.

 

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A lady stopped our car and told Phiny she had just waited on the highway for a large herd of buffalo, maybe four thousand of them, to cross over toward Timbavati land. So we went back to the dirt roads and found they were still on Klaserie land. The buffalo were running and Phiny figured they were being chased by lions, but he could not drive behind the herd unless they crossed onto Timbavati land. By then it was after dark and time to go back for dinner.

 

On the way we spotted white plumes waving back and forth as they moved across a field and that was all we ever saw of the White-tailed mongoose. Phiny drove along the dry river bed where the baboons live and we could hear their warning barks. Lions, we all thought, but Eric was not able to catch their eyes with the spotlight.

 

The next day the weather was good and the animals were out and about. Here is why you never, ever, stand behind a Rhino.

 

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Then Rhino defecated and I put my camera down. I wish I hadn’t because next he began kicking his midden with his hind feet to get them covered with his dung so he could mark his territory by tracking his odor wherever he went.

 

We found the Burchell's zebras again.

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A few buffalo were still on Timbavati land.

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We were about three hours into the game drive when the ranger asked if we wanted to go back for breakfast or take a chance on a leopard. It was 9 a.m., we were getting hungary and the leopard was "a long ways away."

 

Next up: What will it be, breakfast or a leopard?

Edited by Terry
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Super TR Terry.

 

Love the buffalo rolling around.

 

breakfast or leopard? no question. You can eat breakfast anywhere on any day. Seeing a leopard is special. Come on now, don't disappoint me.

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Breakfast or leopard? Stuck in a traffic jam or wait for the wildebeest to jump into the river? Is it even a fair contest?

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You can always skip a breakfast.

You DO NOT skip a leopard.

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What a cliff hanger. Did you enjoy your cornflakes? ;)

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@@Jochen, Thanks for the photography suggestions and for what to look for in my next lens. I also appreciated the additional information on the white lions of the Giraffe pride. It is great to have this all documented here.

 

And thanks to everyone for the kind words on the trip report! It makes it fun and worth the time spent doing it.

@@Terry, just a very short note (not that you will not figure this out by yourself) - @@Jochen has given a Canon lens model. Since you are using a Nikon camera you can either get the corresponding Tamron f:2.8 model - Tamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF (this will save you substantial amount of money) or get Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II AF-S which is obviously better, but 3X more expensive.

 

IMHO you are also doing fine with your existing lens (which is in balance with the Nikon 5100 body that you are using) and could use the money towards another safari instead. Another thing to consider is that although 70-200 f:2.8 lens would enhance further the quality of your photos, you will not have the versatility of your present lens 15X zoom - wide angle to medium telephoto and you will have to change lenses for closer objects.

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Very nice installment - I like the rhino, elephant and steenbok photos. Never seen a Grey Duiker before.

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Civil war between the rows in the car was adverted. At least one long-time marriage was saved. Hungry pangs were forgotten, thoughts of breakfast crushed, the leopard won by a landslide.

Ntombi the mother leopard had killed again and dragged her impala a long distance and tucked it in a ravine. First we spotted her male cub with the impala. He was so happy to have food, he was jumping up and down and rolling around just like a kitten might do with a mouse his mother caught.

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Off to the side was an exhausted Ntombi. The chase, the capture, and effort to safe guard her kill had worn her out. She was panting and had a hard time holding her eyes open.

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After a while Ntombi got up and walked to where her daughter was resting and began grooming her.

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When her mother stopped and started to get up, the cub plainly begged for more, showing her mother the “one-paw please” and then the “two-paw please.”

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All to no avail, Ntombi was hungry.

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That morning our game drive lasted close to five hours, allowing us to spend quality time with Ntombi and her two cubs after the rangers from all other lodges had left and taken their guests back for breakfast. At Gomo Gomo and Arathusa we were allotted three hours for each game drive and the rangers always got us back on time for meals. However, at night even the Kambaku rangers watched the clock for vehicles on the roads after a certain time are considered to be poachers.

That afternoon a family of warthogs came to drink out of the Kambaku waterhole and stayed to scratch their bodies on the logs lying on the ground and engage in games of chase, around and around the lawn they would go. This warthog is face to face with a look-a-like stump.

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There is something about warthog feet and how they prance rather daintily that reminds me of women in high-heeled shoes. I know hogs and dainty just don’t go together, but those are high heels. The warthogs came across the lawn to near our porch to get a closer look at us. We posed quite nicely for them and then they were gone.

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Then two female Waterbucks came to drink at the waterhole.

 

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My husband told Bennett, a staff member at Kambaku, that we were taking the trip in celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary. That afternoon at high tea the kitchen crew came out singing the Happy Birthday song and carrying a frosted chocolate cake decorated with five candles which they presented to me. I was a little surprised because my birthday had been the week before we left home. I just said, “Thank you very much," and then suggested they put the cake on the table for all the guests to share.

It wasn’t long before Bennett came over and told me, “I know very well today is not your birthday, but the staff did not know a ‘Happy Anniversary’ song, so they sang what they knew. The five candles on top were for your 50th anniversary.” They were beautiful singers, by the way; it was a treat just to listen to them.

On our last morning game drive at Kambaku, we had beautiful blue skies to show off Timbavati at its best.

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Phiny took us a couple of times to see two different kinds of owls that were nesting on Timbavati land. The first was a large owl with pink eye lids, the Verreaux's Eagle-Owl. I don’t know what was going on in the nest, but whenever we saw the owl, it never sat on the nest. Maybe it was the male bird. It would sit along side of it and when it tired of looking at us from that angle, it would fly across the road and sit in another tree and look at us from over there.

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The second owl was a little one, Southern White-faced Scops-Owl, somewhat resembling an American Screech Owl. She was always so tucked down in the branches around the nest and in the nest; she was hard to photograph from a game vehicle below.

We stopped to look at Dwarf Mongoose in the all-purpose termite mounds. The Aardvark comes searching for food and digs tunnels in the mound, giving the Honey Badgers, the hyenas, the warthogs, the mongoose, and the jackals a place to den. All the animals have to do is move in. When we stopped for morning coffee or for sundowners on a game drive, it was the women who got the rights to a termite mound, a larger one than this one, of course.

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Helmeted Guinea fowl had crossed over to the burned Klaserie land.


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This male White Rhino is known as The Tank. His wide mouth makes him an efficient grass eater and is why the Dutch originally called him the Wide Rhino. Regardless of how they are built, it was not their girth. If the English could have understood the Dutch, we would still be calling him the Wide Rhino today.

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The large buffalo herd had returned to Klaserie land and the lions had followed so we had to leave Kambaku without ever seeing the white lions of the Giraffe pride or any other lions. Animals we still hoped to see were jackals, cheetahs, and nyalas. We would see two out of the three.

On our transfer to Arathusa we traveled the black-topped road that bordered the Klaserie reserve again and we had to stop for a herd of elephants crossing the road after a visit to a waterhole. It was good to see the mother-to-be with a missing right tusk. The baby elephant that I thought six days ago was about to be born was still staying inside and had missed all the cold, rainy weather.

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Next up: Why would I pick up the tail on a zebra?

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You have had a great time with Nthombi and her cub, I like very much also the rhino, waterbucks and Timbavati scenery photos.

 

How would you compare your overall Gomo Gomo and Kambaku experiences if you try to put the "luck factor" aside?

 

P.S. Happy anniversary! 50 sounds very inspiring!

Edited by FlyTraveler
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@@Terry

You had wonderful sightings throughout this trip!

I love the dog photos and your explanation of the behaviour

The joy of the buffalo is excellent - and I am glad you chose the leopard over breakfast!

 

(The waterbuck seem quite a bit hairier than those I have seen elsewhere - but it may be an illusion?)

 

What a great way to spend your 50th Anniversary

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What a great leopard sighting. I bet breakfast tasted even better when you finally got around to it.

Also loved the Verreaux's Eagle Owl and the dwarf mongoose. The little guys are so much harder to get a decent shot of.

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How would you compare your overall Gomo Gomo and Kambaku experiences if you try to put the "luck factor" aside?

@FlyTraveler The animals can pass freely in and out of Kruger National Park and between Klaserie and Timbavati, if they are not intimidated by the road, so our sightings were mostly a matter of luck. However, Klaserie is considered to be over-populated with elephants, something that makes for great viewing, but is hard on the trees.

 

Comparing the lodges, we preferred Gomo Gomo because it is newer and their waterhole attracts a spectacular parade of animals all day long. The area around the chalets has been left in its natural bush state. Gomo Gomo has rifles and that means game walks and, also, rangers and trackers seem more eager to pursue the animals into the heavy bush when armed.

 

At Kambaku, the longer morning game drives are definitely a bonus. Two or three of staff that have contact with the visitors, in addition to the rangers, would occasionally eat meals with us. We enjoyed the personal touch and getting to know them.

And thanks for the tips about the lens and the photography.

 

Edited by Terry
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How would you compare your overall Gomo Gomo and Kambaku experiences if you try to put the "luck factor" aside?

@FlyTraveler The animals can pass freely in and out of Kruger National Park and between Klaserie and Timbavati, if they are not intimidated by the road, so our sightings were mostly a matter of luck. However, Klaserie is considered to be over-populated with elephants, something that makes for great viewing, but is hard on the trees.

 

Comparing the lodges, we preferred Gomo Gomo because it is newer and their waterhole attracts a spectacular parade of animals all day long. The area around the chalets has been left in its natural bush state. Gomo Gomo has rifles and that means game walks and, also, rangers and trackers seem more eager to pursue the animals into the heavy bush when armed.

 

At Kambaku, the longer morning game drives are definitely a bonus. Two or three of staff that have contact with the visitors, in addition to the rangers, would occasionally eat meals with us. We enjoyed the personal touch and getting to know them.

And thanks for the tips about the lens and the photography.

 

 

Thank you for the post!

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When we arrived at Arathusa in the early afternoon, the hippos were wading around in the mud on the edge of the waterhole. Every day we were awakened for our early morning game drives by hippo grunts and bellows as they settled back in the pond for the day. We never saw them out again.

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At Gomo Gomo after dinner they handed out personal radios so we could call if we had a medical emergency in the middle of the night. At Kambaku, we were to use an air horn like South Africans blast at football matches if we found a wild animal in our room at night. At Arathusa, we had a telephone in the room and the ranger used it for our wake-up call for the morning game drive. Telephones in the room probably made the ranger’s job easier, but the phones along with the manicured green lawns at Arathusa were a little too civilized for being on safari in the African bush.

Roy, our ranger at Arathusa, started out the first game drive by asking us if we were going to be scared if a lion or a leopard walked next to the car. We assured him we were not as it was our 17th game drive. He then asked us if we had mental problems. It turned out to be a standard question he asked all first timers, but at that moment I was irritated. If I had mental problems, I wouldn’t have told him - in front of all the other people.

The first thing we looked at were starlings, birds at home I wish would go back to Europe and stay there; however, in Africa the starlings are beautiful! The Greater Blue-eared Starling is great but the Burchell's Starling is the best.

 

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All our guides tried to teach us to identify the sex of many of the animals we were seeing without looking at the genitals. For giraffes, you look at the width of the horns and for hair on top; zebras, you pick up the tail and check the width of the black stripe under it; for elephants, it’s the shape of the head, one is squarer than the other; and the rhinos, you check for circumference of the horn.

Roy asked us what the sex of this elephant was, but no one looked at the shape of the head.

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The elephant came up to the front of the car a couple of times, then would turn away and come back again throwing his trunk up in the air. When he got too close, Roy started the engine and revved the motor saying, “He is just playing, but I don’t want to play with elephant.”

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The trips back to the lodge after dark on warm nights at Arathusa challenged those who were bug adverse. When Chris, the tracker, turned the spotlight on, both he and Roy put on goggles. Roy advised us, “If you have glasses, be sure you are wearing them.” As soon as the car moved we realized why. There was a termite eruption and we were bombarded with termites in our eyes and, if we tried to talk, in our mouths. If that was not enough, large beetles resembling American June bugs or dung beetles also took flight after dark and found their way into the car and down to the floor. They crawled upward on the first obstacle they found – our legs.

We have stopped for morning coffee. Roy and the Chris are off the car checking on some giraffes that are staring at something on the the other side of the trees and bushes.

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A guest has moved into the driver’s seat and Mr. Terry is trying out the front tracker chair, but without a seat belt he didn’t find it to his liking. The white mound in the first row of guest seats is a white down comforter and, no, definitely not standard issue for game drives. One of the women brought it along from her bed to keep herself warm. All the lodges furnished us heavy blankets for game drives, but she shared the comforter with me and this was the absolute best.

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When Roy and Chris returned, they said the giraffes were watching impalas. They were getting a little desperate to find lions; it had been a week since the last sighting.

This was my bushbuck sighting until I counted the stripes one day and when I got to ten, I changed the name to female nyalas. If we saw an actual bushbuck, I did not get a picture of it.

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Although we looked at dung and animal tracks, the game walk at Arathusa was more about the trees and bushes. We stood under a magic tree which grows where ground water is near the surface and marveled at cool it felt compared to standing under other trees nearby. The Roy’s grandmother had been a witch doctor and both she and his mother used the plants and trees as natural remedies for healing. Along with many other plants, he pointed out a Viagra bush and a toothbrush tree. He said he really likes to use the branches of the toothbrush tree, but that was as much as he volunteered. Roy is tracing animal tracks in the sand for us.

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And did you know when the hippos were first created; they lived on land during the day? However they found their skin got sunburned easily so they asked God for permission to live in ponds. “Oh no,” God said. “You are too big; you will eat all my fish.”

“No,” the hippo insisted, “we will come out at night and graze on the land. We will not eat your fish.”

“How,” God asked, “will I know if you are eating my fish or not?” The hippos then promised they would always wag their tail, and scatter their dung so God could see if they were eating fish. All of this our guide told us and when we found a tree splattered with hippo dung, who were we to doubt him?

On the next game drive a mother rhino crossed the road in front of us and the baby followed along behind fussing all the way. I had no clue rhinos could make noise.

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A Serrated Hinged Terrapin was along side of the road, rather than in a waterhole where it normally lives. Roy said he didn’t know why it was so far from water, but the sand on her back tells a story of an exhausted mother who spent hours laying eggs last night and then flipping up sand to cover them.

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Chris is holding up a Leopard tortoise for all the guests to see.

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We also saw a larger Leopard tortoise that had a deep, sharply depressed area on it back where it looked like it had been stepped on by a giraffe. Yes, it was still alive and moving along.

Three hyena mothers were using a large termite mound as a den which came with tunnels dug by aardvarks.

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I have seen pictures of cute hyena cubs, but this one was not one of them.

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We stopped for sundowners late that night; the sun was set when the ladies were directed to a large termite mound off to one side, and the men to everywhere else. Two women made their way to the termite mound and no sooner than they had disappeared behind it, Roy got a call over the radio saying wild dogs were in the area. “Come quickly,” he called out to everyone as he and Chris loaded everything back in the car. “We have to leave immediately to see wild dogs.” Then we sat and waited and waited for the two women to come out from behind the mound; but even when they did, they just stood along side of it talking. Eventually they looked over to the car, saw us all sitting in it, and came running with apologies, saying they had heard Roy when he called them, but thought he was just teasing. They were discussing bones and which animal had left his behind the mound. When we got to where the dogs were, it was dark and Chris could not shine the spotlight on them because it would affect their eyesight. We only saw one dog for a moment as it ran along the side of the car before it disappeared into the bush.

Next up: Will we find the cats of Sabi Sands in the morning?

 

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Very nice rhino, giraffes and bull elephant photos, enjoyed the suckling hyena pups, as well. Your TR makes me feel quite inpatient towards our visit to Timbavati and Sabi Sand in May...

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@Atravelynn, I went back thru Gomo Gomo's Facebook postings and they found a pack of 20 wild dogs there on the 17th of January. The previous sighting documented before that was in December. I guess it would not pay to plan a safari there to see the wild dogs, but there is always the chance.

Then you were really lucky. Never can tell with wild dogs.

 

Great nursing hyena shots. Young hyenas are a real treat.

 

"the sand on her back tells a story of an exhausted mother who spent hours laying eggs last night and then flipping up sand to cover them." Very touching to read. To the turtle it is just life.

 

At some point please give us the specific itinerary with dates for your exciting trip.

Edited by Atravelynn
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The wild dogs are there again. Just today I saw a post on Africa On Foot's FB page. And since GG is next door to AOF...

 

Yes, you have to be lucky with wild dogs, but I've been following the home pages of those lodges for years now, and I'd say theypop up at least once a month.

Never found any dens on their plots though. But that isn't that unusual: if you count the vast number of non-commercialized plots all around them...

 

Ciao,

 

J.

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@@Terry

Very enjoyable writing and pictures

In particular I like the rhino shots and I think the hyena babies are very cute...

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The next morning lions were absolutely the highest on the priority list. Guests had been there a week and this was their last chance to see lions. Chris and Roy walked off into the bush following some lion tracks. When they came back, they said the tracks were made by two male lions which had two cubs with them. It was too dangerous to continue tracking them on foot though for the male lions would attack without warning because of the cubs.

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Roy attempted to follow the lions into the bush with the vehicle. Chris was sitting bravely up front, fully exposed, and hoping to see the lions before they exploded in attack. Over logs and rocks and at least fifty white-thorn trees we went and were bounced, jerked, pummeled and fully tenderized for the lions if they should find us first. Thankfully for the sake of Chris, the lions had left the block and we all lived to hunt again another day. A couple of guests in the back third tier of seats had bounced the highest and after that insisted on moving down to the first row where my husband and I were sitting. My husband stayed where he was and I moved into the passenger seat next to Roy and didn’t give it up for the remaining drives of the trip. That passenger seat was definitely the place to be, especially if one is getting to be “that age.”

Giving up on the lions, Roy started down another road and then he spotted a leopard walking along on the road ahead of us. When we caught up to the leopard, we found there were two of them, Thandi, a mother leopard, and her son Bauwuti. He was about the same size as his mother and we could tell them apart from the front only by their noses. Thandi’s nose is almost all pink and Bauwuti’s has just a small amount of pink in the center.

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The mother was on a mission and just kept going along.

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Bauwuti was the typical teenager, ranging from side to side, stopping to look at us and playing along the way.

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Then Thandi got a whiff of something and had to come back and check it out.

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Roy guessed Thandi had made a kill and was taking her cub to where she had it hidden. The dabs of blood on the back of Thandi’s neck and on her feet might have tipped him off.

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After that, she seemed a little hesitant, unsure about what had happened here or what was ahead on the road.

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Then a call came over the radio that a ranger had found lions. Not wanting to be tossed out on the road to become leopard feed, we all voted to leave the leopards to find the lions. Passing up Thandi and her cub and continuing down the road in front of them, we found this large male leopard a short distance ahead. His presence may have explained why Thandi was tense or perhaps she was smelled a hyena.

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The leopard was Mvula, the dominant male who controls eleven square kilometers. That morning he had taken down a waterbuck, but a hyena took his kill away from him. Mvula went after the hyena and recaptured his waterbuck, something that normally a leopard doesn’t do, but it showed Mvula’s dominance of his world. But now there was a hungry hyena in the area and Thandi had a kill somewhere near. Whatever mistake the hyena had made that morning, he probably would not repeat any time soon.

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The lions were two females from the Styx pride napping in the bush. Our first view was of them playing the Flat Cat game. Then in the process of leaving to make room for us, the other guide backed up his vehicle within a couple of yards of one of the lions causing both lions to get up and start moving through the bush to find a more peaceful place to spend the day. Roy followed them for as long as he could. The other guide had inadvertently turned it into a better sighting for us than what it was for his own guests.

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We have to get out of here!

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I'm so tired, I can hardly hold my eyes open!

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Let's go this way!

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I think this is good enough!

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Next up: Will Thandi save her kill?

 

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After the lions disappeared in the bush, we went back to the leopards. We found Thandi with her kill, a pregnant impala, stashed not up a tree, or not even in a ravine to hide the odor from roaming hyenas, but laying just at the foot of a tree not far from the road.

 

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Her son Bauwuti had climbed a nearby tree and looked like he wanted to come down.

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He tried a couple of time, but seemed unsure of himself.

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Thandi walked over and stood at the base of Bauwuti's tree.

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That didn't work. Bauwuti went back up.

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Thandi went back to the kill, extracted the fetus from the impala, and took it over to the base of Bauwuti’s tree and chewed on it.

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With food waiting for him below, Bauwuti tried again to descend the tree, but he just couldn't do it.

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Ok, Son, you are on your own.

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His mother walked back to the far side of the tree by the kill and lay down with her back to him and the kill.

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I'd come down if I could, you know.

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Ok, I try this way.

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I think I'm going to make it.

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I am almost there.

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When he reached the ground, Bauwuti picked up the leg of the fetus and walked over toward his mother.

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She was actually down in a little depression where she could not see her kill.

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Bauwati lay down beside his mother and then she began to groom him.

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Lying like this, Bauwuti probably could smell the dabs of blood on his mother’s neck.

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He thought he might groom her at the same time; but she was so close, all he got for his efforts was crossed eyes.

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As we left the leopards to go to breakfast, I quietly told Thandi to get her kill up the tree. Roy told me not to worry about her, “If a hyena comes by, Thandi will climb the tree with the kill very fast.”

 

Next up: How did Mvula fare?

Edited by Terry
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Fabulous leopard mother and son photo sequence and experience! Thanks again for sharing this with us!

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In the early afternoon a breeding herd of twelve elephants walked between the luxury chalets on their way to the Arathusa’s waterhole, breaking branches and startling the guests as they went. This was first and only time we saw elephants at this waterhole and never again this many in the Sabi Sands Reserve.

 

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The standard chalets are definitely the most popular at Arathusa being right on the waterhole. The luxury ones are off to one side and the landscape around them has been left natural, but there is no view of the waterhole. The people that stay over there have their own ranger and their own game vehicle and for several drives their guide had as few as four or even two people in his car, compared to the ten people in each of the two vehicles for the rest of us.

 

On the afternoon game drive we found this zebra that definitely had a problem with his strips. Unless it is the something about the way he is standing, I would say that his suit was stitched up wrong.

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All our guides knew their birds and were able to call out their names after just seeing them in flight, but only Roy had the talent for imitating bird and their calls. When he spotted an African Grey Horn Bill, he included a demonstration of the bird bouncing up and down and flapping his arms as wings as he imitated the call. The bird then did his own version and, yes, he danced as he sang.

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The Blue Wildebeest in Sabi Sands seem as aimless as those in Timbavati. A migration just doesn't cross their minds either.

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Standing about twenty-five inches tall, this is a male Black-bellied Bustard based upon the thin black line going up the front of his neck, along with the yellow beak, and his white puffy cheeks.

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About this time on the drive, I had to ask Roy what I really wanted to know - where we going back to see the mother and son leopard again? “No”, Roy replied, "Thandi lost her kill to a hyena, so she and Bauwuti have left the area.” I still wonder why Thandi was so careless with her kill.

 

So we went to check on Mvula the male leopard. After his experience that morning with a hyena, he had pulled his waterbuck kill up a tree near a Hammerkop’s nest for safe keeping. Behind his tree was a deep ravine with water running through it and this was where we found Mvula.

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Oh, Mvula, Ye of pink tongue and blue eyes. "You are so beautiful to me!"

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One more look at those blue eyes.. I can't help myself.

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Wouldn’t you like to get out and scratch the kitty on his tummy”

Roy said we could if we wanted to “Just be sure and leave your cameras here with me,” he requested.

He didn’t get any cameras, for he had just finished telling us that if we got out of the car, we would be dead before our feet touched the ground.

 

On the way back to the lodge that evening, we found the two female lions from the Styx pride asleep on the road. After the car nearly backed over them in the bush that morning, they probably felt just as safe lying in the middle of the road. This picture was taken using a flash when the spotlight was focused on the other lion. We were so close to the lions the spotlight was just too bright.

 

This lady with her tongue handing out sideways was probably caught in a yawn, but she really looks like she had too much to drink.

 

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Dignity restored!

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I don’t know if it was the warmer nights we had at Arathusa or if Roy had an affinity for snakes, but first night on the way back to the lodge, Roy had seen a Black Mamba, the world's most aggressive and dangerous snake. This night Roy caught sight of a Boomslang, an extraordinarily dangerous, light green snake lying across the road. He slammed on the brakes to avoid running over it and Chris went flying off his throne on the front of the vehicle. Luckily, he hit the road on his feet, missed the snake, and was able to run a few yards until he could regain his balance. The Boomslang slithered off into the bush, Chris climbed back up into the tracker seat and continued to man the spotlight for the rest of the drive, but he was clearly upset and not talking.

We were so tired after the game drive that evening we just went to bed at eight o’clock rather than go to dinner. It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes later that Roy knocked on our door and asked if we were OK. Arathusa was the only one of the three lodges where the rangers did not eat the evening meal with the guests, but we learned they still had to make sure their guests were at the meal or account for them.

 

Next up: Can Sabi Sands lions really do that?

Edited by Terry
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