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Four in one View, three in one Picture - Kruger Park Oct. 2014


ice

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a few more pictures of the almost finished elephant carcass, taken by myself

 

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October 09th 15:30-17:45 Afternoon Drive (Self drive)

 

only general game

 

October 10th 05:30 - 09:30 Morning Drive (Self Drive)

 

hyena den with +/- 10 hyenas, including pups

 

hyena and vultures on a buffalo kill taken down by lions the day before we arrived at Satara

 

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honey badger

 

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single male lion

 

single male leopard -> Big Five DRIVE completed at 10:15

 

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Edited by ice
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Honey badger in daylight, awesome!

Impressive male lions too!

Edited by egilio
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Nice work. Some excellent sightings.

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@@ice in post #1 you wrote...

 

not too many folks around here are interested in Kruger in the first place.

 

After reading this report and seeing your images I think that will change ;)

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@@Game Warden

 

I am not so sure, most people will consider Kruger not wild and rugged enough ;) on the other hand, it is certainly a perfect place if you travel with kids, are interested in self driving and have to be budget-conscious, especially since there are ways and means to at least partially avoid crowds

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October 10th 14:15-17:45 Afternoon drive (Self Drive)

 

5 adult lions (2 males, 3 females)

 

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October 10th 20:00-22:30 Night drive (Guided Drive)

 

small spotted genet

 

sleeping elephant - personally, only the second time ever I have seen a sleeping elephant

 

October 11th 05:30-10:15 Morning drive (Self Drive)

 

two subadult male lions

 

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October 11th 13:45-17:45 Afternoon drive (Self drive)

 

only general game, however, at around 7 pm the resident honey badger of Satara Camp ran right past our kitchen area while my daughter and I were having dinner outside our room

 

October 11th 22:00-22:30 Night drive (Guided drive)

 

finally a guided drive with comparetively good sightings:

 

hyenas

three lions (1 adult female, 2 subadult males, possibly the same males we had spotted on our morning drive)

civet

genets

serval

side striped jackal

 

October 12th 05:30-12:30 Transfer drive (Self drive)

 

8 different lions near Satara

10 different lions, among them 3 adult males, near Skukuza

4 different lions near Lower Sabie

 

October 12th 13:30-15:30 Midday drive (Self drive)

 

trying to find a leopard that had been spotted with a kill in a tree near Lower Sabie, without sucess

 

October 12th 16:30-19:45 Sunset drive (Guided drive)

 

the same 4 lions we had spotted earlier on near Lowie

porcupine

white tailed mongoose

Edited by ice
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@@ice

Thank you for posting - an interesting trip with some great sightings. I love the dogs!

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Quite a variety of animals of all sizes there. I would be pleased to encounter that variety anywhere!

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What a nice family safari trip @@ice ! Lots of great sightings. If I wasn't afraid of elephants, I would seriously consider a self-drive in Kruger NP with my wife and our 6 years old daughter... Have you calculated the cost per day for the entire family (accommodation, car rental, fuel, park fees)? Food is always a very subjective expense.

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@@ice, I have many families here in states who ask me where to take their kids.. thanks for showing it via Kruger and all through your child's lens for all to see..And of course, your pics in addition.. I have a difficult time advising as we personally go so out "of the way." not kid friendly....but I always love to encourage families to travel to Africa together......Unfortunately I cannot take my child, a white labrador retriever :)

 

Lovely trip...great shots; thanks!

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@@FlyTraveler

 

to calculate the cost is not that difficult:

 

rental car: for the kind of car we chose (Renault Duster) we paid slightly more than 300 € per week

 

fuel: we drove close to 4.800 km / 3.000 miles (an awful lot) and spent about 300 € on petrol for the entire trip

 

toll: appr. 60 € back and forth

 

accomodation: in each camp we chose the simplest accomodation available, meaning safari tents in Skukuza and Crocodile Bridge, a hut with shared bathrooms in Lower Sabie and a bungalow (with ensuite bathroom) in Satara, for a total 550 €

 

park fees: for a family you would have to buy a wild card at a cost of 220 €

 

food: we usually picked up some snacks in the morning and then had dinner and / or lunch at one of the camp's restaurant, rather cheap, for less than 300 € for the entire trip

 

 

for us two, that's a total of 65 € per person per night

 

now, if you travel as party with more than two family members, it would actually become cheaper, even if you decided to rent a slightly bigger car, because some of these fixed costs will be divided through three or four heads (car rental fees, fuel, toll, park fees and accomodation)

 

of course, if you all prefer to eat steak with table wine each and every night and consume sumptuous breakfasts each and every morning, the cost for food would go up - on the other hand, if you cook or barbecue yourself once in a while, you might save something

 

guided drives (of which we did a lot) come at appr. 22 € per adult and half of that for children younger than 12

Edited by ice
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October 13th 05:30 - 10:30 Morning Drive (Self Drive)

 

male lion #1 from the Lubyelubye pride

 

male lion #2 from the Lubyelubye pride

 

So for our standards it was actually a slow morning, that's why at 10:30 we decided to return to camp. At the reception I wanted to reserve seats for the night when all of a sudden a man ran passed us, camera in hand. Now in Kruger you have to be able to read not only the behaviour of the animals but also of the tourists. For me, it was obvious this guy was up to something, so I decided to follow him and sure enough, the sighting we had was a once in a lifetime thing:

 

from the deck of the Lower Sabie restaurant we could see four of the big five in one view:

 

- the two male lions of the Lbuyelubye pride

 

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- a herd of buffalos drinking from the river

 

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- a male leopard up in a huge tree and

 

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- some elephants playing in the water.

 

Obviously there were distances between these animals, that's why we did not take any coherent (you'd only see tiny little dots) but nevertheless they were all in one view.

Edited by ice
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October 13th 15:00 - 17:45 (Afternoon Drive) (Self Drive)

 

a few members of the Lubyelubye lion pride

 

one young and experienced subadult male lion came to close to the comfort zone of a subadult elephant and was consequently chased off

 

this time I was indeed able to take a photo of at least three of the big five in one picture

 

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October 13th 20:00 - 22:15 Night Drive (Guided Drive)

 

genets

 

male leopard patrolling his territory

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October 14th 05:30 - 11:00 Morning Drive (Self drive)

 

three males of Lubyelubye pride lying right on the road

 

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October 14th 14:30 - 18:00 Afternoon Drive (Self drive)

 

for 30 minutes we were watching members of the Lubyelubye pride unsucessfully stalk buffalos - after we left, they finally made the kill, far away, though, barely visible, even with binos

 

on our way north we came across the same group of lions we had spotted on sunday; this time it was two males and one female, apparently in a mating mood

 

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October 14th 20:00 - 22:30 Night Drive (Guided drive)

 

juvenile black mamba, side striped jackal, white tailed mongoose, large spotted genet, serval

 

Edited by ice
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October 15th 05:30 - 11:00 Morning Drive (Self Drive)

 

Skukuza Wild Dog pack with pups

 

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Lubyelubye lion pride with the rest of their buffalo kill

 

 

 

October 15th 14:15 - 17:45 Afternoon Drive (Self Drive)

 

female leopard in tree

 

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three females of the Vurheni lion pride with extremely young cubs

 

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we were then told that another leopard had just made a warthog kill and that the kill in return had been stolen by two sudadult lions of the Gomondwane pride

 

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Big Seven Day (regular Big Five + wild dogs + hyenas) completed with leopard at 15:00

 

Big Five Drive completed with buffalo at 17:40

 

October 15th 18:00 Dinner at Lower Sabie Restaurant

 

we were having dinner at Lower Sabie Restaurant when one of the waiters told us that they had found a huge python which had just swallowed a monior lizard behind the kitchen. Most naturally I followed the guy and there it was, the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild, less than 2 m away. Unfortunately I only had my iPhone with me and not my regular cameras. Still I managed to get some decent video footage. Unfortunately, a few minutes later the show was over. Two SAN Parks guides came by and told everybody to leave. They were planning to catch the python and take it out of the camp. The guides later told me that the snake regurgitated the lizard, as soon as the guys came too close and that it then disappeared into a pipe (with the lizard in its belly, the python would not have fit into the pipe)

 

October 15th 20:00 - 22:30 Night Drive (Guided Drive)

 

leopard with impala kill

 

porcupine, lesser bush babya

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here's another one I took of the young leopard minus its kill, I had a bigger lens than my daughter

 

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Edited by ice
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@@ice KNP really delivered. Did you plan the night before what roads and loops you'd take based on sightings boards? Use the sightings App? Or just go with the flow?

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@@Game Warden

 

a mixture of everything

 

as I tried to explain earlier: in Kruger you have to be able to not only read animal's behaviour but also the behaviour of other tourists...for example, if you see an open vehicle "racing" at maximum speed you can be sure he or she is on his or her way to something special...problem is, sometimes "something" could "merely" be a white rhino or a herd of elephants

 

anyway, in the morning I always try be among the first ones out of the gate, this way you sometimes can have great sightings for yourself, like those three male lions...I also usually use tar roads in the morning, lions and hyenas like to lie on them during the night when the tar gives off the heat of the day...

 

sighting boards...not so much, the camp staff does not really take care of them anymore, sometimes they are outdated, at other times the information they give is simply wrong...for example, during our recent stay there were (according to the sighting board) tons of wild dogs sightings around Satara - now me, in my nine years of visiting Kruger (+/- 20 nights at Satara) I have never ever seen wild dogs around Satara (way too many lions roam around Satara) so I was really suspicious...and sure enough, one day I came across folks who asked me about the difference between hyenas and wild dogs - until that day, they had thought "wild dog" was simply another word for "hyena"...a Satara guide confirmed that he had not seen any wild dogs around Satara for more than six months

 

sightings app...yes, I use it but again with caution...true, the information it gives is very accurate, especially about the location of the animals; however, sometimes (actually, most of the times) the report is an hour old when it gets to you and then you may have to travel another hour to get to it, so you better think twice before following it

 

but yes, we usually did plan ahead, based on our previous sightings and on what we'd heard from the various sources described above

 

most of the big cats we spotted this year we have seen on previous trips as well, so we kind of know the general area they live in, this helps a lot

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"c) not too many folks around here are interested in Kruger in the first place."

I will disagree with this part of the multiple choice.

 

Hey hey, Honey Badger! Such luck with the dogs.

 

"The guy at the gate was already in a heated discussion with other guests who had been unable to obey the closing time. We made good use of the opportunity and sneaked past him, quickly disappearing into the darkness of Kruger's biggest camp." You sneaky devil!

 

That ele carcass was interesting. Lion kill is a possibility, especially if the ele was at all compromised. I am guessing the aroma was none to pleasant.

 

Great 3 in one shot photo. One would be hard pressed to exceed 3 in a single shot.

 

Your cost info is helpful. Looks like you got a very good deal.

Edited by Atravelynn
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Catching up....the Dogs, The Lions, The Leopard.....great shots; love the dog pics esp. Thanks for taking us on your family adventure. I'd not be a good self-driver, but admire those that are for sure....Imaybe) one day :blink: Though I can barely drive on my own "new to me " back roads of small town america; not sure how I'd do in Africa.

 

You captured the experience beautifully.

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