Meals: Breakfast, Dinner
3rd of December 2013
Great news we didn't have to get up ridiculously early today.
Jan (senior park guide) was a really entertaining presenter at the Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre. As part of Jan's presentation he mimicked the noises of various wild animals, one of those was the buffalo. It was amusing to watch a reasonably big bloke get so into making basically cow noises, so I couldn't help myself and I asked him to mimic the buffalo again he happily did. He was good humoured and very passionate in a balanced way about the protection and conservation of the South African Wildlife. The confronting part of the tour was the graphic images of injured wildlife, it was really hard to see. Whilst they try hard to save injured animals the reality is that most don't make it, the lucky rehabilitated wildlife get released into either private game reserves or to the National Parks. The not so lucky but luckier than some get to live out their days at the rehab centre.
Jan told a couple of funny stories to us the first one was he said that in the past they have had several visitors who describe themselves as having a "special connection" with one of the wild predators that they have in captivity. Once that "special connection" has been established they have attempted to enter the predators enclosure, apparently it doesn't always end well for the person who has had the "special connection". Having said that you could take it that the "special connection" is in fact "predator and prey".
The other great story Jan tells is of the day 3 leopards escaped, 2 were caught before the tourists entered the Rehab Centre leaving one M.I.A. but have no fear it turned up in the presentation hall under the tea & coffee table. It was spotted by one of the visitors queueing for coffee, apparently the visitor saw the tail wagging under the table and thought it was a moving display.
We then hooked up with Oscar, (not the shooter) who took us for a guided walk around the facility. He was a far more serious dude but just as passionate, he believes that organisations like WWF have done alot more harm in term of conservation than good because they have stopped the local conservationist from implementing what they believe is the best policy. For example in Kruger they used to cull elephants, but international pressure to stop the culls has now caused an over population of elephants.
The problem is that they believe Kruger National Park can sustain 7,000 elephants it currently has over 17,000, as result the elephant's have / are destroying the habitats of other animals and pushing them to the critically endangered list.
First bird we saw was a crazy Southern Ground Hornbill which had been hand reared and as such now thinks its a human. This bird has fire engine red patches around it's eyes and the same red colouring as an apron around its neck. The Zulus used to call the English the Southern Ground Hornbill, (but in their native tongue) because after a few days in the African sun the English go the same colour red around the face and neck.Lisa got a thrill when she patted a beautifully coloured Bateleur eagle, with a black head and red beak. When it was my turn the "tame" eagle went into full attack mode and eyeballing with intent. Once was bad enough, (cheetah park) twice is a coincidence and if it happens again well thats a sign from God. (not sure which one)
The next stop was the Vulture cage to feed a Cape Vulture, these bird can weigh up to 16kgs with a wing span of around 2 meters. To feed him I had to wear a big old leather glove whilst holding a piece of meat in between my thumb and forefinger, the vulture landed on my wrist and smashed down the meat in a blink of an eye. I'm glad the Vulture didn't weigh the full amount because when it landed my arm dropped and had to be supported by Oscar. They are an incredibly ugly bird but absolutely necessary in this ecosystem and unfortunately the poachers are poisoning them, when they circle poached rhinos they give the location of the poachers away so they poison the meat. The witch doctors are also using them for moloko (traditional medicine). In August this year they lost around 1000 due to poisoning and one breeding pair only hatches 1 chick a year.
The cheetahs, lions, wild dogs, hyenas and rhino enclosures were interesting to see but when you come to Africa you really want to see them out on game drive, wild and free.
Our next stop was Kruger National Park, we saw lots of Impala, referred to as the MacDonalds of Africa for 2 reasons, firstly because they are everywhere and the second is that on their arse there is a black stripe down each cheek with a black stripe down the centre of their tails. When you look at them from behind the black stripe look like the "Maccas arches".
We also ticked off Kudu, a few giraffes at distance, 2 or so rhinos both black and white reasonably close by, but the highlight was a juvenile male elephant by the side of the road, it was less than 5 meters away, I'm not sure words can describe the feeling of seeing such a magnificent animal so close, I'll just say it was awesome. But then our day got even better because we came across a small herd of about 6, their was a mum with a tiny baby, when all the ladies saw the baby elephant there was a collective awww. The juvenile male false charged the vehicle, trumpeted and shook his head at about 3 meters away. Once again awesome...
At a reasonably large watering hole we saw several heads and bum's of hippo's as they bobbed up and down. It appeared that they have boggly eyes (the ones that stick out). At the same watering hole we got to watch a couple of rhino's leisurely wander around.
We got to our campsite and settled in for the evening with a Gin & Tonic, happy days.
4th of December 2013
I believe every day I get to wake up is a great day, and today turned out to be even better than my normally great days!!!
We headed out on a 4x4 Wheel game drive with "D", an abbreviation of his real name, his real name was 56 letters long with 15 vowels. So "D" suggested that we just call him "D", which sounded fair to me because I tried to pronounce "D's" full name but soon realised it was hopeless.
So here is my tip of the day, if you're heading to Kruger and planning on taking a guided tour on a 4x4 then insist on "D" from Kurt's Safaris, it will cost about 500 Rand ($50 Aus) and here is why. We pretty much saw every wild animal up close and personal there was to see on this game drive that you could possibly imagine, with the two exceptions being we saw a leopard in a tree at a distance of about 60 meters away. Which from everything I hear it is an incredibly rare event to see leopards in the wild at all, the second was we saw no cheetahs, apparently there are only 120 of them in Kruger and they all live in the northern areas of Kruger. (we were in a really small area of the southern part of Kruger)
How it panned out was like this, we would say something like "geee I'd really like to see a rhino" and just like magic we would tumble across a Crash of Rhinos. It was like that with every animal we wanted to see. Case in point - we were on our way to have lunch an we said "we'd like to see some lions" and without taking a detour we came across 3 adult female lions walking alongside the road. And when I say by the side of the road, I literally mean alongside the road, we could have just lean't out and touched them. I did suggest this to Lisa but she wasn't up for it even though she felt she had a "special bond with them".
There were so many highlights I'll try and describe some of them, it may not come across how excited we were but trust me when I say we were.
We got to see to two juvenile lions being moved along by rhino's, charged by a juvenile male elephant, watched a family of elephants drink and wallow at a watering hole from a distance of about 5 meters. Lots of zebras, water buffalo, wilderbeast, impalas, dwarf mongoose, leopard tortoise, hippos, a monitor lizard, a foam nest frog's nest, warthogs, lots of birds, a chameleon, waterbuck they are easily identified because they have a white ring on their arse. According to "D" the story goes that they sat down on a freshly painted white toilet seat and hence the white ring. Lastly after realising we hadn't yet seen a giraffe, we asked "D" and of course he delivered in abundance.
We had an early dinner so we could go on the Kruger Night Game drive. Whilst walking to the meeting point we saw a couple of Dwarf Mongeese, they look almost like large dark brown rats with thick tails.
Chester was our driver / guide who seemed a little cranky at the start of the drive but he soon warmed up to me, he had no choice really since I was riding shot gun. 10 minutes into the drive we hadn't seen anything and the Chester got the call " two male lions at Ship Mountain", it was in the opposite direction about 30 minutes away so Chester asked if we wanted to go and see them. He told us they might not be there when we get there but if we wanted to take the chance then he had to do some driving. Of course we all said "hell yes, drive like you stole it, we can take the African massage". When we got to the location there was this magnificent lion sitting in the middle of the road, as we got closer he decided to have a bit of a lie down. Chester thought he may have just eaten and so just as we humans like to lie down after a big meal it was nap time, with the occasional lifting of the head to display his huge dark brown mane. On occasion the lion looked directly into the vehicle, everyone on the passenger side of the vehicle felt he was looking at them. I wanted to go backwards but Chester was in that seat, I suspect I was being used as his human shield.
It was just on dusk, the light was fading fast but this one Lion sighting was worth the price of admission.
We drove around in the dark, spot light searching, but every animal we saw wanted to run away at high speed except for the buffalo's, they preferred to just dawdle away. I spotted one rhino but apparently shining a spot light into it's eyes is not a good idea, according to Chester it will cause them to charge the vehicle or alternatively run away, thankfully this one ran away. It could have been exciting had we been charged but I would have been the human shield again.
The funniest thing that happened during the night drive was, when we were heading back to the camp down the main road we drove up to a Spotted Thick Knee bird standing in the middle of the road. To get away from us it flew about 50 meters down the road and then landed in the middle of the road, as we approached again it flew about another 50 meters down the road and landed. This process was repeated about 6 times, lets just say the Spotted Thick Knee bird is also not that bright. By flying in front of the vehicle all the time it gave us a chance to look at its wing movements in the vehicle headlights, its like a blurring at the top and bottom of its flapping motion but more like a solid image in the middle. I think the effect was caused by the reflection of the headlights on the Spotted Thick Knee birds wings, it really was odd to see.
Such beautiful and amazing photographs
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