Wild Places and Open Spaces

Day 22 – Morning

(see pics here)

All good things come to an end.

Today was our last safari drive at Dulini with our friends.

Highlights from the drive were a leopard (the one with the cut on the back of his leg), a Steenbok and a crash of rhinos. A steenbok is yet another type of antelope – South Africa alone hosts 29 antelope species, more than anywhere else in Africa. It is small with large ears, and the inside of it’s ears are white with black stripes. Very cute.

The crash of rhinos was an unexpected close encounter. This situation exemplifies how the vehicles do not bother many of the animals in the reserve. We had been driving along the winding dirt tracks when we turned a corner and came upon three rhinos on the track. The vehicle came to an immediate stop – one does not want to mess with rhinos! We waited and watched – once they decided it was time to move on, they wandered back into the bush, vanishing from our sight.

We came across a Spotted Thick-knee – this is a stone-curlew bird, less common than the Water Thick-knee that we had been seeing a lot of. The relevance of these birds in our minds was that it brought back fond memories of the Bush Stone-curlew that we saw (and had hiss at us) in Australia. All are chiefly nocturnal, although are common to see in daytime as well.  They are called ‘Thick-knees’ because they have thick knees! Imagine that.

After another great drive and breakfast, it was time to leave our friends and begin our adventure into Kruger National Park. We had such an incredible time with them all, and without their generosity, this trip would never have been possible for us.

After a teary (Kristin) goodbye, we were off at 10am on yet another adventure. On the dirt tracks leading away from Dulini (but still in Sabie Sand) we came across our leopard friend once again. He was walking along the road, with seemingly no cares in the world, and did not care that we were there in our car watching him. The sun was shining on his coat, and he looked stunningly handsome. The whole situation seemed very funny to us, as for 4 days every time we had come across a leopard the guides had worked hard tracking them, and here today, we had come upon him just by chance.

We entered Kruger through the Paul Kruger gate, and drove as far north as we would in the park – to Mopani Rest Camp. Initially we had booked to go further north, to Shingwedzi Rest Camp. However, we were notified that this camp had been badly damaged in the flooding that had taken place in January, and was closed until further notice. Too bad, because we had really been looking forward to travelling further north.

Afternoon

The long drive was nice – we saw the different landscapes of Kruger, from densely vegetated scrub land, to wide open savanna grasslands along the way, with of course many animal viewing opportunities. Jim was very excited to see a couple of Secretarybirds, which he had been hoping he would see. They are strange looking – kind of have an eagle type head with crane-like legs and can be 4ft tall! They are mostly terrestrial, (but can fly) and they are birds of prey.

Our lodging at the camp was a cement structure with a thatched grass roof – different from the permanent tent we had stayed in at Skukuzza rest camp. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms and an outside kitchen on the porch – lots of room!!

We dumped our gear and went for a walk – they had a small interpretive nature trail that followed the fence line of part of the camp. The trail was somewhat unkempt, which we didn’t mind, except that we only had sandals and shorts on. We had just finished reading an interpretive sign about snakes when Kristin hiked up some rocks and saw a very large, thick black snake. Fresh in her mind was the information about the black mamba snake, she quickly reverted back down the rocks saying ‘SNAKE’. A couple moments later, armed with curiosity, we ventured up the rocks again only to find that the snake was gone. Probably a good thing, but we were disappointed that we didn’t have a better look. So, we aren’t sure what it was. Could have been the deadly black mamba, but it was more likely a water snake. Needless to say, we had been planning on walking this trail at night, but now decided this probably was not a smart practice.

We hit the camp store for some snacks, walked around a bit more, then hit the sack early. Another great day.

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