on the road again
I hired a car and spent 3 days in Kruger park: its a huge park – the size of Wales I’m told and has a number of biomes in there, from sandy veld to bushveld etc.
I found an ellie carcass that no-one knew about and saw a herd of 200+ buffalo cross the road in front of me, I also saw lots of nice birds (feathered unfortunately) like Kori Bustard and a family of Ground Hornbill which crossed the road around me…nice photos again (these are VERY rare birds on the Red list) 
After staying overnight at the Oliphant camp in Kruger I left early down a small track…..spotting a ‘road kill’ at the side of the road, I parked up next to it realising that it was a BIG spotted hyena!I moved closer and closer until it was right beside the car so that I leant out of the open window right above its head……..which then jerked up so that its eyes..and jaws were literally 9″ from my camera which was right in front of my face! BLIMEY ! (as me granda used to say) I nearly pooped!!! anyhoo, it dropped its head back down and at that point I could see its chest heaving as it breathed. I took some quick photos 
and then moved back thinking that maybe it was about to die….well, blow me if it didnt wait another 10 minutes or so and then just get up and trot off!!! no sign of any injuries at all!!! just goes to show you NEVER get out of yer car!!!
After Kruger I set off through the Blyde river canyon (Gods window and loads of waterfalls) staying at Graskop overnight (in a power cut, due to the mismanagement of RSA power generation) then I drove down to Sodwana bay to learn to dive at the Coral Divers scuba centre. All was going well at this fab place until I burst some blood vessels in my ear…in the blinking pool!!!!! so that was the end of that! I did go out with the dive boat just for the ride and got to see some humpback whales passing by….which was nice.
I also had a drive around the Mkuze game reserve…..which was OK, 
until I drove into a bushfire!!! completely surrounded, I had to drive completely blind thru the smoke (and very small flames, it has to be said) and hope it would be better thru the other side – fortunately it was!…a quick cheese toastie to settle me nerves and it was back to the Bay to watch the RSA provincial cup (Currie cup) semi’s on TV. drink provided by a group of gents that worked for a brewery and brought a few cool boxes of……..samples. nice.
following that I drove into KwaZulu natal to check out Rorkes Drift – the scene of the battle from which the film Zulu was conjured. its not that great a place – theres nothing left of the original building – however theres another battlefield not far away calld Ilsandwala (I think) 
where the zulus smashed our forces a few days prior to Rorkes drift. A MUCH more atmospheric place…quite moving really.
A drive over to the Drakensberg mountains then next day left me overnight in a lovely hostel/lodge with a fabulous mountainous backdrop 
, however only one night here as I had to leave to meet Ikey and the Matopi Game Capture team again near Cradock
Tags: Travel
chuggy
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