Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Africa - Thorny Bush - Day 5


Day Five

 

We were awake before the alarm anxiously waiting for our next game drive.

Today we saw White Rhino, White-back vultures, Baboons, Giraffe, Wildebeest and Cheetahs.  It was a cooler day, misting on us most of the morning.  We put on the ponchos they provided us with to stay warm and as dry as possible.  One of the other  groups were able to see lion, so hopefully this evening we will be lucky to see that too.


 

 

We spent a leisure day at the Lodge, well actually catching up on our blog and getting the pictures downloaded and inserted.

 

Tonight, we did our normal game drive, plus stopped at two lodges to check-out their facilities.
 

 

On our game drive tonight we saw Water Buck (he has a white ring on his rear, the tracker calls it their “follow me sign”), 5 White Rhinoceros, Go Away Bird and Giraffes.  We stopped and took a break along the trail and were served snacks, wine, beer, etc and talked about our sightings and what was yet to come.  Unfortunately, we were cut just a little short due to the onset of heavy rain.

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Day Six

 

Our usual wake call at 500AM, into our land cruisers by 520AM, no time to dilly dally around.  Today, our tracker and guides mission was to find the lions.  Another group at the lodge had seen them the night before, so we really wanted to spot them too.  We spent the better part of the morning drive searching and tracking them; finally, they were located and we did quite a bit of off-roading and trampling trees to follow a lioness and her cubs.  We were successful!  We then headed back to the lodge for breakfast and to pack for our move to the next lodge.

 
 



 

We stopped at Kapama Lodge & Reserve so that we could check-out their facilities.

They are located directly across from the Hoedspruit Airport and their guests are picked up in the Land Rovers.  They have a beautiful facility and they are rated as a 5 star property.

 

We then had an hour transfer to Karongwe Riverside Lodge located in the Karongwe Reserve.  We arrived there at 230PM and immediately had lunch, followed by our evening game drive starting at 4PM.  Our accommodations were roomy cabins with a porch overlooking the water hole.

 

Our new ranger is Betuel and his tracker is Raymond.  Betuel is very knowledgeable

about the various species that we saw and shared great tidbits along the way.  We saw: Bush Buck, Nile crocodile, Yellow-Billed Stork, Guinea Fowl, Giraffe, Nyala, White Rhinoceros, Cheetah and the LION! 

 
 

 

 

OMG!    The Lion viewing is amazing…… At first, he wouldn’t look at us, then he yawned and the ranger said, he’ll yawn 3 times and that means he’ll move.

And he did!  He yawned exactly 3 times and got up and slowly walked by us and moved to another location.   We were able to get some great pictures!

 

Back to the Lodge for dinner, shower, sleep and back on the trail tomorrow with a wake call of 5AM once again……

 

 

Day Seven

 

It is 5AM once again, out to the Land Rovers to see what animals we could locate today.

 

Kudo, Jackal, Baboons, Monkeys, Giraffe, Elephant and the Hippopotamus.

 
 

 

On our way back to the lodge, we stopped to visit the neighboring tented camp (Chisimo).  The camp had just been totally re-done 2 months ago and really was a wonderful place to stay.

 

After breakfast, we headed out for our 6 hour bus ride back to Johannesburg, with a stop for lunch in Dullstroom.  Dullstroom and the surrounding area reminded us all of Napa Valley.  The landscape was hilly and the town was very quaint with cute little restaurants and shops to explore.

 

We are spending our night at the City Lodge located right at the Johannesburg Airport and tomorrow we will fly off to Kasane Airport and travel to Victoria Falls.

 


 

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