Let's find the big 5!

Waking up at 4:00am and climbing into Oldrich’s Convy was a lot more pleasant than getting up to hike, even though we knew we had a 6 hour drive towards to Kruger to visit Moholoholo Rehabilitation center, all 6 of us were very excited and very tired at the same time.

We arrived at Moholoholo at 9:30 and we had an introduction speech on the troubles facing South African wildlife, including some shocking photos of leopard injuries caused by poacher’s snares, hard to stomach at 9:30 in the morning.

We were allowed into large cages containing eagles and vultures. In the vulture cage the guide asked for 5 people to have the vultures fly to a glove on our arm. Zoe, Phillipa, Hannah, Lars and my arms went straight up to volunteer, the vultures were surprisingly light for such huge birds. As we were leaving there was a female warthog with her really young baby, it shows that even ugly animals are cute when they are younger.

As we entered the park Zoe, Liam and I were sitting in the middle seats in the car, binoculars and camera ready to snap any pictures of wildlife that we came across. To start with we had sightings of Impala, these were exciting at first but they were absolutely everywhere, even being called the fast food of the bush.

We reached camp in time for 4:30 when our sun downer game drive started, we all packed into the safari vehicle and went off in hope of seeing something amazing. While the sun was up we only really saw an elephant that was about 200 meters away as well as a group of zebra and wildebeest crossing the road.

Ever seen a zebra crossing?

 We stopped off at a view point for a beer and then headed back towards camp with spotlights shining out of the car looking for anything. A few bush babies and impala later we stopped the vehicle as a Genet was chilling by the side of the road, I took that as a good sign that we would see one of the big cats tonight.

Sure enough 20 minutes later we stopped the car as three adolescent male lions were walking down the road, these were probably brothers that were not old enough to have their own pride, we spent half an hour with them trying to get photo’s, which is remarkably hard during the night with only spotlights. By the gate back into camp we saw another 2 adult male lions.

Throughout cooking dinner (we had pasta) I could not wipe the smile off my face, this was already an amazing trip and it had barely even started. As we started eating, we heard one of the sounds that both Hannah and I really wanted to hear at night, a lion roaring. We looked at each other and mouthed YES!

We headed out at 4:30 on the second day just as the gates opened, the day was cool and misty as we climbed back into the convy to head to Skukuza with our bushy eyeballs in to look for wildlife. Two hours in we hit a pile up, a pile up in Kruger happens when people stop to look at something and other cars are stopping at the same time, like a traffic jam but more interesting. We pulled up to the pile up with excitement about what we may see, as soon as we got there it was obvious as a male lion and his younger son (about two years old) were walking together along the side of the road. The way they look at you is chilling, it’s like they are not looking at you as much as they are looking right through you, almost reading your mind.

Stunning Lions!

After we left the lions and a few stops for some gorgeous Kudu Bulls with their curly horns, Oldrich spotted something at the side of the road, it was one of the rarest species of birds within Kruger Park, the ground hornbill. These birds mate for life and give birth once every seven years, and will only mate in a specific tree, if the tree is knocked down by elephants then the birds will never mate again.

Ground Hornbill!

Within 20 minutes we saw 3 of the big five, at first we saw a family group of elephants with a young calf, minutes later we saw a white rhino extremely close to the road and then we saw a beautiful buffalo looking straight at us. The only one of the big 5 we had to still see was the one Liam was most anxious to see and arguably the hardest to spot, a leopard.

hey mr buffalo 

Elephants!

We stopped for lunch at a pick nick spot where I brought a KuduWors (sausage made of Kudu meat) roll and had to be extremely vigilant that the vervet monkeys did not steal our food. Shortly after leaving the pick nick spot I saw my first venomous snake of my South African trip, a beautiful night adder moving along the road.

Night Adder! First Venomous Snake

A few hours after lunch we spotted a pile up in the distance and raced to see what they had spotted, after five minutes looking into the bush Oldrich’s saw spots under the tree, we then had a clear view of two cheetah sitting near each other, such an amazing sighting and rare to see animal, Oldrich has been doing trips with students for 6 years and has only seen cheetah twice.

Gorgeous Cheetah

We arrived at Skukuza in time for a lovely swim before dinner where we ate in a restraint, I ordered fillet stake and a glass of wine for £12, and it was the best steak I have ever tasted before in my life. The river side lodge that we stayed in was absolutely gorgeous or as Oldrich calls it Larny (posh). Overnight a loud noise woke me up, it took me a while to realise what the sounds were, and it was the last animal I wanted to hear in the bush at night, a pack of spotted Hyena calling to each other.

Larny sleeping in Skukuza

The next day it was 40 degrees, we didn’t expect much this day in terms of wildlife as they will all be hiding from the sun, at midday just as we were pulling up to a hide by a lake to view Nile Crocodiles and on the way I asked to stop the car but couldn't remember what hippo’s were called, so when asked what I said stop for I replied “Those big fat things that live in water”. On the way there a Serval ran in front of our car with a lizard in its mouth, I think we were all so shocked that no one got a picture as it is so rare to see a Serval let alone during the day in 40 degree heat!

We arrived at Satara at 2 and went for a swim ready to go back out on a game drive in the evening which we left at 4. About 2km away from camp we ran into a pile up on a bridge where they were watching a large pride of lions by a watering hole, at the same place there were baboons, zebra, impala and giraffe.

We headed back to camp with the sun setting over the Savannah planes, I was leaning out of the car taking sunset pictures as it just got better and better, the best sunset I have ever seen. 

Sunset in Africa

We made it back to camp minutes before gates shut at 6:30 when we would have had to pay 700 rand fine.

Our final day and it could not have been any more different to the day before, it was raining and the temperature dropped from nearly 40 degrees to little over 20!

It turned out that the wet weather was more of a blessing than a curse as it brought animals to the road, within an hour we had seen an elephant drinking, spotted hyena, and an African Rock Python, the third largest species of snake in the world, though this one was only 3 meters long, Liam was surprised when I told him that they can grow up to 8.5 meters long!

3 meter Rock Python 

The time was around 8 when we saw our final pile up of the Kruger trip, everyone was wishing and hoping for a specific sighting but no one wanted to jinx it. As we reached the pile up about 100 meters from the road a leopard was sitting in a bush, the final one we wanted to see… the big 5!

Finally a leopard

We arrived at Phalabora for an elephant management talk at 10 and then headed out of the park back towards Lajuma, exhausted but extremely happy.