The day had long been anticipated but here we are back in South Africa once again and about to enter Kruger park via the Malelane gate.
I had been watching videos of South Africa on YouTube and it was apparent that there had been a lot of unseasonal rain and that was to be abundantly clear as soon as we got into the bush – there was a distinctly green hue to the veld.
Our very first drive was along the southern perimeter road, the S25, which often delivers great sightings for us, this was to be no exception. Before we even drove through the gate a dung beetle pushed a huge ball of elephant dung past the car until it hit the kerb and took a long detour. Our first stop inside the park was at Gardenia hide where an elephant crept up unnoticed by us and proceeded to enjoy a mud bath right there in front of us. So close that I had to use my phone to record the video. Later on the S25 we witnessed a dark-maned male lion resting in the shade before he wandered off to find somewhere cooler to spend the day. There many other sightings too that day but nothing to beat these two. The next day showed plenty of Zebra and other game plus my first bee-eater of the trip, simply stunning little birds. We have previously seen an occasional Burchells Coucal but they must have migrated early with the wetter weather as there have been plentiful sightings so far. Sunset dam is close by Lower Sabie and can offer a great range of wildlife, a first for me this year was an African Skimmer which passed by twice before moving on.
Time for a braai with some local boerewors and Castle lite.
The full set of images from our trip can be seen here