We have recently come back from a trip to Kruger, so we decided to do a Kruger Diary to update our readers on what the trip consisted of.
Day 1- Wednesday
We arrived at Kruger around 8 o’clock in the morning, we entered the park at Malelane Gate and drove to Skukuza via the H3, the day was slow only managing to spot a few elephants and kudus and obviously impalas.
Once we arrived at Skukuza we enjoyed brunch at Cattle Baron before heading down to our reserved hut at Lower Sabie. Driving on the H4-1, sightings were not on our side because it was hot we didn’t manage to spot anything.
After checking in at Lower Sabie and enjoying an afternoon nap, we set off on the H4-2 and travelled on the S130 and we were finally lucky to see our first cat of the day. The sighting consisted of a few lionesses which were sleeping on their back but a while later decided to get up and move around.
We headed back to camp hoping to see more but alas nothing wanted to be photographed that afternoon.
Day 2 – Thursday
We tried our luck by driving on the H4-2 and then heading towards the H10 hoping to see something on the road but again luck wasn’t on our side, we decided to test our spotting skills on the S30 sand road after taking the S29 turn off first. We were hoping to see anything at this point of the drive because we had only seen hyena and elephant after driving for an approximate of 2 hours. After the sand road we headed towards Skukuza, and right before Skukuza we saw a lioness and one cub in the riverbank it was such a quick sighting that we carried on driving to have brunch at Skukuza again.
Maybe we just needed a coffee break because on the way back to Lower Sabie there was so much traffic and at Kruger it only means one thing – a cat sighting ahead, there was apparently a pride of lionesses and one male lion, they were in such thick bush that sitting at the sighting and trying to spot them knowing that they wouldn’t be moving due the heat was pointless so we carried on driving back to camp.
After relaxing for a few hours we set off on a afternoon drive along the H4-1 and we saw one young male lion relaxing onthe riverbank and 500m ahead there was a few lionesses on rocks but they were so far you could only see them with binoculars. For the rest of the afternoon we drove to the H10 and decided to stop at the waterhole along the S128 to watch some elephants drinking, further along we came across a jackal chewing on a flip flop, we at first thought it was a bark of a tree but upon further inspection it turned out to be a shoe.
Day 3 – Friday
On the 3rd morning we set off towards the S21 gravel road, since it is winter we were still hoping for animals to be on the tar road but on this trip we didn’t see any animals early morning on the road.
The S21 sand road is one of our favorite roads after the H7 because we have had memorable sightings on this road. We didn’t see anything interesting on the sand road but as we turned right towards the Renosterkoppies waterhole there was one more car and we couldn’t see what they were looking at, until we saw one lioness walking towards the waterhole and behind her there was a few small cubs walking with her, and if we didn’t think it could get any better, it did because behind the cubs awhile later a male lion appeared and he started following the lioness and the cubs towards the waterhole. They moved off into the bush where you could no longer see them so we decided to move on as well.
After a quick stop at Lake panic we set off back towards camp, and again there was a lot of traffic on the H12 bridge and the cause of it was a leopard in the riverbank. We finally were able to spot our very first leopard for the trip, after getting a few pictures the leopard moved off into the bushes making it hard to spot him. Instead of going back on the tar road we decided to go back on the on the S30 sand road.
While we were at Lower Sabie, we heard from other visitors that lions had made a kill along the riverbank not far from camp, but when we headed there in the afternoon we couldn’t spot anything besides some vultures, but we were able to see lionesses sleeping on the Lubyelubye rocks. After an hour or so of driving we headed back to camp and called it a day.
Day 4 – Saturday
We decided to head towards Crocodile Bridge on this morning, in hopes of seeing the Shishangeni males as they are frequently seen on the tar road, but again we weren’t lucky but we were able to see a few lionesses on the S28, they were very far in, so we decided to stop at Crocodile Bridge camp for a coffee.
Once we got back to the area around Lower Sabie it was still early and we decided it would be best if we carried on driving around, we decided to drive on the S128 again as it’s one of those sand roads which isn’t particularly busy and the bush isn’t as thick, while driving a car stopped us to let us know that there was 2 cheetahs ahead, on our previous trip we had seen the two cheetah brothers on this same road.
Before heading back to camp we decided to drive along the riverbank again as lioness had been stationary there the whole day, while looking for the lionesses, out of no where we saw a cheetah attempting to hunt an impala, it happened so fast that we weren’t able to even get one photo.
We had booked to go on a sunset drive so after heading back to camp we decided to relax by our hut while waiting.
Our sunset drive was one of the most successful ones we have gone on, as we managed to spot a few genets, civets early into our drive and just before we got back to camp we were able to spot 1 male lion with 4 lionesses.
Last Day – Departure
On the day we usually have to leave we hardly see any animals making it easier to leave the park without being so melancholic , this time was different, because when we arrived on the H3 after having a quiet drive from Lower Sabie, we saw lions, but again they were so far away,we moved on, given up all hope we were getting closer and closer to the Malelane Gate, out of no where we spotted a leopard, we were the only car and we were able to see him cross the road before he decided to stalk some impala, we were hoping he was going to make a kill but after 40 minutes he was still stalking the impala even though the impala had moved on.
4 kilometers before the gate we turned onto the S114 because there was a leopard 1km into the sand road and we found him sleeping in a tree next to his impala kill. With pretty good sightings we decided to end the trip there and head back home.
Thank you so much for reading, we hope you enjoyed reading our Kruger Diary.