ANOTHER VISIT TO KRUGER PARK - July 2013

Last weekend, we drove to Kruger Park for a weekend visit. The park is only two hours away, but we have to go via the Ressano Garcia border crossing. The first is on the Mozambican side, the next is on the South African side. This is where we get our passports stamped and we are given authority to drive across and back. This time we waited in a long line of people for two hours to leave Mozambique. Customs there is not very efficient. The South African side is more organised and efficient. On our return it took 10 - 15 minutes to go through both checkpoints! (I have been told on holidays and especially at Christmas, people can wait between 4-6 hours!!)

We eventually arrived at our hotel which was only 100 metres from the entrance gate at Malelane. We had an early night, as we wanted to get up very early the next morning. We intended to check out places to visit and stay when family comes to visit us in October and November this year. We drove as far as Satara.

During our day of driving, this is what we saw......

We were greeted by "Phumba" or a warthog as we entered Skukuza Camp.

Majestic looking water buffalo, by the side  of the road.

Graceful giraffes glided by us.

Our first ever leopard! They are very hard to spot.
This one was enjoying it's meal!

Showing off the carcass.

WOW! What a beautiful animal!

We were looking at a pod of hippos in a waterhole, when Mr. O.
spotted some lions in the distance with our binoculars.

We watched in anticipation to see our first hunt in operation.

The lion crouched behind a tree watching...

a "sounder" of warthogs. Oblivious to their onlooker. She pounced on them,
but they were too quick and got away with their tails in tact!
We think she was a juvenile and was practising her hunting skills.

Can you spot the three other lions, resting in the shade of the midday son?

Another leopard! Just hanging about and resting during the heat of the day.

A rare spotting of the endangered "wild dog"!

We didn't know that Kruger Park had ostriches!

Another wonderful find!
A mother cheetah with her three cubs!

Leopard #3 with its kill. Underneath the tree was a ...

big, mean looking hyena, grabbing at every morsel that fell from above!

Sunday. Before heading back to Maputo, we had lunch at a
special restaurant called THE DECK. It is situated right on
the banks of the Crocodile River that borders Kruger Park.

See how close we are? The electric fence was just in front of the deck railing !

We watched several herds of elephants "surf" down the steep sand banks to drink and swim in the river.
 They would bend their back legs and kneel down to create a "brake", so as not to topple.
They looked like they were having a fun time! It was very  interesting and funny to watch!

Timid kudos checking out the neighbours.

A male elephant on his own, crossing the river.

How lucky were we? VERY!