Day 88 – Kambaku River Sands – Safari Day 3

Day 88 – Kambaku River Sands – Safari Day 3 — April 2, 2018

Here is a video summary of the two game drives we took today.

Early Morning Wakeup

With the threat of rain gone, we were looking forward to our first early morning drive.

The staff knocked on our door at 5:15 AM and waited for us to respond with some sort of an acknowledgement before they moved on. We were already up and left for the lodge about 5:30 AM where they would have a continental buffet breakfast laid out for us.

Meals are served in the lodge and this is where you will find the lounge, wine cellar, pool and bar etc. The admin building, located at the opposite end of the complex, about two hundred yards away, has the gift shop, front desk and is where we would depart from on the game drives.

Once we arrived at the lodge for our continental breakfast, we barely had enough time to grab a quick bite before we headed off to the other end of the complex to meet our guide and tracker for the game drive. A few people elected to have a snack in their cabin and go directly to the admin building to avoid backtracking and we decided we would do the same tomorrow.

Morning Game Drive

The drive is scheduled for 6 AM, but once everyone was present, we left a few minutes early. We headed off over the terrain that was now becoming somewhat familiar. What never fails to amaze us is how we could drive for 10 minutes without seeing anything, and then around the next turn we would see something amazing.

This morning we headed down the paved road for a bit and spotted a hyena laying on the warm pavement. We stopped nearby, and he seemed totally disinterested with our presence. Our guide explained that the animals view the vehicle with human occupants as something familiar, which doesn’t pose any threat, so they leave us alone. Leaving the vehicle or standing up in the presence of animals was forbidden, since that would make us appear differently and may prompt a reaction from the animals we were observing.

A few hundred yards away we spotted several hyenas chewing on what turned out to be an impala. Nick, our guide, explained that the impala was probably killed by a leopard, but then the leopard was chased away by the small pack of hyenas. The hyenas devoured the impala, chomping and chewing, and paying little attention to anything else. Two hyenas were sharing the bulk of the impala, and they would chase away any other hyena that came close. You will see on the video in this post the hyenas chewing away on the impala.

Moving on, we came across some zebras off the side of the road. Zebras, a common sighting for us, but this time we saw a young zebra following the mother closely. Our guide explained that baby zebras have long legs so that their bodies are roughly the same height off the ground at the adult zebras and are less visible to predators.

The Big Five

You will often hear people refer to The Big Five:
• Lion
• Leopard
• Rhinoceros
• Elephant
• Cape Buffalo

This term was coined by big-game hunters and refers to the five most difficult animals in Africa to hunt on foot. Now the term, Big Five, is used by every Safari operator, and is of high interest to most tourists as everyone wants to check off the fact they have seen the Big Five. Trying to capitalize on the term Big Five, you may hear the term “Little Five” being used to talk about the elephant shrew, buffalo weaver, leopard tortoise, antlion and rhino beetle. Not satisfied with the big five and the little five there are even more groupings of African animals as follows:

• The Big Seven: this adds the great white shark and the southern right whale to the Big Five
• The Ugly Five: hyena, wildebeest, vulture, warthog, and the marabou stork
• The Shy Five: meerkat, aardvark, porcupine, bat-eared fox, aardwolf
• The Impossible Five: aardvark, cape mountain leopard, pangolin, riverine rabbit and white lion

The safari lodges are highly motivated to make sure you see the Big Five, because the first question you are often asked after you return from a Safari, is “Did you see the Big Five?” They would much prefer that you’ll be able to answer this question in the affirmative.

Keeping track of our big five tally, we crossed the cape buffalo and the elephant off the list yesterday, and today we would soon add the rhinoceros. Driving down one of the dirt roads, we came around a large bush and were surprised to see a large white rhino standing right there munching on some grass. There are also black rhinos in South Africa, but both white and black rhinos are gray. Here is a LINK to a video that shows the difference.

We have seen rhinos in zoos, and we’re always kept at a safe distance, with the rhino usually behind a moat or some other barrier. This rhino was no more than 15 feet away without any kind of barrier between us. The seemingly total indifference to our presence by all the animals we have seen so far was surprising. We have not seen any of them react to our presence with the exception of a young elephant we saw yesterday. I had expected that more animals might look up, turn their head in our direction, or at least in some manner acknowledge our presence.

The Crime Scene

Nick, our guide, jokingly referred to the impala that was killed by the leopard, as a “crime scene”. Finding the leopard responsible was our next objective. Driving down the roads we scoured the trees looking for signs of a leopard and after about 20 minutes having seen none, we stopped for our morning snack. A large termite mound was near where we stopped and we all posed for pictures with the mound in the background.

Continuing our search for the leopard, we spotted more zebras and then we received a radio call, that another group spotted the leopard in a tree and we are on our way to their location.

Spotting these cats in trees requires a practiced eye, and the trackers and guides do a marvelous job of picking them out as they are well camouflaged. Arriving near the other game drive vehicle, we stayed about 50 yards back giving them time to finish their observation. After about five minutes, the other vehicle left, and we moved into position underneath the tree. We were well off the road and as I mentioned earlier this is one of the advantages of being on a private game reserve as you are permitted to drive off road.

Once again, the leopard appeared totally indifferent to our presence, and never acknowledged that a group of seven humans was less than 30 feet away. The leopard was lying on a branch, sat up once and turned around, then lay down again. We learned later that people on other safaris were fortunate to see a leopard up in the tree with an impala that was recently killed. Nick was fairly certain that this leopard was the one that killed the impala we saw earlier that was stolen by the hyenas.

On the way back to lodge, we came across a large herd of Cape Buffalo. A small baby, that was born earlier that day was just starting to get to his feet and walk. The baby was being sheltered by other Cape Buffalos but once again the animals appeared totally indifferent to our presence.

Breakfast

We arrived back at the lodge about 9 AM, in time for breakfast being served at 10 AM.

Breakfast consists of a buffet serving cereals, yogurts, juices, pastries, and breads. After we made our selections from the buffet, servers would come to our tables and take our order for eggs along with breakfast meats.

We finished breakfast about 11 AM. I headed back to the cabin and Judy stayed at the lodge and knit on her latest project. The afternoon game drive would start about 4 PM.

If we were interested, the lodge offered game walks in the early afternoon with one of the guides. We didn’t take advantage of this as we chose to rest rather than do more walking.

Afternoon Game Drive

Beautiful weather greeted us as we started our afternoon drive about 4 PM. Zebras were our first sighting but this time they were standing nose to tail in an interesting formation. Nick explained that they may use their tails to swat flies from each other’s faces or to help keep a lookout as they watch each other’s back.

Water holes are where you’ll find hippos. We always take time to drive by them slowly whenever one is nearby. Rarely venturing from the water, and we spotted a hippo swimming about 100 yards away. Fortunately, he opened his mouth and Margaret was able to grab a picture with her iPhone but unfortunately my camera was not in position, so I didn’t get a good shot. We waited around to see if the hippo would resurface but it didn’t.

Lions

As were driving off, we received a radio call that was in Afrikaans. We learned later that whenever one of the vehicles spots an animal of high interest, for example a lion or a leopard, they will communicate this to the other vehicles in their local Afrikaans language so not to get our hopes up about what we may get a chance to see. After we received the radio call, our driver told us to hold on and we took off down the dirt road driving faster than we have at any point so far during this trip. After about 15 minutes of driving we slowed and entered a dry, sandy riverbed that had water only during the rainy season. Off in the distance there was another Safari vehicle observing what we would soon find out was a pride of lions. We stood back giving them time to finish their observation. Once they left, we approach the lions who were all sound asleep. There was one big male with a mane, a smaller male yet to grow his mane, and two females. Nick explained lion behavior as we observed and remarked that people who photograph lions professionally spend a lot of time sitting around staring at sleeping lions. They may spend days watching lions and only get one or two interesting videos or photographs.

Even though the lions appeared sound asleep, Nick remarked that if an unlucky animal happened to wander nearby they would be on their feet and ready to attack within seconds. By now we are used to animals paying us no attention and we were becoming accustomed to being near wild animals. If we were in our private vehicles in Krueger we would be required to have our windows rolled up in a situation like this.

After about 10 minutes we decided to move on as the lions were showing no signs of doing anything other than sleep.

Elephants

Heading back, we came down a long, straight, dirt road. As we returned to our normal patrol area, we came across a half dozen elephants and of couple of kudus. It was fun to watch one of the young elephants try to work his trunk as he didn’t have the dexterity of the adults. He did try to mimic them as they ripped off branches and leaves from trees. After a while the youngster, unable to break the branches off, gave up and started to chew directly on the branches and pushed them in his mouth using his trunk.

The waterhole where we saw the hippo earlier, was our destination for our afternoon snack, and we were hoping we might find the same hippo again.

Afternoon Snack

During our afternoon snack break, Judy got a picture of her shawl for her Ravelry page. This project is from a kit she bought on our Perth Yarn Crawl. It’s a kit, by Katia yarns, is 100% cotton with 6 small balls of yarn in shades of pinky-coral that run from light to dark. She started this shawl on our flight to Siem Reap and brought it to knit the morning we sat on the wall to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. After a quick ‘Cruise Ship’ blocking in our stateroom, she was happy to wear it on our Safari Game Drives. The kit is called Katia Ombré Cotton, the color she chose is S4. The pattern is free on Ravelry HERE

Unfortunately, we didn’t spot it and we headed back towards the lodge once the sun went down. We probably spent 20 minutes driving around after dark but we have yet to see anything interesting after sunset.

Dinner

Back at the lodge, we had about 30 minutes in our cabins, before the guides stop by to escort us to the main lodge. After about 20 minutes of relaxing over drinks, the chef appeared, and she announced the evening menu: ostrich filet or a duck breast with broccoli cheddar soup. Nick had the evening off so one of the other guides joined us for dinner. After dessert we headed back to our cabins ready to get some sleep for tomorrow would be another early day. Tomorrow would be our final day here with just one more game drive before leaving for the airport.

Click HERE for Safari DAY 4