SAT 19/5/07
We leave Pietermaritzburg for Kruger National Park at 06.00. We have 750 odd km to travel and lots of road-works to liven up the journey. We stop twice en route (other than roadworks!), once for hot chocolate (it’s a pretty cold morning, 60C) and once for a toasted sandwich. Birds seen on the way include Pied Starling, Pied Crow, Black Crow, Black-headed Heron, Grey Heron, Little Grebe, Black-shouldered Kite, Long-crested Eagle, Jackal Buzzard, Yellow-eyed Canary, House Sparrow, Red-Winged Starling. (I don’t count these as birds seen in Kruger, so there may be some repetition) By the time we get to the Malelane gate it is 3.30 and 350C!
(Note – we have been taking malaria prophylactics for six days before entering the Park. This is essential. Consult the Kruger Park Website for advice. Not being able to take the drugs on offer, I get a homeopathic prophylactic which has no side effects. We also buy anti-mosquito wipes impregnated with natural substances such as citronella oil which work brilliantly and are far more pleasant to use than Peaceful Sleep - diethyl toluamide – and we use citronella candles and bare as little skin as possible at night. We also use only citronella soap on our skin.)
There are several gates to the Park and it depends on where you are booked in for the first night and how long it will take you to get there as to which gate you use. We usually enter through Malelane Gate. This is easily accessed from Gauteng so if you fly in to Johannesburg (4 -5 hrs from the Park) and intend to hire your own vehicle to go to Kruger, you travel along the M4, straight through Nelspruit and the Crocodile river valley (spectacular scenery) pass the town of Malelane and 4km further on and 45 minutes from Nelspruit, is the LH turn to the Park gate. There are two camps close by – one is Malelane camp itself, on the edge of the Crocodile River (although you can see very little of the river from the camp, the bush is too thick) and one is Berg-en-Dal. Malelane is very small, with both camping and hutted accommodation. The huts are rondavels with two or three beds and a shower and loo. Cooking facilities are separate and you have to provide your own utensils. It is an atmospheric little camp, but the need to carry cooking pots for one night when we shan’t need them elsewhere has made our choice Berg-en-Dal. This camp is on the banks of a dry (in the winter) river bed and at the far end of the camp the river is dammed to make a small body of water so that you can watch animals coming to drink from the camp. A negative feature is the view of a distant sugar mill which looks like an ocean liner lit from stem to stern at night! The chalets are big with three beds, small kitchen area and bathroom with shower, wash basin and loo; they are very well positioned with many of them on the perimeter fence.
(Note – if you want accommodation on a perimeter fence anywhere in the Park, you have to specify this when booking.)
Before booking in at the main gate, stop on the bridge crossing the Crocodile River. This river is the Park border and, as such, I start counting bird species as being in the Park from here. We see crocodiles, hippo and impala and get a start on the bird list - Grey Heron, Three-banded Plover, Blacksmith Lapwing, Green-backed Heron, Saddle-billed Stork, Pied Kingfisher, Water Thick-knee, Goliath Heron, Fork-tailed Drongo, Egyptian Goose, White-faced Duck, Lilac-breasted Roller, Reed Cormorant and Great (White) Egret. On our meandering way to Berg-en-Dal we see giraffe, elephant and rhino, plus Helmeted Guineafowl, African Grey Hornbill, Violet-backed Starling, Black-backed Puffback, Red-eyed Dove, Grey Go-away Bird and Hadedah Ibis. Unloading only basic essentials for our one night stay, we are very glad to heat up spag bol and have an early night after our twelve hour drive.
(Note if you are interested in Bats, Berg-en-Dal has plenty and has put up several bat houses!)
Nice one Sal, this is bringing back memories
SUN 20/5/07
We wake at 04.00 to hear lions roaring close to the camp. Roaring always seems an odd word to use; when you hear a lion the sound starts more as a grunt – the kind of noise you might make when lifting a heavy girder, but to call it a grunt is to belittle such an amazing sound. (I once managed to imitate it well enough to cause a male lion lying hidden in a patch of thick grass to stand up and take a hasty look round for a rival . . . .)We take tea and go for an early drive as soon as the gate opens (06.00 at this time of the year) and soon come across four White Rhino one of which is a baby. The mother keeps the baby close to her all the time (White Rhino mothers tend to keep the baby in front, Black Rhino babies stay behind the mother). The dawn light is stunning and we sit and have tea watching the sun rise and some buffalo grazing through the bush. On our way back to camp we see Swainson’s Spurfowl; Natal Francolin and Black-headed Oriole.
(Note – It is really worth buying a flask and mugs and something for milk if you are doing your own trip, sitting in the bush drinking morning or evening tea/coffee with something wild is very special. Or of course taking a slightly different kind of flask . . . )
Back at camp I walk along the river path and see Green-backed Camaroptera, hopping in and out of a bunch of long reedy grasses, two beautifully marked Brown-hooded Kingfishers on a spindly sapling right on my path, a flock of Speckled Mousebirds and a Cape Robin-Chat busily scraping through the winter leaf-fall. There are Vervet Monkeys in the trees and a pregnant Bushbuck doe steps daintily down to the waterhole to drink. We have another long journey ahead of us however, so I can’t stay long.
(Note - Although our journey, from Berg-en-Dal to Satara, is only 155km, other factors have to be taken into account in the park – the speed limit is 50kph on tar and 40kph on dirt; there are many waterholes to inspect en route, some of the a couple of km off the main road; there are many stops to look at animals and birds. So allow several hours for a journey of this length.)
We stop at Afsaal, a picnic site about 30km from Berg-en-Dal and are astonished to see a beautifully polished Navy blue Rolls Royce parked amongst the scruffy trucks, dirty 4WDs and khaki Safari vehicles. Who could possibly risk such a lovely car on Kruger’s corrugated roads lined with vicious thorn-bushes? We start to see birds now as we drive north. The first is a Martial Eagle perched in a tree near the road. We are always glad to see these birds as, although their status is not threatened over Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole, the numbers are decreasing in South Africa as a result of habitat degradation and they are mainly only found in protected areas. Southern Yellow Hornbills are abundant, on the road, in the bushes, or showing off their curious swooping flight as they move from place to place. I have always regarded them as a sort of bush clown – they are very apt to look at you with head on one side in a most disbelieving fashion, but last year I watched one of these hornbill rip another to pieces on the ground and I’ve never felt the same about them since. We come across one of those feeding parties, with a couple of bushes alive with birds – Southern Black Tit, Long-billed Crombec, Black-crowned Tchagra, Cape Batis, Dark-capped Bulbul, Masked Weaver, Long-tailed Shrike and Southern Black Flycatcher are soon added to the list. The first few waterholes are dry, but when we get to Silolweni, which is much bigger, there is still water and drinking it are two large bull elephants, one of them pretty close to us. The birds here – Egyptian geese, Blacksmith Lapwings and Grey Herons have all been seen before, so have the two Saddlebilled Storks working the shallows to our right, but we add one new one – White-breasted Cormorant. Between this and the next dam we come across our first Tawny Eagle and our first Purple Roller. Mazithi dam presents us with hippos, Little Grebes, and, perched on a dead Leadwood tree in which there is also a very well camouflaged Grey Heron hunkered down against the grey bark, a Giant Kingfisher. There is no water in the next dam – Kumana, but there is mud and in it an old bull Buffalo, literally caked from the boss, over the eyes, nose and every part of its body. At first we think it is dead, but eventually it gets up, and then we see its problem – about ten million flies accompany it . . . . By now the temperature is 37C and the birds have vanished and we are glad to arrive at Satara at 17.15 with a few more evening birds – Cape Turtle Dove, Burchell’s Coucal, Red-billed Oxpecker and Kori Bustard.
(Note – We always ask for a perimeter hut here. All the huts are arranged in circles, in the centre of which are indigenous trees and bushes so there will be birds wherever you are, but the perimeter huts look out into the bush and one can often see Wildebeest, Impala, Elephant and so on and at night there are a couple of Hyaena that obligingly walk along the fenceline between six and seven o’clock hoping to benefit from one of the many braais! PS – Please do not feed any animals. This may result in them having to be shot as they become first a nuisance and then a danger to the public.)
Butternut and Orange soup with rolls is all we can manage tonight after snacking on biltong and fruit and toasted sandwiches and not having any exercise! The lions start roaring before we even get into bed.