My Kind of Reality Show

To Satara Camp, Kruger Park, South Africa

Hello All.  As Dean has mentioned, we’ve done LOTS of driving lately.  However, when you get to drive inside nature reserves and national parks inside Africa, it’s like being inside a nature program!  We’ve had some amazing sightings and a lot of fun spotting distant rocks and tree limbs, sure they were hippos and leopards.  That said, we’ve also had many, many legitimate sightings, and it is always worth pulling over and investigating our discoveries.  This morning, we left Berg-En-Dal Campground and made our way to Satara Camp, a mere 177 km’s away.  In order to keep humans and animals safe, speed is limited to 50 kph on the paved road and 40 kph on dirt.  It was going to take us all day, and we couldn’t wait!  The only restriction, we had to be in the campground by 6 p.m. (sunset) and we didn’t want to find out what would happen if we were there AFTER the gates closed….

Kruger Park Founders 

With such an early end to the days, we were grateful that the mornings were also early.  By 5:30, it is light enough to see what you’re doing, and by 6:00, the day has fully begun.  I was concerned that taking down the big canvas tent was going to be tricky, but thanks to our familiarity with tents, it went down quite well.  Dean played his pick-up truck Tetris and by 7:30, we were off.  We decided we would eat on the way as there are designated picnic spots throughout the park. Before breakfast, we spotted a Bateleur Eagle, a skink (thanks to Dexter’s eagle eyes), a rhino, and a Kudu (my personal favorite of the deer family).  

Some sort of skink

White Rhino

Male Kudu

As we pulled into the breakfast spot, Dex noticed, a little nervously, that there wasn’t a fence around the picnic area.  Were we planning on having breakfast... or being breakfast?  The lovely area was equipped with picnic tables and a braai (grill) at nearly every table.  They also had a nice café to order from.  The kids and I had a very tasty hot chocolate, Dean got a foamy cappuccino, and all seemed right in the world.  There was also a resident Bushbuck grazing in the area.  They have a unique spotted design on their side, so they're fairly easy to recognize.  Not all deer are as easy to tell apart.

The kids had fun playing with their now-smaller gang of stuffed animals and made as if they were climbing trees (to get away from predators perhaps?).  They’ve been really good about all the car rides we’ve been taking.  While I love looking around and trying to spot animals, I think it gets a tad dull for them, so they’ve come up with other means to pass the time.  The activity books we picked up at the Berg-En-Dal store have been great for all of us.  They have pictures of the various birds and animals inside the park, so we can be much more certain what we’re seeing and make pretty good guesses at the numerous types of deer. 

Having managed not to be eaten ourselves for breakfast, we got back on the road.  Fairly quickly, we came across a watering hole that actually had a) water and b) animals.  The difference in Etosha and Kruger climates is evident in that their must be a better water source here than in Namibia.  The trees are greener, there are grassy areas, and the water holes are not the center of activity for many of the larger animals.  So when we came across elephants in this particular spot, we had to stop.  We’ve noticed that many of the herds have little elephants in their midst, and it is such fun to watch the mini-giants next to the real-deal giants.  The not super small and not super large elephants tend to be frisky and feisty, and they make for super viewing.  One particular youngster was having fun with a warthog, the elephant clearly enjoying his size advantage.

You may think giraffe’s are not hard to spot, and you’d be right ... sort of.  One giraffe always seems very easy to spot, so we’d pull over and start watching the one obvious giraffe soon discovering three or four more also nearby. By the way, a group of giraffes is called a tower.  Aptly named, though I’m not sure I’ve ever referred to them as such.  From here on out, however….  So, in a way, giraffes can also blend in, which seems amazing -- but when in Africa, you get used to amazing.  We’ve noticed many Oxpecker birds on the giraffes, impala, cape buffalo and elephants.  I think on the bigger animals they are hardly noticed, but a number of times I’ve seen the Impala try to knock them loose or react to the bird as if a big fly were buzzing about them. 

Bush Buck

Our favorite "deer" -- the large and impressive Kudu

Hitchhiking Oxpeckers

We stopped for lunch at another designated picnic ground, but this time the Vervet Monkeys were about, and they are talented thieves.  Never missing an opportunity to swipe some unsuspecting patron of their meal, it adds a bit of thrill to lunch.  It was a beautiful spot to lounge around in and be out of the car.  The monkeys -- being an amusing diversion as they could leap and spring in tree branches barely big enough to have leaves, let alone be a launching pad -- would work the bounce in their favor and off they'd go.  Once the baboons came around, we were ready to get back in the car and drive the final 45 km to Satara.

Dex with a seed pod

Up the road from the picnic grounds, we came across a natural waterhole that had a resident hippo.  It was just a couple of lumps in the water – but there it was!  There was also a crocodile in the water a mere ten yards away, but they must have made a pact not to mess with each other, which (sigh) made for dull viewing.

On our way again and we came across a mud wallow that was a prime piece of real estate for a herd of elephants.  One adolescent seemed to run the troop off before taking over the spot and enjoying the place all to himself.  In a nearby tree there was a committee of vultures enjoying their perched viewing. 

So it was, with our stops and viewing opportunities, we arrived at Satara Camp after 3 p.m.  The kids went off to the pool, while Dean and I picked the spot we’d put up the tent.  However, with this particular design,  we've determined it’s best when we have a person on each corner to help hoist it up.  So, after putting out a few of our camping pieces, we made our way to the pool too.  It always makes for a much more enjoyable evening when we've cooled off in our own waterhole.

Back at the site, Dean and I were working on dinner when Dex came running up announcing that he and Kylie had spotted a monitor lizard.  We raced back with them, but, by the time we returned, it had gone inside a tree hole. With Kylie on Dean’s shoulders, we could verify its presence and hear it munching away on some poor unsuspecting bird's eggs.  While we’ve not seen an abundance of the bigger predators, we know that they're out there and on the hunt.  I love being inside this nature program… and inside the fenced area.  Yes, I’m a sissy, but I sleep well.