Spotting the Big 5!

on Jul.06, 2010, under South Africa, Travel

On Monday we woke up early and were at the gates by 5.50am for the 6am opening.

We drove around for a few hours searching for animals. We saw: Vervet monkeys, Bushbuck, Hippo, giraffe, Steenbok, Baboons, Elephant, Warthog, Buffalo and even Wild Dog (and a few other things)

Then we went back to Skukuza to check out and then made our way to Lower Sabie rest camp. The road between Skukuza and Lower Sabie follows the Sabie river and is supposed to be one of the best for game viewing. The 43km distance took us nearly 4 hours, with all the stopping and taking photo’s and so on. It was great, but a long day.

We checked in at Lower Sabie, and only had a short time before our night drive. The night drive from Lower Sabie leaves earlier than the one the previous night at skukuza, not sure why that is. We had a female guide this time, who was awesome. She talked about the animals, and found many animals. We were busy driving along a dirt road, seeing a few animals, when she gets a call on the radio from the other guide. We can’t understand what they are talking about, but she says to us we have to rush a bit, she will stop if we want, but there is something we have to see. We drive and drive, by now the light is fading. We see a herd of Buffalo. We stop to take photo’s, and then the guide says, we can come back, there is something just around the corner. Around the corner we find a big tree, with an Impala (dead) in the tree, and lo and behold – a leopard!

We spent a while at the leopard, since it was getting darker, you could not see alot, but we did see it feeding on the Impala. We then went back to the Buffalo, and then we caught a glimplse of a pride of Lions walking through the bush. The guide followed them, and even went down a path that she was not allowed to go through just so that we could get some photo’s. It was great. All in all, we managed to see the Big 5 (Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Buffalo and Elephant) in that one night drive – now that is a worthwhile drive!