Re: Nairobi to Cape Town & Kruger too: Plains, Wines and Automobiles (4WD) & yes Cat
Game Spotting In Kruger
Firstly Kruger National Park is HUGE, and you cannot cover it in just the one visit unless you are going to make ita long, long visit. See
HERE.
We chose to spend t
* 2 nights at Olifants in one of the cliff edge cabins (best views in Kruger!)
* 2 nights in Lower Sabie
* Elephant Plains (next to Kruger NP) in the Sabi Sabi area to taste a private establishement
* We then finished with 1 night in Blyde River Canyon for the views, but the 5 previous nights were:
A few observations
All in all if you want animal spotting then
Lower Sabie is a great camp. It has all the facilities and the river adjacent to it has many on dispaly. From my cabin and/or the riverfront restaraunt in the river we watched giraffe, hippos, crocodiles, elephants, buffalo, zebra and others.
On drives we saw two mating lions within 5m of us!!!!...and another pride of 6 lions the next day, rhinos on 6 occassions right next to road(note this was on the less travelled gravel roads and not the busier sealed roads) and a wide diversity of animals. Late in the day seemed to have a lot more animal activity than the early morning when we were there.
If you can only visit one rest camp then I would strongly recommend Lower Sabie.
Olifants We had booked a cliff edge cabin and the views were to die for. You can also see the view from the restaurant and so an option is to lunch there (note it is a long, long way at 50kmphr from Lower Sabie).
However game was noticeably thin on the ground near Olifants. I would therefore not make it your only rest camp.
One highlight though was watching from my balcony through my binoculars 6 hyena with a fresh impala kill.
Satara
I did not stay there, but we used it as a tea/ toilet stop. It has a smaller, but adequate, restaurant with an artificial waterhole to attract game (only impala when we were there). It is more basic and less pretty camp than the other two.
However the Satara Rest Camp is located in and near more of an open plains area than the other two camps. This attracts more Zebra and we also saw Wildebeest which we did not see further south.
However most people want to see the big cats, and there was a lot of cat activity reported in the Satara Region. The two days we called in the game spotting boards recorded numerous sigthings of lions, cheetahs and leopards. The surrounding open plains full of game is most likely why, and the open plains making it easier to spot activity.
We spotted 3 male lions within 10m of the road choping on a Kudu with 3 jackals circling them. We also spotted a leopard in a tree, but say 30m away.
If I went back I would use Satara Rest Camp for a night or two due the cat activity.
The Big 5. Driving from Lower Sabie to Oilfants, when we swapped camps, we spotted the Big 5 in the course of our half-day drive. This included watching 6 lions hunt (unsuccessfully) about half-way between Satara and Olifants. It made for a great sight as the herd of animals that they were attempting to encircle included buffalo, 3 rhinos, zebras, kudu and impala!
Elephants Plains was nice for a change, a contrast and a touch of luxury. But while we did see a leoprad at only 5m away, the number of animals was noticeably a lot thinner on the ground than at Lower Sabie.
If I return to the region I would just stay at the SANPARK rest camps. But then again I am mainly an independent traveller by nature.
With Kruger there is a vast network of roads to spot game from. You are not allowed to go off-road to spot game. There are many sealed roads, and you do not have to leave them to see game. However there is alsoa vast network of gravel roads that get lest traffic than the sealed roads and provide I thinka better chance to see some of the shier animals and to also gain a more personal experience as it can often be just you (in you vehicle) and the game you are watching. On the sealed roads if there is a cat there will invariably be a posse of cards gathered as well. The pro is that can make it easier to find the cats or more unusual animals.
So on our morning we soon left the sealed road in favour of exploring along a less travelled gravel road. With a few minutes I spotted a large rhino relaxing right next to the road. Rhinos tend to be shier and while seen on the busier roads, the gravel ones offer a better chance of getting close to them.
You will note that his ear is directed right towards us (they can rotate them around). Their eysight is very poor, and they rely instead on their excellent hearing and sense of smell.
He was soon checking us out, and then after about ten minutes he wandered of into the scrub.
Mongoose
And then about 10 minutes on we notice amale and female lion immediately next to the road.
With cats one can never tell what they were going to to do. Particularly in the middle of the day they can often just basically sit or lie around doing very little.
But this was a male and female pair, and we could also here several other lions roaring in the distnace.
After about 15 minutes they stood up, walking a very short distance and then proceeded to mate in front of us!
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