Final Blog Post

Tonight is our last night in Kruger, we have moved to Berg n' Dal where we are staying in the bungalows, we have handed the caravan over to Kim and Peter who are staying for 5 nights before taking the caravan back to storage. We tackle the long drive back to Cape Town tomorrow (Sunday), we will decide where we will overnight (may stop over twice).

We have booked for next year starting at Satara on the 1 May 2012 for 33 days and then moving north to Shingwedzi (which we have not done for a number of years) for 15 days, 3 nights at Balule before moving down to Lower Sabie for 14 days, already can't wait.....

Thank you all for watching, commenting and the private e-mails, to all the Sanparks forum members with the yellow ribbons, great to meet you, see you again soon, we will be following your trips on the forum.
We would have posted more at Satara if the upload speed had been faster, come on Vodacom how about 3G at Satara.
We are amazed at the interest shown from around the world on our blog, all keen conservationists, it says to me, there are people out there that care about wildlife and there right to life.
Thank you to the staff at the various camps we have stayed at, particularly Gordon at Satara, you go out of your way to help.

Please support any people, organisations, groups that are involved in protecting our Rhinos, this wholesale slaughter has got to stop. We need to put pressure on our government to close the foreign markets for Rhino horn, if you want to trade with us Rhino horn must be banned in the foreign country.
SAVE A RHINO..... HUNT A POACHER.

Until next year


Some final Pics which you might enjoy and some of our family for our family.



Our youngest Grand child already a good spotter

















all rapped up on a cold early morning drive from Satara



Breakfast at Manzanzeni

 

The horn already growing on this young Rhino calf,
this will be what he will be slautered for.



This is there right, to live wild and free



we found this old Lioness on her own on the tar north of Satara



Zebras just where you look (north of Satara)

begging on the S90

The Law Of The Wild says kill only when you are hungry

Photographer Michel Denis-Huot, who captured these amazing pictures on safari in Kenya 's Masai Mara in October last year, said he was astounded by what he saw. "These three brothers (cheetahs) have been living together since they left their mother at about 18 months old,' he said. 'On the morning we saw them, they seemed not to be hungry, walking quickly but stopping sometimes to play together. 'At one point, they met a group of impala who ran away. But one youngster was not quick enough and the brothers caught it easily'."  These extraordinary scenes followed:

and then they just walked away without hurting him..........

Life is short... forgive quickly, love truly, live honestly...and never regret anything that made you smile!

Thanks to Kerry for for the mail

Kim and Stella



Cubs adventuring out of there den

 We fetched Kim and Stella from Hoedspruit airport on Tuesday, Peter is arriving on Friday and will spend until the 30 June with us. We then move to Berg & Dal where we stay in the bungaloes for 2 nights and then leave for home. Kim and Peter will stay on for 5 nights and take the caravan back to storage until we come again next year.

True to form Kim chose the road to travel on the first morning out and found these beautiful lionesses with 7 cubs on the S90





Relaxing with mom





Starting young, sun-downers at Girivana waterhole.


















Breakfast at Nwanedzi



More fence action

Tonight while we were braaing a small herd of Buffalo grazed at the fence, one was particularly tame and came and grazed next to where we were standing, amazing....where else in the world can you get so close to a wild african buffalo?

Inches from our caravan

 

 

Drama at the fence

Last night while we were having our braai we heard a commotion at the fence, the Hyaenas were making a lot of noise, through the spot lights we saw the Hyaena feeding on something quite large, shortly after we heard some loud growls. What had happened is that a Leopard had made a kill and was dragging the kill to the nearest tree when the fence Hyaenas came across the Leopard and robbed him of his kill, we heard the Leopard growl several times. We could not identify what the kill was and in the morning there was nothing left.

Lions

Saw these lions on the S100....they were relaxing while looking out for game. The one lioness was resting next to a car, in the car's shade...the couple in the car got hot but did not want to move because the lioness was half asleep, not a worry in the world :)



Lunar Eclipse 15 June 2011

As seen from our camp site at Satara


Full Moon 17h20

Start 20h33



21h00



21h20





21h48

Reached peak or max at 22h14





Wednesday 15 June

Does anybody have a hotline to Vodacom?  There is only 2G or GPRS available at Satara which is making updating of the blog very time consuming, it is taking 20 to 30 min to upload a 150 Kb photo, so apologies we are not posting everything we want to.

Quintin, Celeste and Natasha left on Tuesday 14/06/11 after spending 5 nights with us, it was great to have them and show Natasha the animals, she can already name most of them on seeing them. We got 4 of the big 5, only missing the elusive leopard. Murphy's law and the first sighting this morning was a Leopard.

The crowds are arriving for the long weekend so we are preparing ourselves for a busy time.

Lunar eclipse
there is an eclipse tonight
Moonrise where we are is at 16h56 and the moon will be full at 20h14.
the eclipse will start at midnight, we will be up and watching.


Around the fire













Hyaena (booitjie) eyeing Natasha

















Chasing guinea fowl near Nesamani dam

















3 legged jackal on the S90


















Natasha and friend Hannah




Leopard seen 150611 just past Girivani on way to Timbavati
we spent about 2 hours near a herd of Impala which we thougt the leopard was stalking



Family Weekend

Quintin, Celeste and Natasha arrived on Thursday to spend 5 nights with us, they flew from Cape Town to Nelspruit, went in at Numbi and spent the day driving to Satara.
Went out early on Friday and took the S90 to try and find Lions for Natasha, we had seen plenty of lions on this road and I wanted to find Lions early on, to take the pressure of finding Cats off me, as luck would have it no cats, continued all the way to Olifants where we had breakfast.
Returned to camp, I promised Natasha the biggest ice-cream she could find as an incentive to spot animals which I bought her. Spent the afternoon at Girivana having sun downers.

Flaps down, Fish Eagle fishing at Girivana

Left Early on Saturday morning as the pressure is mounting to find Lion.
We agreed to meet the Retiefs for breakfast at Nwanedzi and took the S100, true to form we found 7 Lion on the road just after sunrise. Natasha was so excited, her favourite animal is now the Lion and not the Giraffe.



Red Billed Ox peckers on an Impala



Natasha Concentrating on a bush tale being told

Fire at Satara

6th of June...
Decided to go to Hoedspruit to buy a new plastic chair....Andrew broke the old oneby standing on it when we added the tent to the caravan.
On the way we saw this Leopard near Maroela camp. I tried to take a photo as it was moving in the bushes looking for something.

Bought more supplies so that we have enough when Quintin & Celeste are visiting.
Got back into the park when we noticed a fire near Nsemani dam....well when we got passed Nsemani dam we saw the fire was huge. We got back to camp and saw that the veld was burned outside camp. We could still see huge flames just outside the camp.

Spot The Animal

Well done AREFF you were spot on Giraffe, Impala, Hippo, and Croc.

The new spot the animal is on the page.

Have a look at this cat and identify

Rhino Poaching 06 June 11

The fight goes on to catch the poachers!

Media Release: Two suspected rhino poachers arrested in the KNP

Back to all news

Date: 6th June 2011

Two rhino poachers were arrested in the Kruger National Park (KNP) by a combined SANParks, SANDF and SAPS operation on Friday the 3rd June, 2011, shortly after 2 white rhino were shot and killed and their horns removed in the Nwanedsi area of the KNP.

During the incident one of the suspected poachers was shot and wounded and is currently receiving medical attention in hospital. Two firearms, an AK47 and a .375 heavy calibre hunting rifle, as well as 3 rhino horns, were recovered in the operation.
This incident comes shortly after the successful prosecution of two rhino poachers, Frans Makamu and Solomon Mabuza who were arrested in separate incidents in 2010 for rhino poaching activities in the Kruger National Park (KNP). Both were found guilty for illegal hunting of rhino, possession of illegal firearms and ammunitions on Wednesday, June 1, 2011.
Both accused offered a plea of guilty in the Nelspruit Regional Court. Frans Makamu, who was also found guilty of the possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition, was sentenced to 11 years while Solomon Mabuza was sentenced to five years imprisonment.
The Chief Executive Officer of South African National Parks (SANParks), Dr David Mabunda, said: “As SANParks, we welcome the additional support of the SANDF and SAPS in addressing the current upsurge in rhino poaching in the KNP. The successful joint operation carried out on Friday as well as the recent sentences given to the two convicted rhino poachers will send a clear message to everyone that poaching of wildlife is not tolerated in this country”.
We wish to thank all the men and women of the SANParks, the SANDF, and the SAPS for their joint efforts in fighting the poaching crime in the country and particularly in the KNP. Although it may be a little too early to celebrate we are definitely beginning to see a downward trend in terms of the number of rhino poaching incidents in the KNP. Details of trends cannot be released at the moment due to the infancy of the observation.
This, along with the upswing in arrests, both in the KNP and the country as a whole, will have a positive impact on the current high incident rate of rhino poaching activities in the country, continued Dr Mabunda.
This year alone a total of 122 suspected poachers have been arrested around the country, of which 60 of them were arrested in the KNP. Since January this year, throughout the country, 20 suspected poachers have been killed and 10 injured in clashes with authorities. Of this figure, 15 suspected poachers have died and nine wounded during contacts with rangers and soldiers in the KNP alone.
To date 173 rhinos have been poached throughout the country, of which 120 were poached in the KNP.
For previous media statements on this matter please go to http://www.sanparks.org/
Issued by:
SANParks Corporate Communications
Media enquiries:
wanda mkutshulwa – Head of Communications, SANParks, Tel: (012) 426 5201, Cell: 082 908 2692, e-mail: wandam@sanparks.org

This is the back view of the camp site, this is the view of the "add a room" where Quintin and Celeste, Kim and Peter will be sleeping while visiting us.

Stats

Some interesting stats on our blog

Views yesterday  83
last month           1900
All time               2937

Source
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Australia               35
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Quatar                  10
New Zealand         9

Thanks for watching and following us, now I am under a bit of pressure to keep it interesting

Sunday 5 June

What a day, left camp at 06h15 to take the S90, this road is hot at the moment. Our first sighting was of a pair of  lionesses stalking a Wildebees, they failed to get anywhere near the Wildebees and went to lie in the long grass where they would spend the day.



Sisters hunting shoulder to shoulder





Wildebees in the distance



After having coffee we drove on and found a huge herd of Buffalo, it is difficult to estimate how many, at least 400 plus, we sat there in awe as they took at least an hour to pass within inches of our vehicle.



Mom and young



We came across the 2nd pride of Lion for the morning at Gudzane east waterhole. The pride was seen drinking and was reported to be 20 strong. We missed the main group but came across this magnificent male only 5 meters from our car, we were alone with him for a while until a car came along with a passenger hanging out the window, the lion got a fright and ran off into the thicket never to be seen again. One person spoils it for everyone.

On the same road we saw Rhino and Elephant to get 4 of the big 5.

We returned to camp and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon before taking an afternoon drive to Girivani waterhole where we had sun downers, just before we were about to leave this Cheetah made its appearance

We also enjoyed watching this large herd of Giraffe around the waterhole, they were very playful, chasing each other and necking in typical Giraffe ways.

What a day, it is days like this that keeps our passion for Kruger alive, and keeps us returning year after year.