This was it, the main event, the most exciting part of our trip to South Africa – a Safari…
We were booked in to the Idube Lodge. And to say that Idube was a total change from our basic bunk accommodation at Waterfall Boven would be a little of an understatement. Literally we had moved from the ridiculous to the sublime, Idube was luxury all the way! Awesome.
However, the big deal wasn’t the accommodation, it was the safari. Sabi Sand Game Reserve is contiguous with the Kruger National Park. But what makes it special for our bucket list safari is that unlike the main Kruger Park this private game reserve allows safari vehicles to travel off road to get right up close to the animals.
To try and capture or retell this amazing story in words is impossible, it was utterly amazing, something that one can only understand if you have been. Hopefully the pictures convey some of the awesomeness…
Then we came to our first big cat, a female leopard. She had just caught and killed a baby bushbuck. She’d stashed the kill up a nearby tree for later, after she had recovered from her hunt. She was busy sleeping and panting away the heat of day…
Next thing a big male leopard had caught the scent of the kill and waltzed in, climbed the tree, and scoffed the whole animal while she had no choice but watch on as her hard earned dinner vanished. A tough life. In fact, we saw three “kills” during our stay and not one of them got eaten by the thing that made the kill. It seems that making a kill is only a part of existence as a major African predator. In a world where there is always a bigger hungry thing that you, keeping your kill and getting to eat it to survive is an even greater challenge.
Our Land Rover safari vehicle developed a fault with its starter motor at one point, which was frustrating, but also a little bit of fun. On one occasion where there was no hill to roll down so the “boyz” had to jump out and give the car a push to bump start it. I guess this could have been less fun if it had become serious with a charging rhino or similar! But it didn’t become an epic, so for us it just added to the adventure. 😉
On one of our morning excursions we left the car and walked back to the lodge to get a chance to look at some of the smaller African wildlife. Below we are looking at an ant trail!
After our Gin & Tonic in the bush we drove in to a “Bush Camp”. We didn’t really know what was happening, it was all a bit of surprise, a nice surprise. Not much of a camp, but certainly a great dinner in the great outdoors! Dinner was preceded by more Gin & Tonics (hic) and some African dancing and music. 🙂
On our final morning we got to see a pack of African Wild Dogs. These guys are rare! Once they were super numerous but early settlers saw them as “vermin” so set about exterminating them. Now in the whole two-plus-million hectare Kruger Park there are less than 140 dogs left. We were lucky enough to see a pack of around a dozen animals. We felt quite lucky to see around 10% of the whole Kruger population of Wild Dogs.
Brogan our guide, Charlie, Judy, Simon, Alison, and Culture our tracker, Laetitia & Pete
Series - South Africa
- Cape Town
- Waterval Boven
- Sabi Sand Game Reserve Safari
- Panoramic Route
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