Today was mostly a travel day. After an early start, we flew to Hoedspruit from Johannesburg, and then drove about an hour to Chisumo Lodge in the Karongwe Nature Preserve, arriving a bit before two. We had a late lunch, enjoyed seeing some vervet monkeys and a few Nyala (large antelopes with stripes) wandering around the camp, were briefed on Camp rules, found our very comfortable cabins and had a short rest.
Around four, we left on our first game drive of the trip. Karongwe is one of many private game reserves just outside of Kruger National Park. Our group of 10 piled into the safari vehicle to see what we could.
We saw lots of impalas, and a few very pretty birds.
The highlights today were
1) watching a family of elephants in the river;
2) seeing a pair of black-backed jackals
3) tracking a male lion as he patrolled his territory.
4) spotting a few interesting birds
The game tracking concluded with sundowners - drinks and snacks out in the bush as the sun went down, although as the guides started unloading the goodies, we heard the lion roar in the distance and we climbed back into the safari vehicles and tracked him down. As a result, we had our drinks in the fading, post sunset, dark. On the way back to camp we had a bit of a night game drive, but did not see much.
It was a lovely afternoon, followed by a yummy dinner.
That elephant - head on and ears waving looked more scary than the lion ! But then that photo of the lion standing still and deciding which way to go was not easy to ignore . Just how close were you ??!! Your day was truly exciting - how did you sleep -- finally ??Take care 😊💕Love, jackie
ReplyDelete