And my adventures in the wild continues:Early in the morning, we left the Skukuza Camp for the Satara camp. All those reading this post for the first time, let me state briefly, that our first camp in Kruger National Park was Skukuza and that we had an amazing day out there.
So our next destination being around 90 km away and with a little help from our GPS, we set off to the next phrase of our ongoing adventure. My husband being a wildlife enthusiast, took the wheels, while being the camera pro, I was in charge of capturing the wildlife in the lenses.
There are two types of roads in the Kruger National Park. One is the paved and metaled road where the speed limit is 50 km/hour and the other is the unpaved and gravel roads where the speed limit is 40 km/hour. Now one's best chance to see the game is through the unpaved road which are easily distinguishable from the paved roads. The unpaved roads will be shown on one's GPS as "S" Roads, while the paved ones will be denominated by the letter "H". Now at this juncture, I would like to point out that, buying a road map of Kruger is a beautiful idea. It is quite inexpensive and would be your best companion while you are busy navigating the roads or watching the animals in their most natural behavior, also it is readily available in any of the numerous curio shops in all the camps.
Now to travel on the unpaved road, it is wise to have a four wheel drive (4WD) but our experience shows that even the unpaved roads are excellent and if the weather is compatible, one can easily take their two wheel drives deep into the forest. This is what we did, since we had a two wheel drive. We took three or four secondary (unpaved) roads and it is on these roads that we were able to see most of the wild animals in their most natural behaviors.
Our first sighting was a buffalo, resting in the mud, deep into the forest. It was our first sighting of the buffalo, an animal twice the size of lion and thrice more ferocious and territorial. This was the third of the Big five, that we were fortunate enough to see, having seen the Rhino and the Elephant both the previous evening at Skukuza Sunset Drive. Then we drove on only to stop to give a lone elephant it's way across the dirt tract. It was crossing onto the other side of the road in search of fresh leaves and barks. The Elephant was quite oblivious to our car and we stood silently watching it in all it's magnificence.One of the golden rule of seeking game in the park is being observant and quiet. If you spot one animal, be patient, soon you will find tens of similar game around, hiding in bushes. So while the Elephant crossed the road and vanished into the other side of the bush, we waited silently, only to discover an entire herd hiding into the forest and munching on leaves and barks of trees. That's the beauty of Kruger. The fun part is not in just seeing the animals. That, one can easily see in a caged zoo. The actual part where the excitement kicks in, is to silently seek the animals, camouflaged in their surroundings in their most natural behavior.
For example, it is extremely interesting to see how elephants behave in a herd. It is to be noted that a herd of elephants consists only of female elephants and babies of both genders and only those male elephants who have not yet reached puberty. As soon as a male elephant reaches adolescence, it is left alone by the herd, to seek a mate and also to seek it's own livelihood. The largest female elephant (and almost always the eldest one) becomes the matriarch and she is primarily responsible for the herd's safety.A while down the road (this time, the main, paved road), we came across a herd of elephants intent on crossing the road to the other side. This time, when our car approached, the other members of the herd had already crossed over and the sole elephant was observing the traffic on the both ends of the road, waiting for the right time to cross. Now when the elephants cross, the first adult elephant
will keep a watch on the other side of the road, one adult will be responsible for each of member crossing the road safely, and the last adult elephant will remain on the other side of the road, till all the other members have safely crossed. This represents highly intelligent thinking and management skills. In fact after seeing the elephants of Kruger, I am of the opinion, that not lions but elephants should have been the "king of the jungle". They are one of the most civilized, intelligent and sophisticated of all the animals that I saw. So, this elephant which was standing on the other side, watched for a long while, until all the cars came to a halt, and observing keenly that no immediate danger in the form of steel vehicles are approaching, it first folded it's trunk on it's own tusk, so as not to put it into immediate danger and slowly crossed the road. She was barely seven feet away from my car, and I got an excellent opportunity to capture her in my lens.
Just as the herd of elephants receded onto the other side of the forest, a lady driving another jeep which had also stopped to give way to the elephants, informed us that some two kilometers up the road, a lioness and her cub were resting under a shady tree. We were thrilled and my husband put the accelerators in order to see the lioness. But in Kruger, it's not at all possible to drive without stopping to gaze at the sheer number of animals and plants. So what was supposed to be a mere hour's journey turned out to be two and a half hours long. We stopped by to see a family of giraffes, a huge group of impalas, a baboon, quite intent on photographing itself, some wild zebras also extremely keen to get photographed, some amazingly colorful birds, a family of blue wildebeests... now here is an interesting fact about wildebeests...the females again consist of the herd, as soon as the male wildebeest reach their maturity, they detach themselves from the herd and roam around scanning for females to mate, unfortunately they roam around in the same territory as lions do and therefore are most easily preyed...
Then we traveled on to find a long queue of cars lined up on one side of the road... we eagerly joined the queue to find the object of attraction, the lioness and her cub resting under a shade of a big tree... it was around twenty-twenty five feet from us... one car moved out of the queue heading onto it's way and we immediately filled up the vacant spot... to get a good look at the awesome sight. I have never in my life thought I would see a wild lioness with her cub sitting this close to us and that too in broad afternoon light... I wonder how many people in my family or friends circle have had this awesome opportunity. I thank God for making me see this beautiful sight. There was a car behind us making a movie on the lioness. They had their camera on a tripod and intent on filming the entire scenery.
We waited and observed the lioness and her cub for around an hour. I have never seen an animal more gorgeous and stately than this. She probably just had her meal/lunch and was quietly lying under the tree. I believe she was also quite aware of all the cars and the interest being taken in her and her cub, and she was so uninterested, as if this was a daily occurrence. There were a few other animals also in the vicinity, but no one was coming quite close to the duo. I later heard from our Guide, that if a lion had, had her feed, she would not disturb any animal or even look for hunt till again she's hungry. Our guide told us that it is a common sight in Kruger to have a pride of lions gathered around a waterhole and a family of impalas and baboons roaming around them quite freely unafraid... Unfortunately we weren't able to see the sight...
Our sighting over, we traveled onto the Satara camp to begin our next phrase of adventure... Life didn't get any better than this...
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