The big five in a day

  Kruger, South Africa
Saturday, May 20, 2006

Click here for all Kruger part 1 photos



We were going to do a morning and evening game drive today, but in the end we just kept driving for the whole day.



On the road for 6:30 for a fantastic sunrise, we drove across the Lower Sabie, down the Crocodile River, across to Afsaal picnic spot before going down to Berg-an-Dal rest camp.



We spotted the big 5 that day. Lions, leopards, white rhino, elephants and buffalo.



The 2 leopards we saw were very close and literally strolled across the road in front of our car. It was so quick I think Erica missed the first one, but she definitely saw the second!



We saw a big family of elephants that we stopped to observe for 20 minutes as it crossed the road. There was a hug bull, female and a little baby who couldn't have been too old at all.



Other mammals included bush buck, warthog, giraffe, duiker, hippo, dwarf mongoose, impala, vervet monkeys, chacma baboons, blue wildebeest, Burchell's zebra and kudu.



We also saw crocs and a whole host of birds. Fish eagle, giant eagle owl, Burchell's Coucal, various storks, cape glossy starlings, a southern ground hornbill munching on a lizard, purple rollers, gray laurie, bateleur eagle, African long tailed shrike, oxpeckers on impala, spur winged geese, marabou storks, blacksmith plovers, African black oyster catchers, crested francolin, martial eagles, Wahlberg eagle, gray hornbill, southern yellow billed hornbill, African pied wagtail plus many more that we did not get a good enough view of to identify.



That evening we went to another all you can eat meat feast. Not great, but for $13 it was reasonable.