Animal

Our last day before the 2 day trek home we spent at the Jane Goodall Chimpanzee Reserve in Nelspruit. The reserve has 30 chimps, all who have lived a heartbreaking life before being rescued.

Our tour started at 1000 which is feeding time for the chimps. This one was just waiting to get his breakfast.

This young male looked like he was doing some serious thinking in the tree.

Then he decided to pose for his glamour shot.

The reserve had three different enclosures so three different communities. This enclosure had a male, female and lots of young chimps. When the dominant male came over for breakfast the female ran up to him and greeted him with a hug.

Because these chimps are usually taken away from their mothers when they are murdered the don't have a parent to spend their youth with. So they end up making close friends with a "sibling". Many of these would walk around with their arms around each other.

The young apes spent most of their time after eating playing and wresting.

At the second enclosure the scene was dominated by a male that had been brain damaged by humans who kept hitting him in the head. He was also taught to suck his thumb and still does it frequently. But because he is brain damaged he doesn't know any better than to run up and down throwing rocks at us and clapping his hands. He had actually bit off part of the finger of our guide in the past.

The next enclosure was what the guide called the real chimps. These are the adults and as soon as we got there a couple of the females got in a fight and the dominant male tried to break it up. Because we were standing so close to the enclosure he also threw huge rocks at us and a large tree branch that got stuck in the fence. We had to move early so no one got hurt.

Luckily for these chimps they were rescued a brought to a place where they can live out a healthy life. These will never be allowed back in to the wild.

On the way back thru Marloth Park we saw some more zebras and I got to practice my black and white shots again.

Unfortunately our trip is over and we have to start home early in the morning. However we had one more excellent meal of ox tail which is popular in South Africa but actually just a stew. One more night drive did not prove to be very productive for us so we called it an earlier night.

This will be our first day in Kruger in an open safari vehicle so I'm very excited about that. Its a little chilly at first in the morning but I get over it.

I have now taken several pictures of most animals in the park so I start practicing with black and white. I liked this one of the warthog.

It wouldn't be a day in Kruger in the spring without seeing a baby elephant. This one for some reason was carrying this branch along as they walked.

And this one thought if he couldn't see us we wouldn't be able to see him.

Another group of babboons crossed the road in front of us.

I took so many photos of giraffe last time that I laid off a little but I couldn't resist this one.

Sometimes I think they find us more interesting to watch.

Little did I know that my best Kruger moment was about to happen. We turned on to a dirt road and saw the tail end of a lion disappearing into the bush. When we got up to the spot another lioness was coming out on the other side of the road.

And then another and another and another. Us and the car on the other side of the road were the only ones to witness the event.

There were 14 lion cubs that crossed all in a line.

A total of 20 lions crossed before it was over. The sad part was that the huge male was at the end of the lion and that is when my camera decided to quit taking photos.

Nothing much could beat this sight but we did stop at a river crossing and see these turtles resting on a rock.

This monitor lizard was the last interesting thing. Two of them actually met up and we thought there would be a great fight. But in the end they just bobbed their heads at each other and took off in opposite directions.
Before the day was over Monet fed us another great dinner and took us on a night drive around Marloth Park. This amounted to putting plastic chairs in the back of Andre's truck and driving around with a spot light. Our big find was a hyena near their dump site.

Early this morning we were on the road again for St. Lucia, another world heritage site. We were in town for a cruise on the lake but stopped for some breakfast first.

The town is well built up for tourists with lots of restaurants and shops. It also has the greatest donut I ever ate.

The focus of our cruise on the lake was hippos and crocs and we saw one right away. There was a family of three to include a little baby right under the bridge when we got started.

The next thing of interest was the weaver birds that make these upside down nests.

The males make the nests and if the females don't like them they take them apart until its done right

The focus was crocs and hippos but this is about the only croc we were really able to see.

We did see tons of hippos again.

They were very playful just like in Kruger!

They compare the sizes of their mouth to see who is the most dominant.

They also were chasing each other around in the water.

We were also able to see several fish eagles relatively close up - they weren't catching any fish though

The guide on the boat passed around a huge and very heavy hippo tooth. It is easy to see how they could kill someone by biting them in half!

After the cruise we hit the highways again for the midlands. Our hotel was absolutely adorable and a nice change from the rustic accomodations in Sodwana. The place was a B&B called Penny Lane and it was run by a French expat. He was a very talkative guy and recommended the restaurant St. Ives for dinner. It was a very good choice and a beautiful location.

Several times during the night I sat up in bed a tried to make out what was right outside our hide making so much noise. But the morning was magical with the sun coming up. I really wanted to see a hippo getting back in the water so I was disappointed to see they were already back in the water by 0500. I was really excited when Genie woke me up to show me the one late hippo that was making his way back to the water.

Right outside the hide there were klipspringers on the rocks and buffalo in the bushes.

These birds were gathered in the tree bright and early.
The majority of the rest of the day was spent driving thru Kruger back towards Marloth Park.

On the way we saw zebra,

more baby ele's,

wildebeest crossing the road,

and a babboon hang out.

I was also excited to see the baby babboon's. The mom would groom this one when he allowed it.

I'm not sure what this baby was planning to do with the stick.

This was decided to be the trip of the hippo because they were the animal we seemed to end up watching the most. It was cool to see these guys gathered outside the water.
I was sad to leave Kruger but ready to see what old friends would be waiting at Marloth. For right now we only had one night before leaving for Sodwana Bay and scuba. Andre had another magnificent Braai for us and I got to see another of my favorite animals - the bush babies.

They seem to be doing just fine here but we had to wait for the vervet monkeys to leave before we could feed them their bananas. They sound like little squirrels sitting in the trees whining for their treats.

...Kruger National Park. Bright and early this morning we headed into Kruger. The landscape looks much different that last visit. It is just coming into spring so most of the landscape is still dry and many of the trees have been destroyed by elephants.

I didn't remember seeing these "Lion King" birds last time but they were all over now. These hornbills have a strange method of laying eggs and building a nest. The female goes into a hole in the wall and the male seals her in. She sheds her feathers that provides the nest. The male feeds her thru a hole in the sealing. If something happens to the male the female will die because if she gets out of the nest she has no wings to fly away and gather food.

I wasn't disappointed in my hopes to see babies - The little elephants had to work so hard to keep up with the adults. Baby ele's don't go more than a few minutes without some contact with an adult.

It wasn't long before we came across this lion couple.

The large male appeared drowsy but the female was just plain knocked out.

We were lucky enough to come across some rare antelope including this tsessebe

and these roan antelope.

We saw a large herd of buffalo several times, these were happy just to be having a snack.

At the Mopani Rest area we had lunch and visited this baobab tree. This has many uses and has been there for hundreds of years.

Elephants are another favorite of mine, especially the babies.

This Kudu bull looked gorgeous with his long hair that matched the trees.

We got to spend the night in the Shipandane Hide which is basically an observatory by day and campsite at night. It was overlooking a water hole that was residence for many hippos that kept us busy.

The adults spent most of the time like this. They are actually laying on their bellies in the water.

These little ones, probably boys, playing ALL night long.

The adults occasionally would show who was in charge. These animals kill more people that anything else and they do it by biting you to death with those huge teeth.
They eventually came out of the water and fed on the grass directly in front of the hide.

This bushbuck was also eating in front of the hide when we showed up.
Dinner was a braai (BBQ) in the eating area of the hide. It was the most magical night with beautiful stars, eating by candles and listening to jackals call and elephants feed in the bush.

These elephants were on the ridgeline behind the hide and made a great vision.