The title of this blog was supposed to be “The Big 5 3 and other interesting specimens” but I can’t put strikethrough in the title, so you’ll just have to deal.
A little background information:
I love the Kruger National Park (KNP). I can recall many fond memories from the times we spent at our house next to the KNP. Several times a year we would go off for a couple of weeks to the middle of the bundu (bush) and live in paradise. One of my prerequisites when going to South Africa is a trip to the KNP. If I cannot go to the park, I cannot see a point in going to SA. This trip to the KNP almost did not happen; accommodation across the whole area seemed to be booked out as my grandparents and uncle struggled to find us accommodation. Eventually, someone cancelled and we got a place for the weekend.
Back to the story.
Day 1
We left JHB early Friday morning and hit the road for the 7 hour trip (with stops) to Mpumalanga which means “where the sun rises”. Our stops included the famous Milly’s trout farm and restaurant which used to play the funniest country music but now sadly, has lost that part of its heritage.
The next stop was Hall’s Gateway to the Lowveld. Hall’s is a farm where they make honey. There is also a shop with all kinds of amazing fresh produce from meat to dried fruit. Whenever I go there, it is a small tradition of mine to take a photo of the Malaria warning sign.
We arrived at our destination, Waterberry Hill, a small resort in a valley just past Hazyview and about half an hour from the KNP’s nearest gate. The chalet was perfectly adequate for our needs, it looked like this
For the 3 nights we were there, we had braaivleis, for the ignorant fools out there, braaivleis is barbequed meat. A braai is a fundamental part of being in South Africa and one must braai as often as humanly possible. Braaivleis is traditionally eaten with mieliepap, a kind of savory pudding made out of corn meal and eaten with tomato and onion relish.
The view from the resort is amazing, especially when the sun starts to set. There is nothing in this world like the setting of the African sun
I also taught Tali how to play Scrabble and we spent the evening outside chilling on the veranda and drinking real home-made hot chocolate
Day 2
For the sake of not writing a novel, I will just put up pictures with a brief description as to what we saw in the park. I will also be uploading the full album to my picasaweb album for your viewing pleasure.
The Big 5, for those keeping score
Phabeni gate was our starting point each day
Buffalo – as we entered the park we were greeted by a heard
Baby buffalo
Impala – the most populous animal in the park
Impala Male
Impala female
Red Hornbill
Red hornbill baby
Giraffe and baby
Zebra
And here is where things get interesting. Driving along the road, we noticed a helluva lot of vultures in the trees and circling in the sky. This normally means business.
Lying about a meter off of the road was a giraffe being swarmed by the vultures. We assume, based on the color of its fur, that the giraffe died of old age and the vultures were here to clean up the mess. I will attach a youtube video when I have bandwidth but for now, please enjoy the pictures. This is a very rare sight in the park, something that I have never seen before. Normally one would have to go on an organized drive with game rangers to see a sight like this – we were very lucky
We drove past the site for all 3 days that we were in the park. The smell was putrid but it was amazing to watch how the vultures devoured the giraffe.
Giraffe watch - Day 2:
Giraffe watch - Day 3
Back to day 1 – isn’t non-linear story-telling fun? 
Kudu female
Kudu male
Bats
It was fun to watch people’s expressions as they realized the bats were above us while we ate.
Yellow hornbill
Klipspringer (Rock Jumper)
We stumbled upon another rarity on our first day, the ground hornbill or turkey buzzard. These birds look like something out of Jurassic Park and are slowly dying out due to stupidity. Only alphas breed and they lay very few eggs so to see these dino-birds is somewhat of a rarity. But what we saw was extremely rare
The two hornbills in the front left of the shot are adults. The smaller brown one behind them is a baby. It has not matured yet and has not developed colors. As you will hear, when I put the video up, the young one was crying out, I can only guess it was doing so to alert the older birds that it was there, or maybe it was hungry. I cannot speak bird, give me a break.
These are truly spectacular creatures. They are about the size of a medium sized dog and walk like you would imagine a velociraptor would.
Kingfisher
Warthog (Bonus question, how many warts would a warthog hog if a warthog could hog warts?)
Waterbuck male
Lucky little ladies at the watering holes (Bonus trivia question: Name the song)
Hatted girlfriend
Tarentaal
Sun going down at the end of day one
Fish eagle
Hopapitamus (Fun fact: The hippopotamus is the deadliest animal in Africa. The hippo kills more people per year than any other wild animal)
Elephant
Plover
Francolin
Gemsbok
Starling
Speckle-arsed sparrow
Pervert monkey
Definitely a sheep
Homo-superion (Mr. Extra Extra)
Veranda frog
Wildebees
The original 3 monkeys
A vein of the crocodile river
Zebras and wildebees drinking at the water’s edge
Crocodiles and maribou cranes
Birdbath with masked weaver et. al.
Giraffe with weird things on its face
Kudu male with weird stuff on its antlers
White rhino
Sunset on the way home
And that’s where we end the journey to the Kruger Park. It was an unforgettable experience with amazing sightings and lots of biltong. More scenic photos to come with our trip to cape town next week.
The full album will be up when bandwidth permits (when I get back to Israel).
