10th October – stay at Lower Sabie Rest Camp (part 1)

10^th October – stay at Lower Sabie Rest Camp - Part 1

At 5.30am we left Satara and drove south down the H1-3. Our plan for today was to drive along this road, stop off at Tshokwane Picnic Spot then drive to Skukuza before heading onto Lower Sabie. As we should have learnt by now, our planned routes rarely happen as planned.

Along the H1-3 we spotted impala, elephant, giraffes, warthogs, as well as kudu. We took a lovely photo of a male kudu at sunrise.

Not much further along we spotted 7+ lionesses and cubs walking along the road. We followed them for a few minutes before they stopped in the road. We watched as the cubs played and sat in front of the cars preventing them from moving.

They then changed their direction and headed off into the bush. Luckily, there was a road (S126) that followed along where they were walking so we continued to follow them. Two lionesses then appeared that they were going to hunt by Sweni Waterhole as they went into crouched hunting positions and watched as 50+ zebras came into drink.

Unfortunately they never made it any further than this. They soon wondered off so were no longer visible.

We stopped at Kumana dam to see if there was anything there – nothing but a hippo with a heron on his back

As we drove off we both looked to the opposite side of the dam and spotted 3 lionesses lying just 10m from the road. Blimey, it was definitely lion day! Quite a few cars had just left the dam as we had arrived and we wondered if they had even spotted them; they were clearly visible from the road but because everyone looks at the dam on the other side of the road we wondered if they had not been spotted.

Continuing our drive south we spotted white rhino, baboons and wildebeest.

It wasn’t long before we hit a road block as cars were blocking it on both sides of the road and from both ways. As some cars moved we spotted a male and female lion just sitting in the middle of the road. We assumed they were a mating couple. They didn’t look very healthy and if the male stood up, he really struggled to lie back down; as if his rear legs were very stiff. 

We eventually managed to pass them as they moved off the road and 2km further south we spotted another pride of lions, this time approximately 6 lionesses and the prides male. The male got up and walked over to sleep with his females and we left soon after as we didn’t think they would be going anywhere anytime soon – we’ve learnt that once a lion is asleep it will only move if it needs more shade otherwise they usually stay put all day. We were surprised at how close the 2 lions in the road were to this pride, but perhaps they were both near where their boundaries lie. The male in the road looked so old that had he come up against this male he would most certainly have lost.