29th May 2012 – Stay at Skukuza Camp

29th May 2012 – Stay at Skukuza Camp

At 6am we left Lower Sabie Camp and headed up the H4-1 and within 20 minutes we came across 2 wild dogs running along the road.


We turned back to follow them along the road. We watched them playing and smelling as they trotted along. Suddenly Wayne spotted a big cat, it was a leopard. We could not believe our luck at seeing both a leopard and wild dogs at the same time! This has got to be a once in a lifetime sighting! The leopard bolted from the bushes at the side of the road toward the wild dogs. It followed the wild dogs along the road, stalking them as if they were prey. The wild dogs noticed and so started jumping up on their back legs. They appeared to do this so that they seemed more daunting but strangely did not seem to be too concerned about the stalking leopard. The leopard would charge at them at full pace and stop suddenly when they turned around to face her. Eventually the wild dogs disappeared into the thicket and so the leopard lost interest and went her own way. Wow, what a sighting! This whole encounter lasted around 30 minutes.
At 6.50am we saw our first impala! Not bad for our first hour!

We continued up the H4-1 and stopped over a dried riverbed to have a look around. We could not believe our luck. There was a second leopard! What are the chances?! He was hiding in the grass reeds but soon after us arriving he started walking away from us along the edge of the riverbed marking his territory. It was a shame he wasn’t coming towards us, but nonetheless it was a great sighting.


We also visited Leeupan watering hole where we saw 2 giraffes fighting – they were knocking their heads and necks against the other. It didn’t look vicious so we believe they were merely practicing! The smaller of the two giraffes was not really keen on the fight but the larger one kept insisting. It was pretty funny actually!

We also saw a few ground hornbills which appeared used to humans as they came right up to the car. It looked like they were used to being fed from people in their cars. We did not oblige and so one near Wayne found and picked up a crab instead!

We arrived at Skukuza at 12noon but as we cannot check into any of the camps until 2pm, we decided to call Tempest Car Hire about our puncture. They originally requested that we drove a day’s drive to their nearest depot to collect another car, when we refused to do this they just suggested getting it repaired and keeping the receipt as they would then reimburse us the cost. We were pleased that we had paid for glass and tyre damage to be included in our car hire cover. We visited the garage on the camp where the mechanic found a thorn in our tyre. He removed it and carried out a temporary repair – this looked like a rusty nail stuck in the whole and then sealed shut, but hey, we didn’t care so long as it did the job!

After getting the tyre fixed we went to the shop and bought ourselves some lunch to eat by the river. We then returned to the shop to stock up on a few supplies we needed to make lunch and suppers for the next few nights. By this time it was 2pm so we could now check in. The room was standard for our trip – 2 single beds (which we pushed together), a bathroom and an enclosed patio area – it had netting around it so that we could sit outside but the mosquitos couldn’t get to us – which had a kitchen area in it too (stove, sink, table & chairs, crockery and cooking utensils).

That afternoon we went for a game drive (3-5pm). We saw an elephant bull right by the camp entrance, rhino, giraffe, mongoose, impala, kudu and a warthog coming out of his burrow. This seems like quite a lot of animals but the drive felt quiet.

At 5pm when we returned to camp we sorted through our photos, made supper, drank some Savannahs whilst watching a gecko on our patio netting sitting in wait for insects to come towards him before catching them to eat!