4th June 2012 – Stay at Mopani Camp

4th June 2012 – Stay at Mopani Camp

At 6am we returned to Mooiplaas Waterhole but there was nothing there except a jackal on the road but it was too dark to photograph him. There was no sign of any of the zebras. We also saw a few elephants nearby too. So we decided to head down to Letaba. Along the way we saw some giraffes, zebras, impala, a fish eagle and a mongoose but in general it was quiet. We headed along the H9 and stopped off at the dam.

There were just a couple of hippos and a very large crocodile. Further along the road we got stopped by several cars reversing back; getting excited that they had seen something exciting, we looked to our sides to see what it was. As we then looked back to the road in front of us we saw a large elephant bull walking down the road towards us. We too put our car in reverse and had to reverse for about 10 minutes at he enjoyed ambling along the road towards us. Eventually we came to a junction so we turned off and let the elephant pass before continuing on the road the elephant had been walking along. It had caused quite a lot of traffic to build up but I don’t think that bothered him!


So we continued to drive back to Mopani seeing very little. Wayne and I played a game as to what animal we would see first; Wayne chose impala and I said giraffe. We got all the way back to Mopani without seeing either. However, we did see some kudu, buffalo and then back at Mooiplaas Waterhole there were some zebras, wildebeest and a few warthogs! Again there was no sign of an injured zebra – we will never know if he survived.

We returned to camp to have lunch – whilst we were making it we got surrounded by about 20+ birds which were obviously used to people feeding them. Wayne put our plates on the table and turned his back just for a few seconds but that was all the birds needed to come in and get some – naughty buggers!

After lunch we just chilled out in our room before heading back out for an afternoon game drive. We went to Mooiplaas waterhole but there was nothing there except a few elephants, we drove around the surrounding area but saw nothing so we headed to Pioneer Hide where we sat watching the river. We saw some hippos, a crocodile, 2 bush buck oh and some giraffes! Yay, I won the game; we saw giraffes before impala! Neither of us could believe it but nonetheless it was true!