6th June 2012 Orpen Camp

6th June 2012 Orpen Camp

At 6am we left Letaba camp and headed down to Satara and the S100. We saw a surprising amount of game on the way down including 2 hyenas, a side-stripped jackal, zebra, impala, a large herd of buffalo of at least 200 all crossing the road as well as a herd of giraffes consisting of 8 adults and 5 babies.

Along the S100 it was pretty quiet, we saw some saddle billed stalk, sleeping waterbuck, impala, giraffes and a rhino.

Right at the end of the S100 we then saw 2 full grown male lions. They were about 10m from the road just resting and sleeping but every now and then they would get up and move to a shadier spot. They seemed very happy to be photographed as when they sat up they stayed still for quite some time before going back to sleep and as we were the first ones to spot them it meant we had the best view! We did find it amusing that the car behind us were clearly getting impatient with them sleeping and so they would open and close their car doors and wave their hands out of the car to get their attention. Suddenly one of the lions went into hunting mode and got into a crouching position. Wayne thought they had spotted some pray behind us but it was actually one of the guys in the car behind that got out of his car – unbelievable! We stay and watched them for about 1½ hours before continuing on.

drove on to Orpen Camp stopping of at various viewpoints etc. along the way. We sat at one for 30 minutes watching the view and enjoying the sunshine before heading on and arriving at Orpen at 2pm. We checked in and booked ourselves onto a night drive before making lunch and heading out for an afternoon game drive.

We drove along the H7 seeing very little except impala and wildebeest. We did see 2 jackals sniffing intently in the road not concerned about the cars or anything. Other than that we saw giraffe, zebra, kudu, impala and a family of 9 warthogs which was a first!


We returned to camp at 5.30pm and made supper and relaxed until our night drive at 8pm. This was the first time we had done a night drive in Kruger and in the first hour we saw 2 genets, a wild cat, a white tailed mongoose as well as giraffe, impala, wildebeest, steenbok and a buffalo. The second hour was much quieter but it was still a great drive.

That night we slept very well and got woken up by our alarm in the morning – this was a first for this trip!