9th October – stay at Satara Rest Camp

9^th October – stay at Satara Rest Camp

At 5.30am we left camp and drove along the S100 where we saw some baboons, impala, warthogs, waterbuck and a lone spotted hyena just 15m from the road sniffing around in the long grass. After our good sightings the previous day we didn’t stay long. We then drove along the S41 and spotted a saddle bill stork, crocodile, waterbuck and 4 individual sightings of steenbok. We then drove along the H6 and saw warthogs, wildebeest, impala and a herd of 10+ giraffes. We also saw kudu, steenbok and a tawny eagle. Along the H1-3 towards Satara we came across a herd of buffalo right next to the road and hopefully got some good photos.

We then drove along the H7 just to the Nsemani Dam to see if there was anything there. Along the way we saw wildebeest, elephant, impala and zebras. Bizarrely, we did not see any animals at the dam.

After making a quick toilet stop at Satara we then drove north along the H1-4 and spotted giraffes, warthogs and a juvenile tawny eagle.

About 5km north of Satara we came across a lot of cars and saw 2 males lions and a collared female only metres from the road. Surprisingly for late morning they appeared active and walked parallel to the road before crossing it and walking along the other side. Due to the high number of cars we just took a few photos before driving on. 

Further along we saw steenbok, 5 ostriches and some wildebeest.

Further along the road we saw some impala before stopping as Wayne spotted a white headed vulture about 5m from the road. He appeared to be eating something although he never picked it up for us to see what it was, probably a small mammal or snake. Not long after we arrived 2 tawny eagles flew in and just watched the vulture eating. It was interesting that they didn’t try and wrestle him for the food. Obviously there is a pecking order and the vulture is higher up it than the eagle! 

Eventually one of the tawny eagles got bored waiting and left, then when the vulture had finished he flew off and the remaining tawny eagle got to eat. However, he only managed to grab a few bites before 2 white headed vultures came in and stole the food off him so he flew away too. It was nice to see some animal interaction as it was our first time on this trip.

 After watching them for 30 minutes or so we headed back down the H1-4 south towards Satara. On the way back to camp we spotted zebras, giraffes, elephant, ostrich, warthogs, wildebeest, impala and an African wild cat! We could not believe our luck. Just passed where we had seen the lions on the way up – people were still watching them on our way down – we pulled over as there were a few cars looking at something. We never found out what they were looking at as shortly after we arrived an African wild cat jumped out of the bushes and ran across to hide in the thicket further away. It was around 11am at this point so the cat had probably been sleeping and been awoken.

We returned to camp where we sat by the pool for 30 minutes, had some lunch, rested etc before heading back out around 2pm.  In camp we saw some Vervet monkeys, birds and mongoose mating!

Before we left camp we went to the shop to buy an ice lolly and a gentleman stopped us by the ‘sightings board’ to advise us of a leopard kill he’d just seen on the impala loop. We quickly jumped in the car and headed to the loop – just off the H7. Unfortunately we didn’t see a leopard but we did see elephant, zebras and impala on the H7 and then elephant, impala, wildebeest and quite a few steenbok on the S40 and S12.

 After this we drove along the H6 and spotted buffalo, giraffe, kudu and steenbok before stopping at Sweni Hide on the S37. Here we saw lots of storks, ducks, hippos, impalas and a crocodile. It was very peaceful as nobody else was there. I’m not sure why we hadn’t stopped at the hide before as we’ve driven almost past it numerous times before.

We then had to head back to camp so we drove along the S41 seeing absolutely nothing, not even a lone impala. We stopped briefly at Guazani Dam and saw hippos, crocodiles and a very old turtle shell – the turtle was long gone! The S100 was similar to the S41, quiet, spotting only impalas, baboons and kudu. 

We arrived back at Satara with 15 minutes to spare so we decided to head up past it and see if the lions spotted this morning were still there. It took as a couple of minutes to get past Satara as a herd of elephants had taken up the road.

Once we had passed them we drove quickly to the lion sighting (this was easy to find as we’d marked it in our Sat Nav earlier) but they were no longer there so we turned around and headed back to Satara with only seconds to spare before the gate closed!

We were both feeling a bit deflated as such a poor afternoon of game spotting. We made supper, and spotted a hyena walking along the perimeter fence – probably the same one as last night before packing up our stuff as we’re moving camp tomorrow and having an early night.