8th June 2012 – Stay at Wild Forest Inn

8th June 2012 – Stay at Wild Forest Inn

I thought it would be hard to get up after a late night but both Wayne and I woke up early in anticipation of what we would see on our last day. We both acknowledged that we had seen so much already and so didn’t think we’d see much in our last few hours before leaving. How wrong were we?! We left camp early at 5.50am as the gates were open, and a couple minutes into driving we saw a hyena by the road.

Further along we suddenly remembered that we hadn’t handed our keys in before leaving camp so we had to turn around and go back. Just before entering camp we saw a bus hit an impala. It was very sad and we were glad this wasn’t the last thing we saw before leaving the park. After dropping our room key off at camp we headed back onto the road. We could not see the bus or the impala; we think they may have taken it with them for supper!

Further along the road there were lots of cars pulled up as there were lions. Wayne saw one of them running away from the road and as we had seen lots of lions and the sighting wasn’t brilliant we moved on. Not long later – about 15 minutes we saw at least 7 lions cross the road in front of us. They didn’t hang around long and were soon in the bushes not visible from the road. We couldn’t believe it – how many lions were there along this road?!

We then saw some more road kill – a dead wild cat. This was very sad and it had obviously only just happened in the last few hours; poor cat.

We continued driving until we reached the dam near Satara where there were a few cars pulled up. We looked at what they were looking at and could not believe our eyes! Here, right next to us was a pride of lions with a kill; this would be our third lion kill sighting in 24 hours! They had caught a wildebeest and the male lion was feeding and refused to let the females have any. We watched them for a couple of hours as he fed, protecting it from the lionesses as well as watch the vultures wait patiently in the surrounding trees and the jackals sniff around waiting for a moment to sneak a bite.

We couldn’t get over how many lion kills we had seen; what a way to end our time in KNP. After a couple of hours we left the Dam and headed back to Orpen and the gate to leave KNP. On the way to Orpen Gate we saw a herd of zebras with an extremely small zebra that looked like it had been born fairly recently which seemed unusual as all the other zebra foals were much larger.

7th June 2012 – Stay at Orpen Camp

7th June 2012 – Stay at Orpen Camp

This was our last full day in KNP. At 6am we headed out and towards Timbavati. Along the way we saw some male lions, at least 4 and we think this must be a group of 7 male lions that were reported earlier this week near Timbavati! We took some photos before heading on.

The road was very quiet and we just saw some giraffe, impala, zebra, kudu and one lone vervet monkey. We then drove back down towards Satara. We saw a large herd of zebra and wildebeest as well as around 8 vultures sitting in the tree but we could not see a kill anywhere so we carried on. Further down the road someone stopped as they had spotted a cheetah but we couldn’t see it and they didn’t stay so we assumed it moved away pretty quickly.

We then went to drive down the S100 and about 100m in there was a major traffic jam of 20+ cars. We were told that there was a buffalo kill with 4 lions. We managed to stop and look through another cars window to be able to see it. It was actually pretty funny because one of the cars had a flat battery and so was waiting for the officials to arrive to jump start it as nobody dared to get out of the car with the lions only 15m away. When they arrived the lions ran away immediately, clearly fearing humans whilst they jump started the car.

About 1 hour after this had happened there were still a lot of cars but it was not nearly such mayhem and we managed to get a good spot to sit and watch the carcass. Unfortunately the lions didn’t return immediately, clearly concerned that humans were still nearby. In the meantime, 2 jackals had a great time feasting on the buffalo. They ate very quickly and cautiously as they were clearly aware that the lions were still about. I don’t think that they could believe their luck! After watching the carcass for around 3 hours one juvenile male lion came to the kill. He started eating but was clearly very hot as it was around midday and the kill was not in the shade. He tried to drag it into the shade but it was too heavy for him to do on his own.

He sat and ate for a while getting his entire head inside the buffalo until he was probably too hot to keep feeding and went to sit in the shade. The jackal then returned to eat some more and one of the vultures who had been sitting in a nearby tree took this opportunity to come and feed too. The lion has not happy with this and ran towards the vulture and jackal and chased them off. This was about as exciting as it got until we left at around 3.30pm.

Although we had seen a lion feeding on a kill we felt a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more interaction between the vultures, jackals and lions.

We couldn’t believe what happened next; Wayne said it was a reward for sitting at the buffalo all day with little happening! About 6km from camp we witnessed 4 lions on the kill – a warthog. They had obviously just made the catch seconds before we arrived as they were snarling and growling all trying to get a share of the meat before each ripping off a bit and running off to eat it in peace on their own.

It wasn’t long before the jackals and hyenas arrived on the scene looking to have some too but the lions had devoured it pretty quickly. We had to leave to make sure we got back to camp before the gate closed but we were so pleased to get to see this and the interaction between the lions was just what we had been after all day!

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!