October
26 - November 1, 2001
Upon arriving
at the airport separately due to Gavin playing rugby, I find
that during this game of rugby Gavin has split open his nose
and it requires stitches. Given that the British health system
is so poor we decided try the South African system once we got
there. So our day in Johannesburg was taken up by visiting the
medical centre of Boksburg near our hotel. Unfortunately not
only did Gavin need five stitches but also his nose was broken.
Luckily it did not need an operation and in fact it was hardly
swollen so only the plaster made Gavin's nose look silly. At
least it was only going to be for seven days.
I was extremely
excited the next morning as we were catching our flight to Hoedspruit
to meet our safari guide for the next 3 days. Of course Gavin
cannot allow things to be easy and leaves his mobile phone in
the rental car, discovering this only 30 minutes before our
flight. He went back to the rental company and they had found
it, but the car was 15 minutes away at another depot for cleaning,
while we was waiting I was standing at the gate watching the
bus leave for the plane without us. At the very last minute
before the gate was to be closed Gavin came sprinting in with
his mobile. We were driven in a car to our plane. Thankfully
the rest of our trip was without incident.
Our safari
camp, Kapama, was immaculate. We had a private luxury tent that
had wooden decking all around it with a bathroom in one corner.
While it might have had canvas walls and roof, that was about
as similar to a tent as it got. It was beautiful inside, very
roomy with proper beds and everything. If camping was always
like this, there would have been a lot more girl guides. We
were scheduled for 2 game drives a day, one early morning (6.20am)
for about 2 hours, and one at night (4.20pm) for about 3 hours.
The camp took a maximum of 16 guests, but the most that was
there while we were there was about 14 people, one night there
was only 6 of us.
Our first
drive was a night one. We managed to see 3 lions drinking, hippo
and her day old baby, buffalo, giraffes, rhino and baby, elephants,
impala (antelopes, and known as the McDonalds of the bush as
they have a M marking on their backside and can be found on
every corner). So we had seen 4 of the big five. Pretty good
for our first drive. The elephants were my favourite. They are
so noisy when they eat and can destroy a lot of vegetation with
their browsing. They came very close to the truck also.
The following
drives fitted this pattern with some drives being more profitable
than others. We saw many other types of antelopes, zebra, baboons,
monkeys, birds, including vultures, a dung beetle and a turtle.
We did not manage to see a leopard, which would have completed
the big five. The animals that belong to this group do so because
they are the most dangerous. Towards the end Gavin and I became
quite good at spotting the game before the ranger. We had 3
fantastic meals a day with dessert after lunch and dinner. It
was so yummy I'm sure we both put on a bit of weight. After
our morning drive on the second day we were taken to the Cheetah
project. That allowed us to see cheetahs as we did not see any
in the wild. At the project we also saw some wild dogs.
Cheetah
in captivity
Click to
enlarge
Wild
Dogs
Click to
enlarge
My highlights
include, watching the elephants swimming, seeing a warthog die,
being stuck by lions. The elephants were fun to watch while
they swam. They pushed each other over and played around like
kids. That same afternoon we were in another spot watching and
one decided we should leave so he mini charged the truck a couple
of times. By mini charge I mean he walked up the road towards
us flapping his ears. Our guide backed back a bit and tooted
the horn. That seemed to please him or scare him and he left
us alone.
Around one
corner there was a warthog very close to the road. We had seen
a lot of warthog bums as they always ran away from the truck
as soon as it came by so it was unusual for this one to stay
standing by the road. We stopped and our guide could see blood
on its neck. He was breathing heavily and didn't look well.
We carried on but came back later and saw the warthog take its
last steps before it fell to the ground and jerked about. Right
behind him was a group of jackal so I guess he was going to
be their dinner. Two drives later when we came back he had been
reduced to bones. Not nice, but part of the bush I guess.
On our last
night drive we were lucky enough o see a lioness with her new
cubs, about 2 months old. She was known to be one of the fiercer
lions. We discovered she also had a kill with her. Some of the
other rangers were watching with their groups also. After a
while they left and we were the last ones there. We were ready
to leave so our guide started the truck, well I should say tried
to start the truck. It turned over as if the battery was flat.
So we were stuck with a lioness protecting not only her cubs
but her kill as well. Our truck was parked on a slight hill
but a log was trapping a wheel so we could not roll forward
for a jump-start. The guide put his foot out of truck to try
and push us and Gavin offered to help. He of course would not
let Gavin out so we had to sit tight. He tried for some time,
all the time using the spotlight to see where the lioness was.
Finally he got out on the passenger side (opposite side to the
lions) and pushed us over the log, then jumped across to jump
start the truck luckily it worked. We were in radio contact
so it was always under control and we weren't going to be lion
dinner but a bit exciting all the same.
On the whole
the safari was one of my top ten life moments and if you can
go, do it. You won't regret it. We were in a private park so
it was a bit more expensive than driving through Kruger by yourself,
but then you get a 90% guarantee to see some good game, you
can go off road and you have an experienced guide to drive you
around and spot things. They are great even in the dark.
To soon
it was Thursday afternoon and time to go to Cape
Town.
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