Day 46 2nd June 2024

 

Another seriously unholy time to wake up, 4am but the sweetener is that we are being picked up by 4x4 jeeps and leaving the Intrepid truck and crew behind.

They have kindly offered to take our tents down  and put them up for us at the camping ground inside Kruger National Park.

The gates to Kruger open at sunrise and we have about an hours drive to get there, thus the early wake up.

Took a good half hour or more for the guides to get the passes.

What puzzles me is they don’t have a season pass or something.

Didn’t matter we were throughly entertained by a young male elephant as he was chasing birds and also one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen.

This is the little guys dad, in the car park!

A couple of km’s further we were taken to a sourvenir  and coffee shop ( with barista!)

We had to queue in the shop to pay for coffee, then queue to give our payment receipt to the queue again to receive coffee.

I love Africa….

Anyhoo, here to see animals.

Another glorious day searching for animals, mainly those elusive cats but still being rewarded with sightings of elephants, giraffes, buffalo, zebras and hippos.

 Often see Impala, zebra and buffalo together, apparently they use their combined senses to avoid getting eaten. 

Did get the call about some lady lions and cubs just before our lunch stop.

They were there but too hard to see, just the occasional flick of a tail could be seen.

Still no sign of that adult male lion, I really thought Kruger would provide but apparently not.

After lunch we hung out at a large watering hole for a while.

Elephants, zebras, giraffes and a whole lot of sleeping hippos that eventually woke.

It seems there is a pecking order to the drinking as they all seem to take turns.

To our camp and yes our tents are up.

Quiet arvo, some of the group are going for a night drive but not until after dinner.

We pass and try for an early night, exhausted.