Cave Girl and LeonDude does a Kruger Hike

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LeonDude

Bachelor Dog
Joined
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Location
Gauteng - Centurion
Bike
Suzuki DR650
A bit of housekeeping before the story starts. Although the photos will, mostly, be in chronological order, I cannot guarantee that they are, because I used photos from different cameras.
And although the story is in chronological order, the story and the photos do not necessarily follow each other, mostly because it’s difficult to remember what happened in what order for 3 days. But put them together, and I think you’ll get the picture. Right, now put on your backpack, and off we go!

After much organizing on the part of everybody, the big weekend finally arrived. Andrew got to Sharron’s house just before 7 AM on Saturday, everything was thrown in the back of the van and off we went on the long drive to Phalaborwa. We got there at around 2PM, and then took a ride through the Kruger Park in anticipation of what the next few days would bring.

Seven of our group spent Saturday night at a backpackers in Phalaborwa, and next morning we made our separate way to Mopani camp. This is quite far, and our meeting time was set for 10AM, so we had to hurry to get there on time, but we made it with just enough time to have breakfast before meeting our guides who would be looking after us for the next few days. Just after breakfast, there was a stampede for the toilet, as we all tried to use the loo for the last time. For the next 3 nights, there would be no bathroom, it would be strictly bush.

Ash is an old friend of Sharron’s, and it was him that organized this trip for the ESSA members. He introduced us to Wayne, our other guide.

Shortly after 10AM Wayne gave us a short briefing, asking if we all knew what to expect, and then it was onto the game vehicle with our backpacks in the trailer. By now we were very excited, but Wayne was also a bit worried as we were a bit late, so he didn’t hang around for too much game viewing, because we had an hour and a half drive to our drop – off point. After an hour we turned off the tar, and another few minutes saw us leave the public road and follow a ranger road. This road got quite bad, 30 minutes later we stopped on a small open veldt where a herd of blue wildebeest and some impala were milling around, but they quickly disappeared.

Here, to great excitement, we left the game vehicle and collected our backpacks from the back. Here we were given a much more detailed briefing by Wayne. Walk in single file, don’t talk while walking, (this was so that the guides could listen for animals, and so that everybody could enjoy the peace of the veld) whistle softly if you spotted game or if there is danger, always stay behind the rifle. And thus, with my backpack feeling far too heavy, we set off into the bush.


We get offloaded, now we are out of the safety of our vehicle, getting ready to go.
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The packs, ready to make mules of us.
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Our very first sighting, a giraffe.
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This is how you walk, in single file. Don’t call the guide if you see an animal, because the animal will scamper. Just whistle softly, he will stop.
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Cave girl was carrying her soft toy, which is also her pillow to sleep on. It is an African wild dog called Nuffy, and was watching the game with interest. Here is its shadow on her backpack.
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As I understood it, on hikes like these it is the time spent in the Kruger only that is the reward. Mostly, people don’t see many animals on the hike, as the bush is thick, the animals shy and the hikers sound like a truck as we walk through the bush.

Our first rest stop in the riverbed.
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I was thus pleasantly surprised that we quickly saw giraffe, impala and waterbuck. I had a problem though. This being my first hike, my bag sat very uncomfortable on my back, and the straps from my camera and binocs was bugging me. To make it all worse, I was using walking sticks for the first time, and I just couldn’t figure out their use, so I ended up just carrying them along.

One of our two guides, Wayne.
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More of the group resting
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Andrew resting. Andrew is six foot eight tall. I ragged him about this for the whole walk.
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Cave girl.
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John and Selina
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We soon came upon the newly cleaned off bones of a rhino, but sadly, the head and horn was missing, leading our guide to the only conclusion he could come to – that the animal had been poached not long before.

Rhino bones. Sadly the head and horn is missing, so this guy was probably poached.
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Our guide, although he marched at a cracking pace to get to where he wanted to camp for the night, would stop every now and again to point out the spoor. Here was a Rhino, there a leopard, various buck and, all around and not needing any pointing out, the footprints of elephant. At our first break I shook off my pack and made some adjustments, and then the pack was much easier to handle, with no straps digging into my shoulders.

We kept on crossing the riverbed. That sand is not easy to walk in.
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Wayne apologized for walking so fast, but explained that where we were headed for the night was still a few kilometres away. We made it to about a kilometre from the point where he wanted to camp when things became interesting. He suddenly stopped, and there, about forty meters in front of us, was a bull elephant eating.


Now look, I’m not very comfortable with bull elephants, or with any ellies for that matter. The whole group took up station behind him, so that we had a rifle between us and the bull, and watched him for a few minutes.


Now let me explain about the photographs. Most of the sightings were so fleeting that we never got any photos of wild animals. This bull stood there for a while however, but I never even thought of taking a picture, the first moment of meeting a bull elephant in the wild with only a few meters between us was just too fantastic.


And all the time, in the Mopani bush ahead of us, we could hear rustling. We left the bull to feed and continued on our way, but it wasn’t long before our path was cut off my more elephant. We could now hear them in the bushes all around us. Our guide stopped, waiting to check where they were so that he would not lead us into harm’s way, when a big bull suddenly stormed out of the bushes very close to us. He stood there with his ears out, making himself as big as possible, as if that was necessary.


Yours truly contemplating appreciating the scenery.
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Wayne quickly showed us to back off, and Ash skirted around the group to take the lead, so that we now had one rifle in front of us and one at the back. We walked back the way we had come, but the big bull was not going to give up too easily, he followed us. This, I can tell you, was nerve wracking for me. And all around, we could see the elephant trunks rising above the Mopani bushes as the breeding herd of elephants sensed and heard and smelled us.

We backtracked further and further until the bull that was following us eventually lost interest.

Wayne took us down into the riverbed, skirting the big herd of ellies, and then back up the bank and once again into the bushes. Low and behold though, it took just five minutes for us to be surrounded by elephants again. Once again there was the adrenaline rush of getting the hell out of there before they could get stroppy, and we once again beat a retreat.

This was not the first elephant we saw, but the others was not good photography material as we were usually trying to get away from them.
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More of those ellies
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By this time I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. There were elephants absolutely everywhere. Even when we went into the dry riverbed we could hear them all around, breaking bushes, fighting with each other and eating.

One of the great trees growing on the riverbank.
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By this time, Wayne was laughing, and even we couldn’t get the smiles off our faces. Not even he had thought we would see so many elephants. He now had to drop his original plan of where he wanted to camp, and led us instead to a safe spot in the mostly dry riverbed where we could set up camp for the night. Still, mind, with the sound of elephant all around.

Being the beginning of July, the veld was very dry.
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Once we’d set up our tents Wayne took us to the water’s edge and showed us where the elephants had dug for water. Apparently they don’t drink from the stagnant pools because the water does not taste good. Instead they dig holes next to the water and wait for clear water to seep into these holes so that they can drink clear water. After scooping out the muddy water we were surprised at how quickly the water ran clear, we then used this hole to get our cooking and cleaning water from.

Cave girl having a great time.
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That night, around the smallest campfire I had ever seen (to lessen the impact on the environment), Wayne told us about the bush around us, and what we could expect for the next few days. He also told us quite straight forward that the amount of elephants we had seen was phenominal, it was not something he was used to on the hikes. And when we shone our torches on the water where we had dug our waterhole earlier, there was the unmistakable eyes of a crocodile silently watching us.

Have you ever wondered if animals step in each other’s poo? Well here you have it people, this leopard stepped in some buffalo poo.
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In the bushes we could hear leopard and hyena call, and far off, we heard a lion.

Single file, on we go.
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We had a nasty surprise coming though. We had thought we’d only need to take our food into our tents, but Wayne explained that especially hyena likes to carry stuff off if there were strange smells on them, so we had to put our backpacks and everything in the tents with us. And, because I was going to have to carry that tent, I had chosen the smallest two – man tent we had, so it was going to make for some pretty cramped conditions for the next three nights.

Check out that ellie behind me.
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I’m glad I was as tired as I was that night, or I’d never have gotten to sleep. But I dropped off almost at once, and only awoke now and again during the night.

Andrew with a big smile for the ellie
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Here’s a close up of the big guy.
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Just in case anybody thought we didn’t really swim with crocodiles, here’s the evidence.
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Me in the water.
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Andrew having a snooze
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This was our camping spot for the first night, right in the riverbed.
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Sharron cooling down.
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