Kruger National Park Self-Drive Safari| South Africa, Day 14

Friday, September 28, 2018
Today was our full day of self-drive safari at Kruger. As luck would have it, it ended up being 100 degrees today. We walked outside of our bungalow, and there were literally warthogs right outside. I kept my distance, but there was a time one was headed right towards me haha.

Francisco's cell phone shot

It was an absolutely spectacular day filled with animals sightings.  

I spotted this hippo and was fairly sure he was dead, but he ended up moving his head slightly at some point. He had some pretty bad war wounds though!

We were slowly making our way towards food at another Rest Camp, but we kept getting distracted with animals sightings. When we saw a cluster of cars with an apparent sighting, we knew they must've spotted something good. We scanned the area, and eventually spotted a female lion resting on a tan rock.

We came across the most quintessential African scene at a watering hole with elephants, zebras, hippos, etc. In this area, we also spotted several birds, antelopes, warthogs, crocodiles, and more.  

How much more African does it get?

It was taking us a fairly long time to go a relatively short distance with all the stops we were making, so we were glad to finally pull into the Lower Sabie Rest Camp and get lunch!

As luck would have it, the beautiful birds I'd spent too much trying to photograph earlier in the day were all too eager to come right up to try to steal your food, providing much better opportunities for pictures.

We ordered food from Mugg & Bean for lunch - a Vegetarian Mac & Cheese Pot and a Vegetarian Sausage Roll.

These birds were literally lined up for lunch

They had a viewing area here, so you could literally watch elephants roam around while you ate.  

We stopped in the gift shop and left with some ice cream before we were back on the road.

We saw another cluster of cars, and we thoroughly scanned the area but weren't able to find anything. As we were passing a van, I asked what they were looking at and a young boy was very excited to tell me there were about 7 lions under a tree across the way and helped us identify which tree to look for.

There is no way I would've located them without his help. They blended in perfectly with the background and you really needed to know where to look.  These lions were very far away though, so it was tricky to get a good shot.

Now that we knew which tree to scan down from, we even stopped by again later to check if they were still there.

We saw many a scarred up hippo

Here I am zooming to get a shot of the stork and totally didn't notice the crocodile sitting right next to him till I looked at our photos later.  <This is why I would be eaten in the wilds of Africa.>

Hot, sunny days in a car are a recipe for a migraine for me, so by midday, I was feeling it and eventually moved to the backseat to give me some respite from the sun.

But the whole day was incredible.

And then it got even better. We're driving down the road, and a herd of elephants starts crossing right in front of us.

We're ooh-ing and ah-ing, especially as we watch the babies. Marveling at the elephants marching not terribly far from our vehicle. And then one turned directly toward us and lifted his trunk as he advanced in our direction.

 Almost as if he was shielding the babies crossing.

We put the car in reverse to give him some space, but there was also a crossing behind us so there was only so far we could go. It was such an exhilirating, thrilling moment that thankfully didn't end with us being crushed by elephants.  

After taking in one more glorious safari sunset, we returned to camp before the 6 PM deadline.

There was one restaurant at Skukuza, and Cattle Baron Grill & Bistro was surprisingly fancy for a rest camp restaurant.

We shared the Baron's Platter - Grilled Black Mushrooms, Deep-Fried Camembert, Potato Rosti topped with Creme Fraiche & Capers, and Vegetable Spring Rolls, served with a choice of starch (obvs, we got french fries).

After Chocolate Fondant (molten chocolate lava cake) for dessert, we returned to our room and went to bed early in preparation for our Morning Sunrise Safari Drive!

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