Our last full day in the Kruger Park - we did feel like we were really on holiday by now, sleeping in, no alarm clocks, doing everything on our own time, discovering old places I remembered going when I was a child, and roads I did not remember at all. We had our breakfast and were on the road at 10am (I could hear my sister's voice in my head saying "what a WASTE!").
We had intended to drive down the H3 but I somehow missed the turnoff, and so instead we kept going almost as far as Pretoriuskop. The views are quite stunning to the south along the road however.
So just before Pretoriuskop we turned off down the Voortrekker Road and hoped for the best. The road surface at the start was dreadful - TinCan was struggling on the bumps and divots and nasty thick heavy granite gravel. Plus there was nothing to see at all.
Finally, we did see an elephant next to the road after about 25 minutes of nothing.
He broke the boredom for a few minutes, and then back to the same old road...
We were also starting to run low on fuel, so at the end of the Voortrekker Road we turned right down towards Berg-en-Dal camp to get some petrol there. We saw nothing along this road either. There were about 20 cars all jammed on the bridge over the Crocodile River, and after asking what they were looking at, it turned out a hyena was splashing in the shallows. Well, after 2 minutes of "see that pool?" "Which pool?" "The large one with the tree overhanging it" "Yes". "To the left of that and a bit further away" "Yes yes we see it" (We didn't of course, and just drove away at this point rather than continue to annoy people with our myopia). As we got nearer to Berg-en-Dal we made the mistake of deciding to take the unsealed road to the camp. This was not so much an unsealed road as a rocky goat track on a 45 degree gradient. The TinCan crawled along at 10km/h with me praying frantically to every god I could think of that we would not get a puncture. Never never again. We did see two giraffe along the road, but that was NOT worth the 13km of crawling nervously up and down steep hills. As we came towards the end we descended from the hills and instead now were having to ford causeways where the rain had left them underwater with all sorts of strange unpredictable things under there.
Fortunately we emerged unscathed, and headed in to fill TinCan with petrol. We also stopped off at the shop where I loaded up on pates for my family's christmas presents - wildebeest with rosemary and wine, crocodile with parsley, and impala with sage. Yum!
Out of the camp and some more lovely lovely views towards Malelane.
And let's not forget the little wildflowers.
And some photogenic buck...
I was having a lovely time now, because after all the heat and nasty roads, SS was driving back to Skukuza. After about 30 minutes, a bakkie heading in the other direction flashed us and told us that 3km back there was a rhino and its calf just next to the road. Thanking him, we headed up the road, not really holding out much hope of actually seeing them, but keeping an eye on the odometer just in case.
But what do you know - after 3.2km there they were! So we stopped for a while and took come photos, the calf in particular was really cute.
Happy that we had at least one sighting for the day, we continued up the road chugging along in TinCan, until we saw two 4x4 parked next to the road. We had had enough for one day, but I convinced SS to slow down so I could ask what they were looking at. The guy in the front car said "There's a leopard just next to the road in the culvert - if you pull up right in front of us, you might be able to look back and see her". So we did that, and craned our heads backwards and saw... nothing. We were just about to give up, when the leopard sat up about 2 metres from the car. "ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod" went me, and up came the cameras. Not only did she sit up, but she then got up, and walked right past my window. Wheeee.
So exciting, I was racing to try to get my camera settings right. We edged along the road next to her - she was not fully grown, but such a neat little leopard, and totally unfazed by the TinCan creeping along next to her.
After a brief sojourn back into the bush...
We kept on edging along next to her, also going further forward to allow the two 4x4s behind to get some good shots and close sightings - it would have been pretty rude to selfishly take all the best views when they had found her.
And then, she got bored and headed up the tree just next to the road. I am sure I don't need to give a running commentary - just enjoy the shots as she sits, yawns, licks her paws, jumps from one branch to another, and generally acts as photogenic a a gorgeous leopard can.
By this point there were another 20 cars all jockeying around us, so we got out of there and left the little leopard to her adoring crowds (ie jeep jockeys full of Japanese tourists who stop long enough to "capture" a shot, and then race off to the next poor animal).
Back to camp, we were still so excited, that I ran into the camp shop and got a couple of Phoenix beers to celebrate the best sighting in the world ever. This was made more fun by me being picked up by two afrikaners buying a 6 pack of Carling. They suggested I would have much more fun with them, than with my boyfriend and that strange Mauritian beer, but in the end I escaped their clutches and we headed back to the rondawel to enjoy them by the river.
After a rest we got in the car and drove around to Selati. First we had a Castle Draft in the pub section which is the old carriage.
Here is SS looking nonchalant waiting for our beers...
Then we went through to the restaurant section, and ordered our dinner. We both had the ham hock and pea soup to start (it was delicious).
SS had chicken kebab which was slightly undercooked in parts but since it was so large he was still stuffed with the cooked bits.
I had hake with parsley butter and chips which was really lovely. This was all washed down with a bottle of Beyerskloof Pinotage.
We skipped dessert of course, and headed back to the rondawel for our last night in the park :(
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