Having seen lions, African buffalo, and the elusive black rhino all before breakfast, day 2 in Kruger National Park was off to a fantastic start!
Today’s plan was to drive aimlessly around the park, then end up at Skukuza for the night, before heading off to Nelspruit for my early afternoon flight home. As usual, I had to make it inside the gates before sundown, and the clock was ticking. I had preloaded a roadmap on my phone, and was able to keep the route to Skukuza up in real-time, adjusting the route and ETA in response to whatever random road I happened to drive down, which helped keep me traveling too far afield. I had also wanted to have lunch at the Lower Sabie rest camp (bottom right), and the only unknown was which random dirt road I’d take to get there.
This is the route I ended up taking this day:
The first part of the route took me along the same paved road we had taken during the sunrise safari with the park ranger. As I made the turn south, I was flagged down by a tour truck, asking if I had seen any lions, presumably because by this second day I appeared to be a seasoned bush guide. (I was not).
The turn back toward the east, about in the middle of the map, was the best decision I made all day. It took me off the paved road, straight into rocky hills and trees, onto a washed out dirt road that roughly paralleled a small river.
I pretty quickly spotted a kudu bull, with absolutely stunning horns.
And then I turned the corner and saw this:
A few seconds prior the mom and baby had just burst out of the trees a few feet in front of me (second photo below), then ran ahead. A bit startling, and knowing that where there’s a mom & baby there’s a big bull nearby, I kept my distance. (You can see me check to my right in the video as I was driving slowly forward).
As I drove by behind them, the big bull in the rear let out a loud trumpet. I’d like to think he saying, “Goodbye! Hope you got some nice photos!” But I imagine instead he was saying, “get out of here and don’t come back!”
There was another troop of elephants, a fantastic baboon family I’ll write about later, some impala, a yellowbilled hornbill, zebra, and giraffe – all along this little dirt road! But the scene stealer was this meeting of two grizzled, friendly bull elephants. The whole sequence, of how they first flirt with their trunks, then wind them together in a warm embrace, was lovely to watch. But in the blink of an eye, it was over. The whole embrace took only 30 seconds, so I was very lucky to have even witnessed it. In a trip awash with highlights, this one really stood out.
All that was left was to capture a quick portrait. Off to lunch!
