Lunch was at the the Mugg & Bean, a wonderfully situated restaurant at the Lower Sabie Rest Camp, overlooking the Sabie River. The Sabie is a fantastic spot to find wildlife, as it one the primary sources of freshwater in the park. The western side of the river has a paved road, and it was rather crowded when I drove along it – the first time I had encountered even more than 1 car at a time in the entire park. There were several traffic jams as visitors tried to catch glimpses of wildlife on the side of the road. I didn’t stop. The park is so large, life is too short spending it on elbowing tourists for a picture of a zebra.
I was lucky to get a riverside table, but there wasn’t much wildlife. You can see some sunbathing hippos in the distance, on the island in the middle of the river, and beyond them the bridge I crossed to get to the east side of the Sabie. After lunch, I quickly made my way to the bridge to cross over, and I spotted a playful family of hippos frolicking nearby. Much better than my Day 1 picture!
My drive north was through prairie, quite different than the west side of the Sabie, with no large animals within miles. It was honestly quite the letdown after the exciting morning (but things would quickly pick up). I spent some time watching this bird, what I think is a black-shouldered Kite, repeatedly swoop to the grass then float back up. I have a few pics of the bird higher up, with no foreground, but these work really well with the softly blurred grass in the foreground and the more strongly blurred trees behind. The first picture is one of my favorite from the trip.
Compare the two pictures above with one I took in the morning (in a completely different part of the park). It’s nice but does not indicate action or suspense in the way the top photo above does.
I eventually made a turn toward the northwest, back towards the Sabie, into a lightly hilled and forested landscape. I ran across a variety of animals, all within a few miles of each other:
As I was engrossed in the Waterbuck (Upper right, with the beautiful horns), a tour group in a giant tank-sized vehicle pulled up next to me. I had crawled over to the passenger side and they paused to look at what I was taking pictures of. They weren’t nearly as interested as I was, and after about 5 seconds the tour guide said, “Okay, have we seen enough?” And they hurried off.
I then ran into a dry creek bed that fed the Sabie river, and caught a glimpse of the variety of wildlife the river supports. This shot of an Impala – The “McDonalds of the Bush” – I particularly like, as it looks like I was laying flat on the ground for the shot. I was in a low point of the dry river, looking uphill from my car window. The blurred foreground and glimpse of the river behind provide nice framing for what is otherwise a common animal.
On the opposite bank I spotted a family of baboons. Now, this 5 mile stretch was baboon central, and it was obviously baby season. The juveniles on the far bank were simultaneously playing and yelling at each other, just like my kids.
I was pretty far away, so the photos aren’t great. But I enjoyed watching them, and they seemed unperturbed by my presence. About 15 minutes earlier, up the road, I was able to catch this shot below as the baboons ran around my car in a pullout, but they were so active and the area overly crowded with bushes that I had a hard time getting a decent picture.
On my way out of Kruger the next morning, I’d run across another family of baboons and got some great up close shots. The rest of this day – already busy – would be spent with some giraffes and elephants, beautifully lit up by the setting African sun, with a brief detour for the strangest bird I’ve ever seen.
