Kruger National Park We left around 5 a.m. for the border. The trip back to South Africa through the border is normally much less fretful than the one into Mozambique. This time was no exception and we were into South Africa before 7:00 a.m. We arrived at the park and signed in before 7:30 and were ready for our animal sightings. We had heard there were lions a few kilometers from the gate but we never found them. We did have a very exciting morning, however. We saw several things we�d not seen before or at least had not seen often. The highlights were two rhinos lying in the road two giraffes �necking.� We found out later that giraffes� �necking� is actually a fight. They swing their heads around and whack the other giraffe on the back. Neither animal is injured in this process. It was quite neat to see this. Around noon we got our first lion sighting. However, the lions were lying down and we didn�t get any good pictures. Thursday was one of the most remarkable days we�ve ever spent in the park. Marie and I were awakened by the roar of a lion outside the camp ground. We couldn�t leave until 6:00, but we got ready all the while continuing to listen to the lion. When we finally got out of the campsite we went looking for the lion. Around 7:00 we hit pay dirt�two male lions walking through the bush. We got to watch them come together and continue their roaring. We drove up the road and found a large number of cars parked along the road�usually a good sign. We asked one driver what they were looking at. �Leopard cubs playing in the tree,� was his response. We spent the next hour watching these cubs jump around the tree. We never saw the mother, but she was apparently not too far off. We continued up the road and pulled into a small water hole and found several cars parked. Josh was driving and as we pulled around the line of cars, Josh yelled, �Cheetah.� Frankly, I couldn�t believe it, but there it was standing around 10 yards from us posing for some fantastic pictures. Late in the afternoon we came upon two rhinos eating along the side of the road. We pulled up and took pictures until one of them decided to charge. We moved away pretty quickly. Sergio managed to get the whole thing on video and we�ve had a good time laughing at ourselves while watching the video. When we returned to camp we found elephants just outside the campsite and we watched the family playing for awhile. As we were preparing for bed Josh startled a �cat� that was by his cabin. After it ran up the tree we were able to spot it by the glow of its eyes. We didn�t know what it was but we took pictures with our flashes and found out that the animal was a Jennet. What a fantastic day. Friday was slow in comparison with Thursday. We again heard and found the roaring lions. The highlight of the day was a second leopard sighting. The leopard was lying pretty well concealed in a dry river bed. We eventually got a good view of her, but not too many pictures. Saturday, Josh, Tom, Sergio and I ran a half marathon inside the park. There were rangers with guns all around and (disappointedly) we didn�t see any wildlife while we were running. The most excitement we had was when Josh collapsed 500 yards from the finish line. He�d become dehydrated and both his legs locked up and down he went. Sergio and I assisted him to the finish which took us around 20 minutes. He did, however, get a large ovation from the crowd! Because of the delay from the race we couldn�t make it back to Johannesburg in time to return the rental so we decided to take our time going out of the park�good choice. In the three hours we were in the park we, for the third day in a row, saw each of the Big 5 (Rhino, lion, leopard, water buffalo and elephant). We got our best sighting of the week of lions walking along the river. It was a very enjoyable trip.
Birds
,
Bucks
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Cheetah
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Elephants
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Water Buffalo
,
Lions
,
Leopards
,
Rhinos
,
Giraffes
,
Race,
Monkeys
,
Genet
