Our first night safari

This morning we were all up early again at 6am. We had nothing planned for the whole day until tonight so around 9am, Pete started taking the wheels off of Karin to diagnose the scraping noise coming from the front wheels. We soon worked out it was the wheel bearings and Pete seemed surprised but with these washboard roads and the speed that Pete drives them it’s no wonder the bearings have gone. Also given the fact of where we have driven on just this trip Ellie and I are surprised that’s the only thing broken. Both the day trip around the coast to Kosi bay and the trip to 9 mile beach were like a major assault course for any 4x4. People would pay hundreds for a 4x4 experience day like that, but to Pete it’s just an everyday occurrence and it always seems to be done at speed.
The final nut to get to the wheel bearings was just to big for Petes spanner’s and sockets so he rebuilt the Karin and now we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to take it back to the guys in Mbazwani when they will replace the master cylinder at the same time.
For the rest of the day we just hung out at the house until 5pm when we left in the Chuckit Bucket to drive back through Phinda game reserve to the Boabab Inn for dinner.
We stopped for fuel in Mbazwani and there was an election campaign going on for the local Zulu IFP Party. They were singing, dancing, clapping there hands and having a proper party right on the forecourt of the petrol station, it was quite the sight and everyone looked happy.
From there we drove the 40km to the entrance of Phinda Private Game Reserve. The security guy at the gate recognised us from yesterday and said the rules have changed and we couldn’t drive our house through the park, meaning the size of our vehicle and Petes response was this is the kind of vehicle we need to load up with Impalas after hunting. We had a right laugh with him and when he took a photo of the car to enter we all gave him the thumbs up through the windscreen.
It was now 6:10pm and the sun had already set. We knew it was still a little early for seeing anything major but we did see our first Jackal and lots of owls and zebra and wilderbeast. Pete did comment that he thought we would have seen more but I reminded him it was still early being only 7:45pm and when we arrived at the Boabab Inn for dinner at 8pm we were still hopeful of seeing more.
For dinner Ellie and Pete both had the chicken Shnitzel and I chose something completely new to me by ordering the Icebein, which is a ham knuckle bone covered in crackling. It was super tasty and I had been looking forward to it all day.
At 9:10pm the waitress came out to tell us they were closing up so we hurriedly finished our meal which was the waitresses fault because she forgot to bring Petes out and at 9:15 we left to drive back home.
We were all super excited about what we might see, even Pete who was struggling to remember the last time he did a night safari in a big 5 park.
We passed through the first security gate at 9:45pm and less than 50 meters in was a huge bull elephant standing at the side of the road. He let us pass with no issues and we carried on. This time we had the normal car lights and a multi directional spot lamp on the bonnet so we could see from side to side and as we drove through slowly we just scanned everywhere looking for eye shine.
First we saw wilderbeast in the road, then we passed herds of Impalas and Imyala, there were owls and we saw another servil. Then we saw red eyes walking down the road towards us. We couldn’t tell what it was but from the size and way it was walking straight down the middle of the road it looked like hyena. Just before it came into full view we hit a pothole and the spotlight bounced off the bonnet and started hanging down the drivers side.
We could still see the eyes glowing and this shape moving slowly towards us getting closer and closer. Then Pete stopped the car and jumped out and quickly put the spotlight back on the bonnet but now it had turned itself off.
The eyes stopped moving, and we just saw this huge black shape staring at us as Pete frantically dived back in the car and was fiddling with the remote control to get the spotlight back on and just as the spotlight came in the shape jumped off the side of the road and disappeared in the bushes.
We were gutted. Was it a hyena? It acted and walked like one right up to the last minute but without seeing it clearly we would never really know.
We carried on driving into the pitch black, all of us trying to guess what we had seen and probably the lucky escape for Pete and then out of the pitch black came 2 light shapes just lying across the road.
LIONS.
We couldn’t believe our luck, just the size of this one park is absolutely huge and here in front of the car were a male and female lion just laying down getting ready to mate. They stayed completely still just staring at the car as we slowly rolled forward with the spotlight fixed on them and the car headlights. We had an incredible view. Then the female stood up and moved into the bushes and the male stood up and just stared at us. We stopped moving. Half hoping for a mock charge or a roar but he just moved to the edges of the bush and as we moved forward he just stood his ground staring at us. We all looked him square in the eye for about a minute, it was amazing to be so close to such an incredible animal. He could have charged us or at the very least damaged the car but he didn’t and not wanting to piss him off completely we carried on moving. They had made our night and so far the whole trip.
Getting to the security gate the guy we had,had a laugh with on the way in wanted to know what had taken us so long to drive through and we told him about the lions and he didn’t seem surprised. After all this is Africa.
Leaving the park behind us heading for the road we passed through the wooded area full of fig trees and out of nowhere we saw 2 sets of eyes high up in the trees infront of us.
Bush Babies.
We couldn’t believe our luck again and as we drove closer they just sat in the trees watching us while we watched back. Tonight had been incredible.
Back on the road we had 40km to travel back to Mbazwani and we soon found out why no one drives at night.
Cows littered the road and side of the roads and they weren’t moving for anything and if you didn’t see them early you were definitely going to hit one. We saw atleast three cars that had hit cows and the front ends were totalled and there were lots of dead cows now at the side of the road. It was a very treacherous drive and used all of our energy to stay so alert but finally at 12:15am we arrived back at home where Millie was sitting in the driveway waiting to greet us.Baca selengkapnya