Kruger Day 9 - Satara Day 5

After our first good nights sleep in a few days we were up at 4:45am. I made the coffee in the dark and there were still stars in the sky which meant no cloud and it was probably going to be hot. As we sat there drinking our coffee we could hear the Hyena whooping in the distance.
I was in no hurry to get out of the gate, the camp was busier because it is a weekend and people had started queuing for the gate at 5:10am. We just took our time and got in the camper at 5:35am and rolled out of the gate soon afterwards.
We turned right out of the gate ready to turn right again towards Orpen Camp but just after the first kilometre we came to a queue of cars about 10 deep.
There were 3 lions in the middle of the road, 2 female and a male just laying there. Just as we came to a stand still a 3rd female lion popped out of the ditch right next to us and proceeded down the road weaving between the cars and then promptly sat on the edge of the tarmac.
The cars couldn’t go anywhere for 10 minutes until the male had decided he would let us pass, then we had to contend with the idiots that wanted more than their fair share of pictures and just kept stopping right next to the lions for 5 minutes at a time.
We got some pretty good photos but the cars were building up behind and other people were staying put as soon as they had a decent position even though they had pictures so we decided to push on.
Another 30km down the road towards Orpen I came across a game vehicle and we stopped and had a chat. I told him about the lions down the road and he told us there were 2 more in our direction about 2km away.
Hoping to get better pictures this time and not be surrounded by idiots we set off and soon came to another load of cars. Fortunately most of these were moving but just as we joined the queue one of the cars just stopped right infront of the lions and turned his engine off. Now we all had to try and squeeze past him. There were 4 game vehicles coming the other way and they drove down the centre of traffic towards us, I was in a relatively good position where we could see the lions and had my camera out shooting away. We couldn’t go anywhere because of the moron infront that was obviously clueless about the queue he was creating. Then the first game vehicle stopped right infront of him and blocked his view while all his passengers took pictures. The driver of the game vehicle said he should have moved on and he replied he wanted to see the lions. The driver infront of us just stayed put with his engine off blocking the left hand side of the road and 1 by 1 each game vehicle drove down the centre and stopped infront of him blocking his view. We could still see and we had plenty of shots and once the game vehicles had passed we drove out into the centre of the road and passed by the idiots that had decided to stake there place and block everyonelses view.
Once we were almost at Orpen camp we spun around stopping a game vehicle and letting him know about the lions down the road. He said thanks and shot off and we followed him back towards the lions and home. When we got there the lions had moved into the grass but the car that had stopped infront of us was still there and our new friend in the game vehicle drove into the grass blocking his view. This time we just drove slowly by. We already had our shots.
On the way back to camp we didn’t see much else, and about 1km before we got back people were still queuing and craning there necks trying to see the 4 lions we had seen earlier but they were gone. There was nothing left to see except a couple of ears hundreds of meters away.
We got back to Camp just after 9am and after Wanda Toasties we wandered over to the restaurant to check up on social media and our emails and then we went to the pool for a swim for an hour.
We got back to camp at 12:30pm and it was roasting hot and we spent the afternoon on the chairs infront of our tent in the shade watching a hornbill wrestle a giant locust. The agama sat at the side hoping the hornbill would give up and let him have it.
At 2:30pm it was so hot that we decided to go for a drive just so we could have air con. Our route took us down the S100 which is the most famous road in the Kruger for sightings and things happening. We didn’t see any to note but at this time of the year the grass is quite high and considering the time of day we didn’t expect to see anything.
We crossed 2 rivers on route and little Simba did well getting us through the water, then we turned right and right again picking up the H-4 tar road heading back to camp.
I was driving super slow looking out the windows for animals and then Ellie shouted “what was that?” As something ran across the road. I didn’t see it because I was looking out the side but she thought it might have been a honey badger. I turned little Simba around and we crawled down the road and then a huge black mamba snake shot out from the grass infront of us across the road and back into the grass on the other side. He must have been 3-4 feet long.
We didn’t ever see what Ellie had originally seen.
We got back to camp at 5:10pm just as our German friend was going out of the gate and we waved. We were both starving and regretting the decision to meet at 6:30pm for dinner when we could have eaten now while the restaurant was quiet.
Back at the tent, Ellie bumped into a lady with a beautiful trailer tent just behind us on the way to the toilets. When she came back she said we having a viewing inside that one in 10 minutes. I really can’t let her go anywhere on her own. The other day it was the German, yesterday it was Derick and his wife with there trailer and today it’s someonelse.
At 6pm we headed over to the restaurant to use the Wi-Fi and at 6:20pm our German friends arrived and we sat down for dinner and Werner was off talking from the moment we sat down. His wife didn’t say a word all night, he told us already she doesn’t speak good English but does understand it but that wouldn’t have mattered if she did speak English because even Ellie and I couldn’t get a word in. It was a case of just Nod and smile.
Fortunately at 7:50pm we were done and they didn’t want to hang about so we said our goodbyes and left the restaurant with earache, ready for an early night.Les mer