Maroela Rest Camp

We were awake at 4:30am. This is what time the gate from camp was open and as I made coffees the first couple of cars were leaving. We had already decided not to rush as sunrise wasn’t until 4:50am and daylight at 5am. Neither of us want to see animals in the dark and not be able to get photographs.
We left camp just after 5am and took the gravel road upto the S100 tar road and turned left heading to Satara rest camp. Out of all the places we have been in South Africa this road had yielded the most sightings of wildlife.
It was quiet this morning with hardly any cars which is unusual but we have never been here this time of year. The landscape now looks totally dry with only a few centimetres of grass and we could see all the way through the bush. We had never seen it so baron.
Our first major sighting was 10km up the road where we encountered 2 hyena walking down the road straight towards us. They then stopped right next to the car and I had to change lenses to shoot them.
Then just 2 kilometres from that sighting we saw 4-5 cars queuing down a gravel track and as I turned into the track we saw a whole pack of hyena including pups right outside a den they had made at a storm drain. They were all tusling with each other under a bush and doing zoomies it was very special to watch.
From the hyena we continued towards Satara passing 4 cars lined up along the road side watching 3 lions in the distance.
Once we got to Satara we had a breakfast which took 90 minutes and then we turned around and headed back to camp.
Just as we got into camp at 11:30am my phone pinged twice. The first message was from Pete saying he should be able to meet us in Marloth park. The second message was a severe weather alert for Sunday and Monday for our area.
I was worried about how our power would do if there would be no sun so I managed to use our old broken power lead and wire it into our good power lead which then gave us an extra 10 meters of length. More than enough to get to the power station. I felt very smug but resourceful and it cost us nothing.
We stayed at camp for the rest of the day. Yesterday had taken quite a lot out of us and we had got up at 4:30am and done 6 hours of game driving. We had a nap and just chilled at camp until it was Braai lighting time and I made burgers.
The hyena returned late afternoon and as we settled in for the night the whooping started.Read more