Berg en Dahl day 2

At 10:30pm last night we were woken up by the hyena right next to the fence line whooping away. It didn’t last long but it was enough to keep us awake and just as I was falling back to sleep the lions started roaring and chuffing. Finally just as we fell asleep I was woken back up by breaking branches. Lots of them and they were getting nearer and nearer.
I listened to the sound of the breaking branches for an hour and then woke Ellie up and said there’s an elephant outside. And there was. And he was right next to the fence line and 6 foot from the caravan.
It was now half past midnight and Ellie was standing outside in the pitch black in just her night dress and I was totally starkers watching a massive elephant eat his way down the fence line of bushes less than 5 foot away. His trunk was definitely bigger than mine. It was an incredible feeling to be so close to such a huge animal.
Then as we were falling back to sleep the lions started their contact calling again.
After a noisy night we were up at 5am and left camp at 6am. This is supposed to be the best area in the whole of the Kruger for leopard and I was feeling hopeful as we set out turning right from camp, down the tar road until we came to the first gravel road on the right and we turned into it.
I crawled down the road at just 15kph and we looked so hard we went bush blind but by 8am all we had seen was herd animals.
We stopped at James pan waterhole and we heard alarm calls from impala which got our hopes up but they were just arguing with each other and we moved on.
We drove back to the tar road now having done a big loop before turning right again and picking up another gravel road that would take us down the back of camp. Here we found herds of elephant and giraffe but still no predators. I was gutted but we are here for 7 nights so we have more opportunities.
Back at the camp we stopped at the restaurant for breakfast and we had babalas burgers which is Afrikaans for hangover so they were filled with chilli’s which was abit of a shock.
Back at camp we had a quick cup of tea and were joined by a male bushbuck who is very friendly and Ellie gave him some cucumber. Then it was time for a nap.
After sleeping for 30 minutes we got back up and went for a walk along the rhino trail. There are several starting points for the 2.5 kilometre trail and one of them is right opposite camp. We took the trail upto reception and got ice creams, then walked the rest of the trail back to camp which basically follows the fence line.
At 4pm we went to the waterhole about 4km away and watched elephants drinking, then we returned to camp and made dinner before heading in at 7:30pm.Læs mere