Urban Warfare

I was sitting here quietly working on my computer when I heard a hang of a commotion going on outside. I knew it was monkeys, but what I didn't realise was that there was a full on gang fight going on. Luckily I had my video camera handy, but still only caught the end of it. The troop from lower Mornigside had clearly crossed the street and were in the other troops territory, the road must be the border! Can't beleive how they were so caught up in their gang war that they were oblivious to the busy road.

Check it out!

Another Crazy Kruger Sighting!!

Hi all, just want to share some words about my latest trip to the Kruger.....

Firstly thank you to Evelyn & Fred for allowing us to use their house in the Sabie Park nature reserve. Sitting deep in the bush with no fences, with only the sounds of the camp fire and the night, is an experience few get the privilege to do. The hyena hung around the property all night every night, clearly spurred on by the smells coming from our bush 'braai'.

We had some truly great sightings, but from the first day I realised that going a bit north would bring reward. I say this because we had breakfast at Mlondozi dam the first morning and what a gorgeous sight. Whilst cooking breakfast an endless procession of game visited the dam, at one point we could see: Elephant, Rhino, zebra, wilderbeest, water buck, hippo and warthog all at the same time!

So the decision was made to head north to a remote picnic site called Nhlanguleni and it paid off. First we were lucky enough to see an entire heard of elephant playing in the mud and water, then as we pushed on a little further 5 wild dog cooling off under a tree at the road side. This is where it got really interesting. The elephant had left the water hole and were making their way to where ever elephants make their way to, but the dogs were on that route. Elephants being the massive creatures that they are take it upon themselves to police the 'jungle' so to speak. First they let off a couple of quiet trumpets and out of the tree line came runnng another 12 dogs that had been lying there undetected. Before a massive bull came along and confronted all 17 dogs. He wasn't as gentle as the rest of the herd and came running at the pack, trumpeting and flapping his ears. An absolutely incredible sight to see, elephant in charge and dogs scattering in all directions....

Still on a high from the sighting we were then treated to a whole host of game viewing. At a place called Lugmag dam we saw a sable antelope in all its glory and I have footage where the sable, a rhino and a giraffe are all in the same frame. We eventually reached the picnic spot and went about our biz as elephant, giraffe, zebra etc came to drink.

It was a fantastic sight, a typical savanna setting with thirsty animals everywhere and no doubt some hungry lions in the shadows....

Watch this space for the footage of the wild dog versus elephant encounter! And follow this link to our fan page to see the photos:

http://bit.ly/Byumq

Stop ruining our holidays!

I just returned from a great trip to the Umfolozi game reserve, with the best viewing I’ve had there so far. My guests were only in SA for a short time so we did a quick one night trip up there, as well as a boat cruise on the St. Lucia estuary.

Our first morning was filled with sightings of all the common animals, birds and other wonders of nature. It was a great start to what would become a quite satisfactory trip. We stopped for breakfast on the banks of the Black Umfolozi and enjoyed a super bush breakfast. With tummy’s full we set back to searching for the big 5 (we had only seen some distant buffalo until now). We rounded a corner to see a road full of cars, jostling and manoeuvring for position. Two cheetahs had taken down a nyala and were now feeding about 80m away, this was all taking place in a fairly open area except for a few tall trees and the occasional shrub. Now I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent…………………..

As more and more cars arrived, so chaos seemed to ensue. Eventually the road was packed with cars lined two by two for a 100m. Even then it was fine, until the inevitable monkeys with no respect for other people started to climb of out their cars. I’ve never seen anything like it! They were literally walking down the middle of the road to find a better gap to view the kill. Luckily for the rest of the game viewers the cheetahs were far more concerned with finishing their kill, before some bigger carnivore came to chase them off, that they went about it none the less.

The kicker came though when a ranger came round the corner, suddenly they were scattering like a herd of impala being chased, diving head long into their cars. Which brings me to my point , these aren’t ignorant people who don’t know any better. They are rude, inconsiderate people who know the rules, why else would they go running for cover when a ranger arrives? And it didn’t end there…

We also had a lion sighting with even more extraordinary behaviour! We were making our way down to the Umfolozi River, and as we rounded the corner to cross the main bridge there were three people standing, binoculars in hand scoping the opposite bank. The lady turns to me and says:”there’s a lion over there”. By now I couldn’t take anymore, so I enquired in my sweetest voice why she was out of her vehicle, to which she replied:”Cause I want to be lion’s lunch”. I pointed out the lioness to my group and then told this so called tour guide (yes lady, when you wear a badge people notice), that she was a disgrace to the profession and told her guests they weren’t in the best of hands. They left pretty promptly after that, oh if looks could kill!

Any how we had a fantastic stay at Impila camp, saw cheetah a second time chasing some impala. We had great sightings of rhino and buffalo, as well as a brilliant encounter with two bull elephants. So in all quite a successful trip and certainly gave me a new perspective on this KZN reserve.

Lastly to that ‘tour guide’, if you actually knew anything about the bush, you’d know that lion are in no way solitary animals. Where did you think the rest of her pride was? They could’ve been anywhere, maybe one of these days you will be lion’s lunch! Well it can only strengthen the gene pool...

The Wonderful Wild Coast

At the beginning of September I had the pleasure of visiting ‘Hole In The Wall’ on the wild coast. Not exactly a hidden gem, but man did we do it in style! We had the very good fortune of staying in what must be one of the best cottages at that location.

Now when you talk about style in this part of the world, we don’t mean actual STYLE! We mean running water, electricity, fridges, stove and of course location, and boy, did we have a great location. Standing on our balcony we were but a stone’s throw….no….a shot put throw away from the sea. It had a wonderful braai and entertainment area that overlooked the beach. Combine all this with fully equipped kitchen and comfortable rooms, we were living in style!

Everyday there was an endless procession of marine life, which we did not even have to move to see. The dolphins in particular were great, starting early in the morning feeding just off the backline. Then as the waves rolled in they would rise up and race down the face, jumping out ahead of the wave and as the wave broke inshore you’d see them all bailing out the back in a phenomenal aerial display. Another firm favourite were the whales, I don’t think there was a moment when there wasn’t at least one whale visible. Constantly jumping out at sea, landing with an explosion of white water and some so close you could hear them hit the water with a mighty slap! There were two memorable sightings worth mentioning, if you watch the video after reading this you’ll see the group of rocks directly out in front of our cottage. At one stage a massive whale passed just beyond those rocks, a mere 150m from shore. At times lifting its tail and slapping the water, giving us a real idea of the size of these enormous mammals. The second was also really special and this one we got on film. We climbed the hill overlooking the bay and were admiring the view from the cliff, when a mother whale and her baby passed directly below us, giving us a most amazing sighting of them.

No trip to the ‘Kei’ is complete without a bit of hiking and we did more than a bit. We hiked from HITW to Coffee Bay the one morning, a challenging yet spectacular hike. We had some hair raising moments whilst following the trail around some of the headlands because of the SW wind that was blowing. The trail is not exactly wide and with a sheer 50m drop on your right to the rocks below and a gale force wind blowing, made it quite intimidating. It was all part of the experience and in-between we had a great time, exploring the rock pools, the caves cut into the cliffs and the fantastic views….

We ate like kings, braaing every night and sampling the local cuisine - crayfish, mussels and fresh fish. The only complaint was the weather, which was fairly gloomy our last few days, but being something we couldn’t control, it never dampened our spirits………….

The amazing Kruger National Park

Here's a little story to show just how amazing the Kruger National Park is and why I still believe it stands head and shoulders above the rest!

A little while ago I was asked to provide a trip to the Kruger for a client, but being short notice and the park being full we were only able to get one night accommodation at Pretoriuskop camp in the south of the park. I assured the guest it was the right move and we went for it.

Coming from far we only managed to enter the park at 12:30pm on the first day and made our way to the camp. Even being the hottest part of the day we still manage to tick off elephant (first animal); warthog; wilderbeest; zebra and a great sighting of rhino, as well as a wide range of antelope. The late afternoon drive was great as well and provided much of the same, including giraffe and some of what makes Kruger so special! The small creatures, prolific birdlife and amazing sunsets...... The last animal we saw just 100m from camp was a big heard of buffalo that blocked the road and nearly made us late.

That evening around the braai as our meat cooked, we wondered on what tomorrow would bring, one last morning in the park and still no big cats. Little did we know how lucky we would be.......

Brimming with excitement we were the first out the gates and were heading for Lower Sabie. The first animal we saw that morning was something very rare, a herd of tsessebe, just off the road. We followed this up with 3 hyena who came onto the road and offered a magnificent photo opportunity with the rising sun. Next was a honey badger, who tried to trick us by using a storm drain under the road to hide but eventually showed himself and crossed the road in front of us. As the sun warmed up the veld, one by one the usual suspects showed themselves including a massive bull elephant at Transport Dam. By the time we hit the Lower Sabie road we were in high spirits and would have been quite happy to leave it there......

Then, as tends to happen on the Sabie road or 'Eloff street' as my volks called it all through my childhood, we rounded a bend to be greeted by +- 15 cars all jostling for position. This usually means one thing, a cat! After a few minutes straining to see what all the commotion was about we were told by another vehicle that a leopard had been seen and it's last movement was towards where we had just come. From experience I decided to take a chance and turn around, making our way back and combing the bush for any sign of the creature. About 200 yards back was one of those dirt loops that extend a little towards the river so I ducked down it and slowly edged along. Nothing!!! As I was coming out the other side I started to do a U-turn so as to do the loop once more before giving up. As I glanced back down the tar road there she sat, just on the verge watching the goings on down the road, so camouflaged that I could only just make out the distinctive outline of the beautiful feline. Unfortunately as I struggled to turn the car around I spooked her and she quickly 'leopard crawled' across the road in front of us before disappearing into the bush......

We couldn't believe our luck and off we went, before a most unlikely sighting. Another bunch of cars in the road slowly coming towards us, obviously following something special. Lion? I thought, but to our surprise a beautiful cheetah appeared and which we managed to get a good look at before it chased something off into the veld. As we made our way towards Crocodile Bridge Gate we searched desperately for some lion, the only one of the big five that we hadn't seen, but it wasn't to be and frankly didn't bother us at all.

We exited the park at 12: 15pm that day, almost exactly 24hrs after entering knowing we had experienced the best Africa has to offer....................

Animals (pretty much) in order of appearance in 24hrs:

Elephant; impala; zebra; warthog; kudu; grey duiker; wilderbeest; rhino; steenbok; slender mongoose; water buck; bushbuck; giraffe; banded mongoose; buffalo; tsessebe; hyena; honeybadger; vervet monkey; dwarf mongoose; baboon; leopard; cheetah; hippo; crocodile.

Diamonds in the rough

Growing up on the south coast of Kwa Zulu Natal I always knew I was lucky, endless summer days spent in the ocean, mainly because it was too hot to do anything else. Cloudless, warm winters spent on the golf course. Either way the day always ended the same; out by the pool watching the waves roll into shore in an endless rhythm, their sound soothing your soul. Out-door living; is there anything better? As if that wasn’t enough, just a few hours’ drive and you’d find yourself at the beginning of the spectacular Drakensberg Mountain Range. Head north and enter a new world, vast tracks of wilderness with all the wildlife Africa has to offer.

So eventually my love of the out-doors, of my country and province, combined with certain other skills led me here, to this business venture. A tour company; no, an out-door and adventure tour company! As I said anybody from this part of the world knows what KZN has to offer, right? Wrong! There is more, oh so much more. It was only with the privilege I get through this type of work that I started to really understand the endless potential this magnificent place has.

Let me share with you one of my hidden gems! The place is called Zingela, situated in the Tugela River basin near the small town of Weenen in the KZN interior. The Tugela is the largest river in KZN and the third largest in SA. Zingela bush camp is positioned but a stone’s throw away from the mighty river which lulls you to sleep at night. The accommodation is made in unison with the surrounding rock and veld, using natural materials and canvas, yet is of 5 star qualities. The property the camp is on is known as a wilderness area, with many types of animals occurring naturally there. No fences keep them on the property, they are there by choice! Maybe that gives you a clearer picture of how ruggered and remote it is. The river provides many activities for the adventurer, of course when the rains come white-water rafting and kayaking are the main attraction. There is yellow tail to be caught on fly or bait for the patient fisherman, with many secluded spots all along the river banks. Other adventure options that the staff at Zingela has provided are abseil, zip-sliding and quad biking. For me the seclusion and nothingness of the wilderness is all I need and game walks offer a wonderful way to put things in perspective.

I know there are many more diamonds in the rough out there and I’d love to hear about them. So why not write about it and post it here and share your travels with us.