South Africa: Third day at Kruger

At this point in my blogging about South Africa, I would like to remind you all that I'm an idiot. This series is being written in late November, and by now my hard drive has crashed and I have managed to upload two sets of the last day's pictures instead of the third day's on Flickr. So until such time as I can salvage my hard drive, the only stuff I have about this day are my videos, which I mercifully remembered to upload to YouTube.

Update: Strike that, I am a genius! I forgot that I had uploaded all 40 pics from this day to Facebook, so here are some of the best of 'em!

It all started with a small family of ellies walking in the mist. It was a really, really beautiful drive that morning.




Video:


Then we saw a big group of hippos at the same dam where we'd spotted the solitary lion on the first day.


This impala was kind enough to pose for me.


After a big brunch at Skukuza, we decided to go north and east along some gravel roads. First we crossed a bridge, where we saw a tiny crocodile. "What'cho lookin' at, huh?"


At another crossing, there was a grown one. I've ALWAYS seen crocodiles here; sometimes 2-3, but always at least one.


We were soon rewarded with three beautiful lions resting in a dry river bed (only two can be seen in the video). We spent over half an hour taking pictures & video and just staring at them. I think 2 or 3 cars passed us or came the other way during that half hour. It was our moment of Zen.







Video:


Dey sho purdy.


At one point, a solitary giraffe crossed the dry riverbed downstream of us.


A little further down the road, crossing the Sabie River, we saw a huge flock of ellies in the distance. We drove up and down the bridge several times, taking pictures of the lovely scenery and the ellies.


Video:


We then drove south and came very close to a small herd of ellies, but I didn't get a pic, nor a video of it because they were behind the car, and I had to stay where we were due to death threats from one of my US crew members who apparently had the perfect shot. Oh well. On the way back, we saw this solitary hippo.


Then we spotted this little eejit, who was sitting in the middle of the road, looking around him as if he wasn't quite sure where he was.




We then sped north, towards the Kruger Gate. Not having much time left of the daylight, we made a quick trip west along the Sabie river. We heard something in the bushes; at first I thought it was an ellie, but it soon turned out to be a solitary rhino. We followed him down the road until he veered off into the bushes again. In the video, you can hear us talking about having proof of being late - this refers to the fact that if you arrive at a gate after the posted closing time, you may face one helluva fine, unless you can convince them that you had a very good reason for your tardiness. In which case, footage of a rhino blocking the road would be kinda neat to have.


As it turned out, we still had a few minutes left when we reached the Kruger Gate. So we stopped and got some footage of this warthog. He was digging for food, and luckily for the stupid tourists, not giving a fuck about anything else. I was desperately hoping for footage of him goring some moron to death, but no such luck.


African sunset. It has its charm.