We sadly packed up our gear this morning, loaded the bikes on the trailer Dave had borrowed, said goodbye to Mike and set off for the park at 7:30am.
We had an early sighting of some rhino and giraffe, but the main aim of the trip was to spot some lions. Julie has not seen lions in the wild and our last game drive was sadly devoid of them. Dave was confident that we would definitely see some before he dropped us off. For a while that looked like a bold claim as the park appeared almost empty of any wildlife. Four hours in the park passed and we still hadn't found any. We had seen elephants, impala, kudu, zebra, hippos and rhino, but no lions.
When it was looking like they may elude us again, Dave stopped to chat to a guide who told us that there was a pride of lions feeding on a dead hippo not too far away. We set off with a purpose, it looked like the day wouldn't be lion free after all. Sure enough we found the hippo carcass and with it three male lions. We could happily leave safe in the knowledge that we had seen the big five in Kruger NP.
Towing a trailer is not terribly conducive to game viewing, so when the traffic around the lion sighting started to move we had to go with it. Also the day was wearing on and Dave still needed to pay his fees. About an hour later and we were at the gate and unloading our bikes. It has been an absolute pleasure to meet Dave, Mike and Julie, but was definitely time to be moving on before we forget how to ride a bike!
Waving goodbye we headed off up the road and into the hills. The journey may have only been 17km, but it was a good work out to help prepare for the road ahead.
Arriving at Bushpackers camp-site, after stopping for supplies in the town, we met Adrian and were shown to the camping area. We plan to camp as much as possible in South Africa to try and keep the costs down.
Sadly our tent seems to be having other ideas as the long running zip saga came to a head when it refused to work at all. Even nipping the slider up with a pair of pliers didn't work this time. It is just fortunate that the front entrance zip is working. With a lot of swearing I eventually got the other zip done up, at the cost of one of the sliders which fell to bits! We will try to get it repaired on the road somewhere, but for now we will have to hope the other zip keeps working. I am finding it hard to be impressed by the performance of our very expensive Hilleberg tent.
After the stress of the zips, there was nothing else to do but go for a beer. It is just as well that we are staying put tomorrow as we had quite a few beers. Bushpackers is pretty far removed from Dave's Kruger View backpackers. Adrian is a little on the mad side and at some point we ended up wearing a selection of his hat collection.
It was a good night and I expect that there will be a small hangover to nurse in the morning.
Cute lions but we love the hats too!
ReplyDeletelove from Mum and Dad xx