Chapter 4 - Mohlabetsi part 2

Wednesday, January 12th

We did our best to stay out of the way but still get close.  Before too long, one of the “fellas” took an interest in us and started to approach…

Elephant

 Unfortunately, his approach meant our departure.  It took us about fifteen minutes to find the trail again but we were so excited by the encounter, we couldn’t have cared less.

We would also find some of the wildebeest in the company of friends.  The plains zebra we see here are actually considered to have three colors in their coats.  The brown color that looks like dirt between the black and white stripes is actually the pigment of their coat.

Our next stop would be for a morning break and to stretch our legs.  No story from Hamilton this time but he put on his barista hat and went to work.  It turns out Hamilton’s Land Rover could not only provide cocktails and wine, but tea and coffee as well.  Talk about multi-purpose…

The view on the horizon...

The view from the other side of the Escarpment.

Even the bugs are amazing in Africa.

The rock to my right was hiding some lizards and a scorpion.  To my disappointment, nobody was willing to flip it over for a photograph.

As we finished our tea, we loaded up to conclude our final game drive at Mohlabetsi.  We would again cross paths with wildebeest, zebra, impala, and cape buffalo.  All in all, we felt a very successful series of drives with a lot of good viewing.  We had now seen three of the Big five on these two drives and if you count the “service station rhino,” you could make it four.  Not bad for two days time.  As the feeling of contentment was settling in and we had found the path back to the lodge, Hamilton again received a call on the CB and soon we were headed back into the bush in search of another animal…   

White Rhino with no filling station in sight.  This is more like it.  Four of the Big 5 now officially checked off the list.




What you may begin to wonder as we certainly did is why they are called "white" rhino.  It's actually because the Afrikaan word for wide sounds alot like white.  "Wide" refers to the jawbone of the white rhino which is very square.  A black rhino on the other hand has a jaw more like a beak.  They also tend to be smaller.  The color of each is nearly identical.
The pics here show how square the jaw is...They are a group of three.

White Rhino

With this final sighting, we headed back to the lodge.  On the way, the matriarch in the family of five that was with us on our tour, mentioned this was the first time she had seen rhino.  She had been on safari three previous times with this being her fourth.  It immediately put into perspective the luck that is required to actually see all five of the “Bigs” in one trip. 

We would return to the lodge to pack up and shower outside.  Pretty fun when it’s 85 degrees.  After a nice brunch we were back in the car headed for Kruger.

We were sent off by the same group of giraffes we had seen the previous day.  They were grazing close to the trail that led us out of the reserve.

As the sun was now quite high in the sky, it illuminated the terrain we had traveled through only a day earlier.

The Drakensburg Mountains

The next animal we were to cross paths with would be the wildebeest. 

We would find one that looked to be in distress.  Hamilton suggested this female had probably lost her calf to lions.  The jackal in the background would have been in the area in hopes of scavenging. 

Our second game drive would begin this morning at five a.m.  Although we were led to believe the beautiful tree next to our hut provided the breakfast of choice for monkeys, we would not be disturbed before our alarm clock went off.

Day two started off much like day one with impala.  This time though they were with friends…

"donkey in pajamas"

This would be our first lesson in companionship among wild animals.  Certain species will intermingle due to the different advantages each animal will bring to the table.  Certain species senses are stronger than others which when gathered together can be capitalized by all.  We would see these guys with impala, giraffe, and wildebeest. 

We would see our first Kudu next.  Two females.  One so shy she ran off immediately and left her girlfriend in the lurch. 

We would see acouple jackals ahead right off the trail.  They're pretty skittish and would run before we got too close.

The morning seemed to lack the excitement of the previous days’ drive as we were seeing much of the same thing until Hamilton found a set of tracks…BIG tracks. 

In this pursuit we would leave the trail in favor of the bush.  We were in a completely different area of the reserve on our second day; an area that Hamilton himself had cleared the trails for years ago.  Maybe that was the reason he seemed so determined to find the animal he was tracking.  His determination seemed stronger than we had seen up to this point.  For that, we are thankful.  Our first pachyderms would soon appear…

 

We found them knocking down a large termite hill and playing around.  A group of three teenage males, they seemed determined to stay away from us.  Every time we would get a little closer, they would move away.