South Africa, 2019

It’s nearly sunset and [name] and I are sitting on the wooden deck in front of our safari tent in Phelwana Game Lodge, surrounded by bush and overlooking the dam, rippled with early evening reflections. We have a family of 4 hippos about 50 metres away – 2 adults, one child and one baby. They have been floating, submerging, resurfacing, snorting, splashing, farting and barking true to form, which is something we’ve become used to during the night as well. As it gets dark, we will probably see the vervet monkeys settling down in the trees across the way, as the bats come out to feed on insects. It is quiet apart from the hippos, chirping birds and background chorus of crickets. A scene of absolute tranquility.

We arrived four days ago, after a six-hour drive from Joburg. Our first surprise and delight was seeing a pair of wild dogs as we entered Phelwana. We later found out that they must have come across from the adjacent reserve. The following morning, we did an early morning bush walk, during which we got quite close to giraffe. We also saw the hollow inside of a dung-beetle ball, where the young beetles are incubated and fed in the initial stage. Later during the game drive, we saw the hippos for the first time, buffalo, a crocodile, zebras, vervet monkeys, impala, duiker and kudu (including a male with one broken horn from fighting in an adjacent park). Apparently kudu can clear a 3-metre fence from a standing start.

The following day, we did a full-day game drive in Kruger National Park, entering at the Orpen gate. It turned out to be our lucky day, as we spotted a family of hyena, two male lions and a pair of cheetahs, besides the usual (elephant, zebra, impala, kudu, giraffe, wildebeest, warthog, steenbok, baboon, bushbuck and vervet monkeys). We also saw a good range of birds, including tawny eagle, crested barbet, glossy starling, hooded vulture, lilac-breasted roller, brown-snake eagle, yellow-billed hornbill, white-backed vulture and skops owl.

On day 3 we went on a boat trip on the Blyde River Canyon Dam, where we saw another pod of hippos, nesting birds, a Nile crocodile, a striped snake in the water and a bald ibis. We also found out the collective names for vultures (committee) and baboons (cabinet or parliament). In the afternoon, we visited the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre, where we had a guided tour around their enclosures. They are particularly specialized on cheetah breeding, in order to widen the gene pool, but they also have a pack of wild-dogs and white rhinos. One new fact I learned was that the cheetah cubs have silver-grey backs to mimic the honey-badger, which is quite an aggressive animal, thus giving potential predators pause.

Today, our last day, we took a drive on the Panorama route around Blyde River Canyon, stopping to see the Three Rondavels (conical shaped hill formations), Bourke’s Luck Potholes (cylindrical geological features carved into the canyon rock by water) and God’s Window (a scenic outlook spot) near Graskop in Mpumalanga province. A nice discovery was the tropical rainforest at the God’s Window location at the top of the mountain. The colourful palette of the rocks and trees around the canyon at this time of year is quite spectacular, with mosaics of red, green, yellow and brown.

It has been especially wonderful to share these magnificent sights and experiences in and around Kruger National Park and the Blyde River Canyon with [name] for the first time.