We’re on the lookout for Cape Buffalo this afternoon on safari from Johannesburg, South Africa. The tracker picked up a trail indicating the buffalo headed eastwards, let’s check it out and see if we can find them. Although the buffalo is quite a large animal, they are difficult to spot in these long grasses. It’s late afternoon…….. We’re still searching for those buffalo, the road is quite dusty, we are all hopeful we will soon find them.
Tsessebe on the left! Africa’s long-distance sprinters, note their hips are lower than their shoulders. We continue our search for the cape buffalo, we should be close by now. The long grass makes it difficult to spot the buffalo but there they are, retired males, very temperamental, to be avoided at all times.
The tracker just indicated that he received word that a wildebeest had been caught by lions, we’re making our way there now!
There’s a Kudu in the road! Looks like a female and there’s more to the right…. about three, four? The kudu are all female, the one chewing like that is chewing on a bone she probably picked up from a carcass, it serves as a source of calcium for them.
Hop Skip and off it goes…. a scrub hare, a fast runner!
It’s getting late…. The African sun gently settling in after a long day, we head for the lions, hope to find them before dark…..We must be getting to where the lions are…. The tracker points to the left…. There must be a lion on the left amongst the brush…..There it is, let’s see, a male lion…. It’s a bit of a bumpy ride but hhhhmmm…..we should be able to see it as we get closer…… Wow! That tummy is round, filled with wildebeest, he won’t need to eat for a couple of days…. look at those paws, massive! What a sighting!
Look at the catfish skimming bugs of the surface, there’s hundreds of bugs around, a lovely meal for the catfish….. Beautiful sunset…..
Time for sundowners and snacks, we head to a nearby dam. A flock of white-faced ducks near the water’s edge greets us on arrival….The Cormorants are nesting, white face ducks gathering near the water’s edge, there’s an Egyptian goose amongst them…. there must be hippo somewhere…… What a lovely setting to enjoy our sundowner drinks and snacks this afternoon! Really nice, look at that and it is just before the sun is about to set. Oh, look, there’s a hippo! Here it comes again. They are obviously watching us and preparing themselves to get out of the water later on when it gets dark as they actually feed on the grass outside the dam.
Time to head back to camp, it’s getting dark…… We head into the night, visibility is limited to the spotlights, it would be lovely to come across some nocturnal wildlife like leopard even hippo, maybe a hippo or jackal… would be so nice…the camp is still about two hours from now, it’s cold out here, it’s winter in South Africa!
Thank you so much for joining us on Safari from Pretoria and Johannesburg. Day trips from Johannesburg and day trips from Pretoria are fantastic opportunities to relax and explore while passing through, till next time…. goodbye!
Check out the safari video clip right here!
