Sabi Sand
Wednesday–Monday September 19– 24, 2012
We left Polokwane (PTG) on a flight back to Johannesburg (JNB), and then took another flight back east to Nelspruit (NLP), gateway to the Kruger National Park and the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. This map also shows that we will be flying from there to Cape Town later in the trip.
This map shows the location of the four lodges we called home during our trip. The second one was Sabi Sand Game Reserve, with the turquoise pin. Mozambique is quite close.
One more map to show the route from Nelspruit Airport north to the Sabi Sand Game Reserve (about a 2 hour drive; flag pin). The map can be enlarged by clicking.
We stopped at the pleasant town of Hazy View (blue pin) for the night, and continued on the next morning.
Sabi Sand is not nearly as dry as the Tuli Reserve. Here is a baby zebra.
We stayed in two different lodges in Sabi Sand. The routine was much the same as in Botswana—a long and quiet middle of the day—except in Sabi Sand, we got up as early as 4:30!
An elephant working over a tree.
Two white rhinoceros, a mother and her a baby at a mud hole. We were in Sabi Sand on International Rhino Day, and despite the rampant poaching, saw 15 rhinos on that single day!
Two more rhinos.
We jumped at an opportunity to go on a walk with the ranger—too much sitting around wasn’t good. He got a rifle, and off we went.
Alas, the ranger got word that a leopard was in the area, and the walk was cut short.
Here’s an example of why they don’t let tourists out on their own. There is a leopard in this tree, way up at the top. We wouldn’t even have known to be on the lookout for such a thing. The ranger spotted it.
Here’s another leopard, a big male.
Here is a hippo taking a look at our vehicle.
A zebra, frontal view.
Another hyena, plus an African Wild Dog. It was unusual to see one away from its pack.
This is the aptly named Sand River.
We had a room overlooking the Sand River, and there was often an animal running across it: baboons, impalas, a water monitor lizard, and a hippo (they can run pretty fast). We also saw elephants and lions in the riverbed.
There are quite a few Cape Buffalo at Sabi Sand. The one in the middle is rubbing her stomach on a big rock.
Our ranger said that there are also some older buffaloes that can’t keep up, and leave the protection of the big herd.
On one trip out from the lodge, we saw what happened to a Cape Buffalo that wasn’t with the big herd. That lion in the lower right was hard asleep.
From our room we saw two Cape Buffalo that were not with the herd. Here’s one.
The next day, three lions killed a Cape Buffalo next to one of our lodge’s guest rooms. A guess: it was the one in the photo above. Another reason why the tourists need escorts!
A roar, not a purr.
What else is there to see? Here’s a landscape, another large bird and more antelopes and rhino.
There was some rain while we were there, and the plants responded favorably. This is part of a large bush (related to a pomegranate) that went from nothing to bright yellow in less than a day.
We left Sabi Sand and drove back to the airport at Nelspruit, where we boarded a non–stop to Cape Town, about 940 miles/1,500 kilometers to the south east.
We flew back to Johannesburg and got on another airplane for a short flight to Nelspruit. As it was getting late, we stopped at a hotel for the night about half way to the Sabi Sand Game Reserve. The next morning we drove up into the Reserve, which gets its name from two rivers that flow through it.
Next—Cape Town and north to Bushmans Kloof.
