Pretoriuskop Camp
A brilliant
dawn finds us on the road again and off to Pretoriuskop Camp this time. It is
the oldest camp in the park and was established in 1926.
The soft,
misty morning light really made a wonderful picture on this small dam.
Crossing
the road is the smallest Leopard tortoise I have ever come across and he is not
happy about me picking him up in order to put him in the bush where he will be
safe from cars not looking where they drive.
A pride of
lions are on the road but the young male of about 2 years old really caught my
attention. Why, I don’t know!
He went to
lay apart from the others and gave a huge yawn.....
then looked
at me as if to say “Can’t a fellow even yawn in peace?”
He decided
to move over and lay in some dung on the road. I know the Hyaena’s do this to
disguise their smell but I had not seen lions doing this before. Maybe it had
nothing to do with disguising his smell but was just rebelling against his
mother telling him to keep clean. LOL!! He was just quite adorable though and I
wanted to take him with me.
The drive
is dusty and long but while setting up camp, these Purple-crested Louries
caught our attention an although we tried hard to get some decent shots of
them, they kept on going into the thickness of the leaves on the trees with us
frustrated at not being able to get good shots.
The next
morning’s sunrise was just as dramatic – we do have beautiful ones here!
On our way
to a nearby dam we saw this elephant dung with all the mushrooms growing in it.
And people eat them?? LOL!!
Turning a
corner, there was a mother Hyaena suckling two cubs of about 8 months old. This
was a day where the light was just in the wrong place to get decent pictures as
we had to shoot tight into it.
She quickly got them out of the way as we approached.
A beautiful
Gecko on a pole.
Nothing much
happening at the dam except for a mother Waterbuck and her calf plus the usual
hippo, water birds, etc.
Leaving the
dam, we came across the same Hyaena and lo and behold, she had another set of
smaller cubs with her and was suckling them!
I thought the
first time I saw her she was rather swollen with milk for such large cubs but
now I understood why. These pictures are awful as now they were on the wrong
side of the car for me and I had to take them through the window.
Once again
she quickly got them off the road into the bush. She stood up so quickly that
both cubs toppled backwards, LOL!!
On a gravel
road we came across this sign.....
I guess
these are what they were talking about..... research like this is very
necessary but do they have to spoil the natural landscape with a structure like
this? Surely they can put id deeper in the bush were it is not seen by the
public. As the years go by, it seems to me that the old way of trying to keep
everything in the park natural is now a thing they don’t worry about any more.
Next we will probably be seeing a McDonalds sign above the trees!!
1 comment:
Naw, it would be a 'Wimpy' sign. ;)
These were such wonderful days in Kruger.
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