I was on tour during the middle of November
with two clients who were to spend, among others, three nights in the Sabi
Sands at one of the lodges in the central region. I was very fortunate to spend
two of these nights at the Inyati Game
Lodge, situated in the western sector of the Sabi Sands – lucky me.
I had to collect them from the Houghton
area of Johannesburg at 08:00 on a Monday morning, and I stayed at a hotel near
the O R Tambo International Airport the night before. My biggest fear was not
wild animals, crooks, robbers, adverse weather or anything along those lines –
my biggest fear was the Monday morning Johannesburg rush-hour traffic. (Why do they call it rush-hour? No-one is
going anywhere fast. ED). Anyway, I was on time, and still had time for a
cup of coffee before we bravely made out way back through the rush-hour
traffic, past the airport and east onto the Panorama Escarpment. The weather
was absolutely stunning, clear skies and warm temperatures, until we came to
the Escarpment. Here I struggled down the Long Tom Pass in heavy fog and mist (aren’t they the same? ED), averaging between
20 to 30 kilometres per hour. This is a mere 58 kilometres between these two
towns, but it seemed a whole lot further. Ah well, we eventually arrived at
Graskop and had a lovely lunch at Harries Pancakes – well worth braving the fog
and mist for. However, the Escarpment was now covered in cloud, but luckily for
me, God’s Window, Berlin and Lisbon Falls, as well as the Three Rondawels, were
all reasonably clear and afforded us some half-decent views. That evening we
stayed at Hannah Lodge near Ohrigstad and then made our way the following
morning to the Sabi Sands. Guess what? The Kowyns Pass between Graskop and
Hazyview was also covered in fog and mist – another difficult journey. (You really have to decide, fog OR mist,
surely it can’t be both. ED).
We duly arrived at the Sabi Sands, I
dropped the clients off at their centrally located lodge and made my 2-hour
journey from here to the Inyati Game Lodge in the western sector of the Sabi
Sands – keeping an eye out for any birds and wildlife that may cross my path.
At this stage there was some high cloud cover, but this presented no problem
and I arrived at Inyati with enough time to settle in, look at some monkeys and
enjoy high tea before going out on the afternoon game drive. I did not take any
photos of the lodge, so I will hereunder describe it for you – if you need to
see the photos, please go to http://www.sabisandslodges.co.za/Inyati.asp:
This is one of only a handful of lodges in
the Sabi Sands that face onto a river – this river being the Sand River and
only accommodates a maximum of twenty two guests in seven luxury and four
executive chalets. There is also the Warthog Hollow Bar, library, filtered
swimming pool, air-conditioned gym and walk-in wine cellar. Their traditional
boma was where we enjoyed dinner on both nights. I am not going to bore you
with the size of the room, the colour of the curtains, how many baths, showers
and hand-basins there were, what type of carpet, mosquito nets, overhead fan,
air-conditioner (You are now being
boring. ED). Okay, I have stopped. Inyati in my opinion is a “no-frills” lodge
that is comfortable and well worth a visit - their main interest is on the
wildlife and game drive experience and are not overly concerned with super luxury
and gourmet meals.
So what of the wildlife, I hear you ask.
Well, on both afternoons I was entertained by a troop of monkeys that seemed to
favour the camp as their afternoon hangout. They were completely at ease with
my presence and I hope that they don’t get to the stage where they become a
nuisance, but on this visit they kept away from the central and dining areas,
so no issues there. Oh, there was also a lizard that I photographed somewhere
along the line.
There was one local television celebrity in
camp, Jan Braai. Now this chap does a cooking programme on one of the local
television channels and he and his crew were busy filming a programme here. For
those of you who don’t know, a “braai” is very much like a barbeque, but in
South Africa it is only much better. He is also the person responsible for
National Braai Day (held on Heritage Day) which has the endorsement of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu no less. Ask any South African what day the 24th
September is and they’ll tell you, “National Braai Day”. Just for your info and
to see what he is about, here is a direct extract from one of Jan Braai’s
blogs:
Steaks
should be done medium rare.
·
If you really prefer your
steaks rare and aren’t just saying it to try and sound rougher than everybody
else ordering medium rare, then you should not be ordering rare steaks anyhow.
There are two great dishes for you to try. Steak Tartar and Beef Carpaccio.
·
If you prefer your steaks medium, then start buying better quality
steaks, learn how to braai them better, and acquire the acquired taste of
enjoying them medium rare.
·
If you prefer your steaks medium well or well done, then why exactly
are you reading this? You are surely quite capable of messing up meat all by
yourself.
·
If one of your guests wants
their steak medium well or well done, refuse.
On the game drives, and in no particular
order, we saw, among others, the following:
(a)
A pair of mating leopards.
These two were in fairly thick bush, but whilst we watched they must have mated
about five times, and just like their lion cousins (Are they really? ED) the coupling was over in a flash, with much
snarling and display of fangs from the female. Now I have been lucky in my job
to have seen many, many leopards in various reserves in South Africa, from
KwaZulu Natal, through to the Kruger Park, Sabi Sands, Timbavati and on to
Madikwe, but a pair of mating leopards was a first for me. There was for me,
only one negative to this sighting:- I have an entry level camera and an entry
level 80-400mm lens. Now this lens does not focus too close on a subject and we
were too close to the leopards for me to get both animals fully in the frame,
so I had to compromise and cut off their tails. Oh well. I am in the market for
a prime lens and a shorter zoom lens, so will be giving out the bank account
details into which monetary deposits can be made to the “Keith’s Camera and
Lens Fund”.
(b)
When it was already dark, we
came upon a pride of lions that had killed a warthog and were now busy
devouring this prey. There were quite a few lions (too dark to make any
accurate assessment of exactly how many) but I did get some photos and if truth
be told, quite bad ones at that. Now, if I had a prime camera and prime lenses,
maybe the photos would have been better than these below. Who knows? I am just
waiting for the fund to be launched. However, it is also something special to
not only see lions consuming their prey, but to also be witness to the snarling
and snapping as they challenge each other over the scraps.
(c)
Some elephants, but again, we
were so close that I could not fit the full animal into the frame, so I had to
settle for tightly cropped photos. They were out in the open in soft light,
brought about by the cloud cover – this is borne out by the white sky. We saw
elephants on most drives and on the second evening, as we were packing up after
our sundowners’ drink stop, we were joined by a herd of about 25 animals. They
were calm and relaxed, and entered our space rather that the other way around.
One female in particular got so close that I could reach out and touch her. I
did not take any photos here. I may have told you about my lens that does not
focus too close?
(d)
A group of about ten or so
buffalo, mostly in sleep mode and enjoying the attentions of the Red-billed
oxpeckers that were busy grooming them. I actually saw quite a few buffalo on
my own, when I drove to Inyati and also when I departed the reserve. One of the
guides, with Jan Braai’s group, was quite desperate to find buffalo as they
were the last of the “big 5” to be ticked. This just goes to show, sometimes
one just has to accept that nature cannot really be dictated to and one cannot
just find specific animals on a whim.
(e)
Also somewhere on the drive we
had a sighting of a juvenile African Fish-eagle, quite obviously different in
appearance from the adults.
(f)
We also saw a great sighting of
a leopard with her two cubs. These cubs were tiny and I would suggest that they
were no more than eight to ten weeks old. However, they were in such thick
grass and bush, and only one vehicle at a time was permitted at the sighting,
due to the delicate nature of this, that I was unable to get any photos. Oh, I
tried, but here I must say, even with a prime lens and camera I would not have
been successful, the grass was too long and they were well hidden. Even the
visual sighting that we had was poor, we could, from time to time, just make
out the animals in the long grass, but never in the open. As soon as I returned
home and put the photos onto a bigger screen, I knew I had to delete them, but
what a sighting.
(g)
Back to the monkeys in the
camp. Three youngsters had cornered a grasshopper of some type and were busy
trying to kill it. The grasshopper valiantly fought back, tooth and nail, but in the end, it was defeated and succumbed
to its injuries, whereby the monkeys had an argument as to who was going to eat
it. Whilst the two dominant monkeys were arguing, the smaller one grabbed it
and ran off with it – clever.
(h)
One afternoon we saw about
eight different white rhino, and then we saw another one (So, that’s nine then? ED). No, this one was a black rhino. Now, as
many of you may know, the black rhino is very rare and hardly ever seen in the
Lowveld. With all my visits to the Kruger Park and the Sabi Sands, I had only
ever seen black rhino on three occasions in the Kruger Park and prior to this,
no black rhino in the Sabi Sands at all. Well, here he was in all his glory,
and to boot, he was pretty relaxed (for a black rhino) so I did manage to get a
photo or two. Back to the camera again –
by this time the cloud cover was quite dense, which made the light poor, so I
was shooting at about 3200 ISO, which, in poor light and with an entry level
camera, makes for a grainy photograph. Oh for a prime lens and camera! But
wait, the fund will be launched soon.
Unfortunately my luck could not last that
long. During the afternoon there was a strong Berg wind. Bergwinds derive their
name from the direct Afrikaans translation of “mountain wind” and is often
compared to a föhn/foehn wind, where dry air warms up as it flows down the lee
side of a mountain. Similarly, in South Africa, the lee side of the “mountain”
is represented by the altitude difference between the plateau (average height
of 1.2km above sea level) and the coast (sea level). Berg winds occur when a
strong persistent high pressure dominates over the interior and another high is
situated to the south or south east of the country. The high over the interior
results in a large amount of subsidence (or stable, sinking air) and is
associated with fine and dry weather. As the air from the plateau moves towards
the coast it flows down the escarpment and warms by 1ºC for every 100m it
descends. In simple terms, the dry air from the interior (higher altitude)
warms up as it moves towards the coast (sea level), resulting in a spike in the
temperature. The stronger the berg winds, the more rapid the temperature
increase. Now, this had been one hot day and during dinner that evening I could
hear the distant rumble of thunder, getting closer and closer – in my
experience, bergwinds are almost 99% of the time followed by rain.
That night the rain started and when I
awoke at about 04:30 that morning it was raining as hard as I have ever seen. I
made my way to the bar area under cover of an umbrella for coffee and a snack
and to tell my guide that I would politely decline his kind invitation to go on
a game drive. Those of you who may know me, will also know that I don’t easily
forgo a game drive in the Sabi Sands (And
anywhere else. ED), but on this morning I just had to, it was just too wet
and unpleasant and I had an camera, albeit an entry level camera, to protect. I
had an early-ish breakfast and made my way to the adjacent Kruger Park, and in
my town car it was a bit of a challenge to get out of the Sabi Sands and into
the Kruger Park without mishap – it rained all the time. It was only about
mid-morning the following day, when I was back in the Sabi Sands to collect my guests,
that the rain eased up and we had an uneventful trip back to Johannesburg.
The reason that there is not a more
detailed description of the lodge is simply that this lodge (and I suppose,
every other lodge in the Sabi Sands) satisfies my needs. I don’t need luxury,
gourmet meals, being waited on hand and foot, I just want a comfortable,
spacious room, with a shower (and if there is a bath, I’ll take that), big bed,
maybe mosquito netting, an air-conditioner (this can come in handy when the
bergwinds blow) and good, wholesome food. There are lodges that cater for those
with superior tastes in luxury and service, so everyone can be satisfied.
Ten years down the line, I won’t be able to
remember what I had for dinner at Inyati, or what colour the duvet was, but ten
years down the line I’ll still remember the leopards mating, the monkeys
wrestling with the grasshopper and that leopard with her tiny cubs – this is
what it is all about.
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