The Best Laid Plans etc. – Keith Marallich

 
Please forgive the title; this was taken from that great Scottish poet, Robert Burns’ poem, “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785”, (or better known as “Ode to a Mouse” – it is also much easier on the tongue, this shorter title.). This of course means that no matter how well you plan something, always expect the unexpected. What I am referring to is the fact that I had a tour in the offing, to the Kruger National Park, and then onto the Arathusa Safari Lodge in the north of the Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve. I had been corresponding with the clients for some time, probably about two to three months and I was looking forward to this trip – I always get withdrawal symptoms when I don’t get to the game reserves often enough, and the Sabi Sands is simply the cherry on the cake – there is no better game reserve anywhere, in my humble opinion.

Writing this reminds me of one of those famous movie quotes – “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain”, adapted from that marvellous old 1964 classic musical film, My Fair Lady.
Well, this time the rain wasn’t falling in Spain but mainly in the eastern half of South Africa! I had planned my routes, times and everything else a long time ahead – all in my mind of course, nothing was committed to paper. My planning of course only took good weather into account – we don’t have bad weather and rain in this country, do we? As the time drew nearer for our departure, so I more and more frequently checked the various weather sites for a long-term forecast. On the Thursday before the tour commenced, things started to look bad – on Friday we had reports that the northern section of the Kruger Park was experiencing floods, heavy rain had begun in the area, and rain was forecast for at least the next four days.  

We departed Johannesburg early on the Sunday morning, and the rain was teeming down. Three hundred and seventy five kilometers further, when we stopped at Hazyview for an early lunch, it was, if anything, raining heavier. The wipers of our little mini-bus had been working overtime the whole morning – and then we entered the Kruger Park at the Phabeni Gate, wipers vigorously still doing their job all the time. En route to Skukuza we had hard, torrential rain. Having said that and notwithstanding the weather, we surprisingly did see some animals and in fact, quite a few elephants and other general game, including two white rhino. What I did notice was that every loop road (these are the dirt roads that follow off the main roads) that we passed had been closed by the management of the park – and they only do this if these roads are impassable, which told me that there had been some flooding and we now had some damaged roads in the south of the park as well. 

What was immediately noticeable was the continuous calling of one of our summer visitors, the Woodland kingfisher. The Woodland kingfisher is a small bird with stunningly colourful plumage. It has very bright blue feathers on its back, wing panels and tail, with black shoulders and a white belly. This beautiful bird is an intra-African migrant and can be found from just north of Pretoria, to south of the Sahara desert, migrating up through Africa in the dry season. In South Africa it is most commonly found in Acacia thornveld. Contrary to their names, the majority of kingfishers don't actually fish for their food, with the Woodlands kingfisher forming part of the non-fishing group. Fish are seldom part of the Woodland's diet. It prefers to hunt its prey from low tree branches away from water, swooping down to catch insects on the ground. Whereas the riverine kingfishers tend to nest in burrows in riverbanks, this species nests in abandoned woodpecker or barbet tree holes. During courtship both the male and female can be seen perched on a branch with wings outstretched, displaying their bright colours.  The Woodland kingfisher call is the first welcome signal of the return of the summer, and it is generally the first migrant bird to return. The males can be heard calling constantly as soon as they arrive back into the bushveld, continuing until the end of the breeding season. The call is very distinctive and unmistakable, beginning with one sharp, loud, high note, followed by a repetition of trills which gradually descend, finally fading away – a quite stunning call and a quite stunning bird.

The following morning we awoke to the same rain that we had experienced the previous day and throughout the night. Knowing that all loop roads were closed, I went along the main road alongside the Sabi River for our game drive, to Lower Sabie Camp where we had breakfast. Now some people disparagingly call this road “Eloff  Street” after that very busy road in the centre of Johannesburg. I don’t do that – this is one of the most productive drives in the entire Kruger Park, notwithstanding the fact that it does carry a lot of tourist traffic. On this day it was not quite that busy – maybe most people had opted to stay in the camps because of the rain? We again saw quite a lot of wildlife and in fact had a grumpy elephant bull hold us up on this road for about twenty minutes. After breakfast, wipers still wiping, we headed down to the Crocodile Bridge Gate (I knew that this gate was closed because of the flooding of the Crocodile River and that this road should, because of this, be fairly quite – I was correct!). Not too long into this trip, we saw some three or four lion way off in the distance and the clients were quite excited by this.  I played it cool, but this did not excite me – they were too far off for my liking. About ten kilometres further on from this we had the same story – more lion, also far off.  Once we arrived at Crocodile Bridge we turned around and made our way back to Skukuza on exactly the same route with the same result – more animals and closed loop roads. My clients had a sunset drive booked for that evening, but there was no sunset, the rain was still falling, but much less intense than earlier in the day – and there was even the odd patch of blue sky visible! It is at this time that when the clients are on a sunset drive that I usually spend a few hours on my own at Lake Panic to photograph birds (and anything else that takes my fancy here), but not on this day – the road to Lake Panic was also closed.

The following morning we were to make our way to Arathusa in the north of the Sabi Sands, and it had been my intention to head north in the Kruger Park and exit at Orpen Gate, but this I could not do – Orpen Gate was also still closed due to flooding. But things were looking up – the clouds had disappeared and the sun was out! On route back to Phabeni Gate to exit the park we again saw quite a few animals, including a small pack of wild dogs – one of our most endangered predators and a great honour to see these animals – I was excited!

The last fifteen to twenty kilometers of dirt road from Acornhoek to the northern Sabi Sands was tough going, in fact very tough! My little mini bus was not a 4-wheel drive vehicle and the roads in some parts were almost washed away. To make a long story short, I persevered and eventually arrived at the entrance gate, only to learn that we were one of the first standard vehicles to make it this far since the Friday before and we were now at Tuesday! We duly arrived at Arathusa, checked in and enjoyed a superb lunch. At afternoon tea we met our ranger and tracker and set off on our first game drive in this reserve. The roads here – all dirt roads – were not in a good condition and we learned that we would probably not be able to go off-road. In fact, some of the neighbouring lodges to Arathusa had not gone out at all since Friday! Our game drive vehicle was a Toyota Land Cruiser, and what follows may interest my boss, Jeremy – that afternoon we had to tow a Land Rover game drive vehicle from another lodge out as it had been stuck in some deep mud with their clients on board – our Toyota did not get stuck once…just saying.

I am not going to go through a blow-by-blow account of the four drives that we enjoyed here – they were all good and I don’t really think that my clients had believed me when I told them that we were likely to encounter wildlife, and especially the predators, from close up. They were soon to learn that I had not tried to deceive them! At one point, whist viewing a leopard, I happened to look around and noticed that one of the clients had averted her gaze from the leopard. When I asked her about this later, it transpired that she believed in the “Ostrich syndrome:” – if you can’t see the danger, it does not exist! Some of the sightings that stood out for me were these:

A small pride of lion – about ten metres from our vehicle. Among this group were three young cubs, an older male and a very, very old female. The young male entertained us by vomiting up some grass that he had eaten exactly for this purpose and the oldest female I have ever seen showed us just how worn down here teeth were, due to age – I suspect that she has not long for this earth – she was old.

 

 

 

 

-          Quite a few side-striped jackals (a family of them in fact) on the Arathusa airstrip. One of the young pups ended up as a leopard’s breakfast the first morning whilst we were there. The leopard had taken the young jackal and had gone into thick bush with this unfortunate youngster, and because of the conditions, we could not go off-road to follow it, so no photographs were taken of this. 

-          A female leopard that had killed a duiker. She was not happy with our presence there and snarled at us to let us know her feelings (this is where the lady averted her eyes) – I learned later on from the clients that they were quite afraid that she would attack! (This is highly unlikely, but not impossible – I was not concerned). She then hoisted the unfortunate duiker into the tree, moved it until she felt that it was wedged in tightly and then she settled down on another branch for a rest. I was hoping for some photos of this, but unfortunately the sun was very low and she was directly between me and the setting sun, making for a tricky photographic situation. Anyway, here are some photos below – I was just thrilled to be able to see this.

 

 

 

 Now with the relatively short space of time for this tour (four nights, two in the Kruger Park and two at Arathusa) and the weather conditions, I was expecting the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of sightings we had enjoyed, especially lion and leopard sightings at Arathusa in the Sabi Sands (four sightings of leopard in two days!) and how close we were able to get to the animals, even though we hardly were able to go off road. I have said it before, but it is worth repeating – there can be no better wildlife experience, especially for someone on their first safari to Africa, than the Sabi Sands, and in this regard, Arathusa Safari Lodge is well-priced in this reserve and well worth a visit. 

Rhino River Lodge – Jeremy Williamson

 
The Rhino River Lodge is a 3 star venue located in the ‘developing’ 23,000 ha Zululand Rhino Reserve. A recently proclaimed game reserve in northern Zululand, that I believe in time could rival many  of the finer Big Five wildlife destinations in South Africa.

It all started with the dropping of fences by the land owners, the introduction of numerous species that were previously found in the area. To now, where there are all of the Big Five roaming freely in this still unspoiled bushveld environment. 

One of the greatest benefits for this area, was when it was chosen to be part of the “Black Rhino Relocation Project”, with a number of these cantankerous pachyderms being successfully released into the Zululand Rhino Reserve. With the addition of a small nucleus pride of lion, so the prime concept was achieved and the Big 5 had returned.   

A White Rhino of the Rhino River Reserve

Great care in the game management is being undertaken, with the intention that the animal population will grow and be sustained naturally by the balance of vegetation, herbivores and predators.  This is how it should be ! Be patient, the density of animals can only improve and the game viewing is already pretty good.

An easy three hours from Durban and Lana and I were at the entrance gate and access road to Rhino River Lodge.  From here one drives the 5kms through the reserve to the Lodge. 

Family suite

We arrived, stopped at reception, to be greeted by our wonderful manageress and hostess, Shona. As I opened the door my glasses misted up, no, it was not the sight of Shona, just the intense 41degree Zululand pre-storm heat at mid-day, wow. My glasses cleared, Shona’s smile returned and we checked into this rather delightful bush Lodge.

Suite of four bedrooms

Chalets scattered around a grassed  indigenous garden, set on the banks of the normally dry Umsunduze River.   

 
 The grass lawn gave way to long grasses, shrubs and then Fever and Sycamore Fig trees,  creating an attractive riparian forest down to the sandy river bed. A refreshing drink as we acclimatised to the heat, became familiar with the Lodge facilities, and reveled in the cacophony of bird calls, delightful!

 We met Alison at lunch, she was to be our guide. What a pleasure to have such a pleasant and knowledgeable lass taking us on the game drives. I always marvel at the way these young girls so competently manoeuvre the large heavy game drive vehicles. Must be a chauvinistic mindset thinking they shouldn’t be able to, Alison was an excellent driver in the very slippery conditions we were to experience there over the next few days – the storm was brewing.

The meals at Rhino River Lodge were really excellent, what I liked too, was that before the afternoon game drive, each guest was asked which choice of mains they would like, same at breakfast too, with the traditional cooked breakfast being “full house” and some.  Shona,  I really like your input and improvements to the commissary department. All we need is the return of the good coffee machine - broken !

The traditional thatched rooms were very comfortable, large windows and sliding door onto one’s own ‘private’ deck.   

Ceiling fan and then a four-poster type mosquito net. This was fine, but the net seemed to deflect the cooling breeze and at 40 degrees, every bit of cooling was needed.  I believe air-conditioning could be on the cards with a recent upgrade in the local power-lines. I would heartily endorse the owners seriously implementing this improvement to the rooms soonest.  

 There is a bar fridge / tea station with some rather delish lodge biscuits. The rooms were being redecorated when we were there and the new paintwork giving each a lighter and brighter colour combination. The bathrooms have large showers but no bath.

With the storm on the make  Alison thought it might be prudent to depart a tad earlier. With our cameras in their waterproof cases we departed – all set to see what this section of the Zululand Rhino Reserve had to offer.

Road block

How lovely to have a cool breeze as we trundled through the bush in the ‘open’ game drive vehicle. Loads of antelope here  and ..shhhuuu... a few .. or more white rhino too. 

 Lovely sightings of all these and it was only the wildebeest that seemed rather skittish. 

The impala groups with their rapidly maturing young, most born from mid November on, were prolific.  Waterbuck, kudu, nyala,  giraffe and even common reedbuck were  here, then a jackal and of course  numerous warthog, also with their young .  

The raptors were here too, with quite a variety evident. Numerous Common steppe Buzzards,  Black-shouldered Kites, Wahlberg’s Eagle as well as Tawny Eagles and was it a Lesser spotted Eagle? Yip, and  then yet another with its back to us which I could not properly I.D.

  With the recent rains, the roads were wet and it appears that so many of the roads and tracks in the Zululand Rhino Reserve become almost impassable in such conditions. To save the integrity of these roads the Rangers  do not use them  when in this state, to avoid  making them even worse to negotiate. I have experienced this reduction in traversing area when visiting Leopard Mountain Lodge, a nearby venue in the same reserve and now again here. The rain arrived late that afternoon and there was substantial precipitation. I felt for Keith Marralich, who was conducting one of our tours in the Kruger Park area, and the flooding that they were experiencing there. It rained most of the night and was still intermittent in the morning.   Rain birds all around!

Burchell's Coucal

As dawn broke I walked onto the deck and there was the Umsunduze River, being a proper river, it had risen substantially and was coursing down at a great rate carrying logs and all sorts with it. We were pretty sure but hoped that the animals were not caught up in this melee. We went out on game drive. Limited though the road access was, we had some reasonable sightings, to my delight the birdlife suddenly received a lot of attention and some of the 'lesser' animals.

 
We even saw the spoor of a herd of buffalo that had passed by. Ordinarily one would have ‘tracked’ them,  but today was a case of slip and slide on those clay soils, so we had to remain on the hardened,  all weather roads and let them be. In time I hope the reserve ‘hardens’ a lot more of the road network. A priority?  I would say.

So a lovely fairly typical thatched bushveld Lodge (aesthetical pleasing and preferred) which the owners appear to be continually upgrading.

 
Easy access, we arrived in a saloon car and despite the poor weather and section of poor district road, managed to leave without getting stuck. The staff were super,  caring and very capable, particularly on the game drives and in the kitchen.  I have yet to see the Big Five in this reserve from any of the Lodges, its lion and leopard that we have not been successful in finding here, but giving the improvement in the game viewing experienced on the drives each time we visit, it’s not too far away when this reserve will be ranked right up there for excellent wildlife sightings.

Photographs by Jeremy and Lana Williamson