After the “small world” experience of running into our friends from Boulder, Colorado at the Swaziland border (look under the> Countries>Swaziland tab to read that post), we realized we were both going to be camping in Kruger Park at the same places for a few nights and arranged to share a brai (BBQ). The first night together was spent drinking and catching up- especially hearing about their experience at Afrikaburn— the Continent’s version of Burning Man which Dee and I had originally planned to attend but did not.
The next morning we set out hoping to see some big cats. Of the big five we had already seen many elephant, rhino and cape buffalo but so far lion and leopard had eluded us. We drove for nearly two hours only seeing the ubiquitous impala and one rhino. Kruger is a busy park but most of the cars stick to the paved roads and we were now deep in the bush on a rough dirt road. When we sited another 4×4 coming towards us we stopped to compare notes on what each had seen. The driver told us he had seen nothing at all in the direction we were heading. We pulled away and had not gone 50 feet when I spotted something moving near the edge of the road—I pointed it out to Dee and we crept forward a few feet. It was a huge male leopard- a loner. We continued to watch it in silence for the next 15 minutes until my attempts to get closer eventually drove it off. It was a magnificent creature and we enjoyed having the special moment to ourselves.
Next post I’ll write about the awesome nighttime game drive we shared with our friends from Boulder.
Rob