When it rains in Africa an incomparably sweet aroma lingers in the air. It’s a smell that rejuvenates the soul and stirs a deep connection with the continent and the country we call home.
This photograph was taken just north of Mopani Rest Camp, in the Kruger National Park
We’re participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com‘s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s challenge is “Scent“
We found this terrapin resting on his hippo-island beneath the Rathlogo hide in the Pilanesberg National Park
“From Above” is this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge.
On most occasions you’d encounter African Wild Dogs, they’ll be running somewhere, covering enormous distances in quick time. This photograph was taken near the Afsaal picnic spot, in the Kruger National Park.
We’re participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazineLetsBeWild.com‘s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s challenge is “Movement“.
We’ve enjoyed our final sunset of this Kruger Park visit, and wasn’t it gorgeous?
Tomorrow we’ll be heading back home to Pretoria, but only after we undertake a final game drive. Will Kruger have one more parting gift in store for us?
What a view!
Today we enjoyed our lunch at the picnic spot high above the Mlondozi Dam, from where we could watch pods of hippos and herds of elephants mingle while enjoying a cool drink ourselves.
Thick mist blanketing the Crocodile Bridge section of the Kruger National Park this morning
Good evening everyone!
An overcast start to the day at Pretoriuskop, but the cloud cover dissolved soon enough to reveal another glorious lowveld day here in the Kruger National Park. We visited a couple of dear friends at Skukuza before making our way here to Crocodile Bridge Rest Camp, where we’ll be spending the next four nights.
Crocodile Bridge Sunset (click on the image for a clearer view)
Yep, we’re back in the Kruger National Park – we simply cannot get enough of this paradise!
Tonight, we’re sleeping in historic Pretoriuskop Rest Camp. Depicted below is the nearby Ship Mountain (so named because it resembles the upturned hull of a ship) used as a landmark by transport riders and explorers more than a hundred years ago en route to Delagoa Bay (today’s Maputo in Mozambique).
If our internet connection allows, we’ll again try to post a picture or two on a daily basis while we’re in the Park, and there will definitely be a full report back when (unfortunately) we have to return to the city…
This cute, tree-dwelling, nocturnal primate is a thick-tailed bushbaby (or galago), often encountered while taking a night-time stroll through many of the rest camps in the Kruger National Park.
Tall grass and thick mist – a wonderful long-weekend retreat!
We recently spent a very relaxing long weekend at one of our favourite small wild places, the beautiful and little-known Chelmsford Nature Reserve in the north-west of Kwazulu-Natal Province.
The reserve must have received good rainfall during the summer, as almost the entire area was covered in tall, green grass, which made it difficult to get good sightings (and photographs) of Chelmsford’s star attraction: the oribi, a small and endangered species of antelope.
Chelmsford Oribi
Chelmsford Oribi
We spent three nights in our comfortable chalet, one of only eight at the Leokop Camp on the bank of the Ntshingwayo Dam. The reserve also offers shady campsites at the dam’s edge, and it is easy to see why so many people enjoy pitching a tent or unhitching their caravan in such an idyllic setting.
The reserve doesn’t have any dangerous large animals, allowing visitors to walk or cycle around among the game to their hearts’ content. Plains zebra, blesbok, springbok and black wildebeest were plentiful, and we also had numerous, if fleeting, sightings of smaller animals like the oribi, cape fox, and a number of mongooses.
Blesbok
Plains Zebra
Chelmsford is also a renowned bird-watching destination, and during our stay we ticked of more than 70 feathered species including a variety of raptors.
Surrounding a large body of water and with the mornings here in South Africa turning rather chilly now, it wasn’t surprising to find the reserve blanketed in thick fog every morning.
We’ve always found a visit to Chelmsford to be well worth our while and we will definitely return as often as we possibly can – a resolution our latest visit reaffirmed.
Dewy spider’s web
Dewdrops on spider’s web
Have a look at an earlier blogpost of ours on Chelmsford here, if you’d like to read more of our impressions of this wonderful nature reserve. During our visit, we tried to post a daily photo as well, which you may not have seen yet: 21/03/2013, 22/03/2013 and 23/03/2013.
DeWetsWild