Safari at Leadwood Lodge, Exeter

We left Ngala with heavy hearts. We enjoyed our stay at Timbavati so much, how could anything get better. We got into our VW bus and drove through the land of Mpumalanga for 3 hours to reach Sabi Sands located on the southern edge of Krueger National Park.


We pull into to Sabi Sands and we quickly become amazed with our surroundings. The landscape has changed. No longer are we in tight, compact bushy spaces, but we see a vast hilly land in front of us. We pull into Exeter Private Game Reserve, and head back to Leadwood Lodge which borders the river.


Below are some photos of our lodge . . .

It is a bit too chilly to take a dip!



Paul and I get freshened up, and then head back to the main lodge for a cold coffee and lunch before the game drive begins at 3:30 pm. Our camp is at full capacity today with 4 couples including Paul and myself. We meet people from Phoenix, AZ and Jo'burg. After lunch, we head out to the truck and go on our first afternoon drive. We first encounter this elephant hiding behind a tree.



He has had enough of us staring at him, so he saunters off.


We spot this chameleon in a bush on our way back to camp. Then, we take a pause to locate the Southern Cross in the sky. Later, we also catch a glimpse of a genet.

Back at camp, we have a braai for dinner tonight.

After dinner, the staff decide to sing to us in their native Shangaan tongue. The video is pretty dark, but you can get a sense for the music and dancing.

Wake up call at 5:30 am with coffee and biscuits, and then on the road at 6:00 am. We first head out to see this pride of lions with their cubs. Yep, it's water buffalo for breakfast again.

Yummy! Now, where is my mom to help me clean up my face!

After we leave the pride, we run into a pack of elephants grazing for their morning meal. This little one is pretty shy and will not leave mom's side.

We spot a wildebeest drinking from this watering hole. We then decide we should have a morning drink as well . . . yummy, marula cream and coffee!

I am hiding . . . you cannot see me!

Here I am!

Me with the extremely shy giraffe as he is running away!

Here are the saddle bill storks. It was a treat to see them as they are on the endangered list.

On the way back to camp to have breakfast, Paul spots the Nile crocodile.

We lost some of our fellow safari friends today, so our group is much smaller as we head out this evening. I have been annoying our ranger, Mac, about the fact that I have still not seen a leopard, and it would be really nice if he could find one before I leave in 2 days. He swears that he cannot find a leopard, as they have all gone on strike, but he has found a rare spotted zebra for us tonight perched upon a termite hill. Below, take a glimpse of the rare, spotted zebra only found at Sabi Sands! Actually, it's Billy a 3 year old male.

We sadly leave Billy as he is on stakeout at the termite hill for warthog to eat for dinner. We then rush off to see a new animal. This time the extremely rare, prehistoric pangolin. He apparently is hardly ever seen in the bush, and rightly so since he is so fragile. Typically, his tail would be curled up and he would appear to be in a ball. However, he is on the move, so his tail is actually out.

Here you can see his head emerge as he begins to walk across the path in search of ants.

Ah . . . sunset in the African bushveld. Sabi Sands Rocks tonight! Time for a sundowner. Now, the gals are a little nervous since the bush break is supposed to be behind a termite hill tonight. We put our faith in our ranger and pray a leopard is not waiting for us on top of the hill! Yikes!

Back in the truck, and we are off to go see a group of male lions getting ready to roar. These guys are so lazy. They will not wake up for about a half hour. However, they finally start to move about and stretch. All of the sudden, one male gets up. His amber eyes become huge and round. He looks right through Paul and me, and begins to make the most horrific sound you will ever hear. I literally thought my heart jumped into my stomach. His roar was so loud, it felt as though the car was shaking. 30 seconds later, he plopped back down and went back to sleep.

Here are these two cuddling after scaring all of us.

Back to camp after a great night of animal viewing. 5:30 am our security guard knocks on our door with our coffee and biscuits. Same as usual, except this time we are told that there is a leopard 50 meters from our lodge and that we should not leave until he comes back for us. I had decided by the end of the 45 minute wait that if the leopard was still outside, I was not going on the game drive. However, when the guard came back the leopard was on the move, and we decided to track her. Here she is . . . I cannot type her name as it is in Shangaan and I do not know how to write it down.

On the lookout for something, we continue to follow her . . .
Oddly enough, she walks right past this family of giraffe. Apparently, they are not enemies and coexist peacefully.

We tour the area in the truck and witness the beautiful sunrise.

We love the colors of the sky at sunrise . . .

We pass by a springbok as we are driving this morning. Such a cute animal, Paul and I feel a little guilty about the springbok biltong (otherwise known as jerky) we had early this week, but it tasted so good!We enter a clearing a find a dazzle of zebra grazing for their breakfast.

Time for our morning ritual of marula and coffee. We stop to watch the giraffe play at the watering hole while enjoying our coffee. Here we are with Brent and Sasha by the truck.

A young giraffe plays in the clearing . . .
On the way back to camp, we find a young rhino with their mother.

Mac then decides to stop the car and ask me to get in the tracker seat. I reluctantly climb out of the truck and into the front seat. Once I am in the tracker seat, I ask Mac what I am tracking, to which he replies leopard, then no, nothing really. Of course, I then ask, what if we spot a leopard? He replies, you will then have to sit really still. Why did I get into this situation in the first place, I ask? All in all, it was fun.

Here is some video of my 10 minutes as a tracker. You can also get a feel for what the drive actually feels like in the truck.




Back to camp. Here we are with Ranger Mac and Tracker Isaac.

Back to pack up our things. Then, it is Jo'burg-Dubai-Mumbai-Pune!

Safari at Ngala Tented Camp

After three hours of travel from Cape Town, we finally made it to our first safari at Ngala Tented Camp in the Timbavati Private Reserve within Krueger National Park on the northern border. Ngala is a Shangaan word for "lion" and this reserve is known for its cats. On our way to the reserve we happen upon this guy who is trying to cross the road. He was not happy to see us, but once we stopped to leave him enough space he was able to cross.

We have a nice lemonade as a welcome drink and fill out all the disclaimer forms, and then we are taken to our tent. As you can see, it is a semi-permanent structure, however the walls are still tent walls. Paul and I decided the first night was animal party night because it seemed all the animals were right outside doing who knows what. The second night was much quieter. We later came to the conclusion that the impalas were the culprits for keeping us awake during most of the night.

Here is the interior of the tent. The bed was quite nice as it was really chilly in the evenings and we would come back from our game drives to a hot water bottle warming the bed and a hot bath drawn. As you can see, though we were in a tent, we were not "roughing" it at all!

At 3 pm, we left the tent and head down to the lodge to meet our ranger Derrick, and have a cold coffee. After learning the rules of safari, we head out on our first afternoon game drive. The game drives typically last 3 - 4 hours, so you are able to see night animals as well.

The first glimpse of animals we had was of a herd of impala. Paul gets to see his wildebeest!

A cranky old male water buffalo . . .

Within 20 minutes of the first drive, we went to see a pride of female lions with 4 male cubs. They had made a water buffalo kill a few days before, so we went back to see them having their dinner.

We sat and watched the lions for about one hour. At one point the entire pride had surrounded the Range Rover. For our first outing in the bush, it was a little nerve wracking. We knew the lions would not jump into the vehicle, but we were in their territory and anything goes. After we left the pride, we decided to drive about 10 minutes away from where they were feeding and have a sundowner. There is nothing like being in the bush with a G & T in your hand and knowing that there are lions a short distance away. What is even better is having to take a bush break with this knowledge. Oddly enough, after the first drive these things we noticed stop being so odd and just became normal to us.

After our sundowner, we happened to find another male lion. This guy is about 4 years old. He just wanted his tummy scratched! He looks a little like Zoe, right now! Ok, maybe not, but they do share some similar behavior.

It is now time to head back to camp for dinner. On the our way, we come across this bush baby in the tree.

Back to camp for dinner and bed. At 5:30 am we received our wake-up call with coffee and biscuits. By 6:00 am, we were escorted by security out to the Range Rover for our morning drive. The tented camp is semi-protected, so predators can walk onto the camp which is why security walks us to the car at dusk and dawn. Here I am searching for animals on this early morning. It is freezing outside, so I am bundled up with a wool shawl on my lap, a hot water bottle, and a thick wool blanket to keep me warm.

Our ranger Derrick spots these huge spider nests on a large web as we are driving.

Kudus . . .

Zebra . . . A dazzle of zebra are a lot trickier to find in the bush then one would think--they move pretty fast.

Impala in the wild!
Giraffe . . .

Sunset in the African bushveld. We stop here to have our sundowner amongst all the natural beauty with the sunset as the backdrop.

As the Range Rover comes to a stop, we hear a thundering stampede and look up to see these hippos rushing into the water, and rhinos coming toward the truck.

These rhinos do not spot us until they are pretty much sitting in the truck with us. The video below shows how they react when they finally see the car.

Fleeting rhinos! The coast is somewhat clear except for the hippos in the water. Paul and I decide it will be ok to get out of the car as long as we keep our eye on these two waterlogged friends.

The sun finally sets. Paul and I lose track of the hippos in the water, and so we decide to jump in the truck. On the way back to camp, we come across some African wild cats and then the African wild dogs. This is a rare treat to find them as they are on the endangered species list.

Bright and early the following morning, we sit alert as we are on the lookout for a leopard.

We do not find the leopard, but we do find a pack of hyenas that stole the leopard's morning breakfast of impala.

Yum-O! Impala, the breakfast of champions.

The laughing hyena . . .

On the way back to camp, we see a herd of a couple hundred buffalo. Look at these two sunbathing.

Surprise! Breakfast is served in the bush. We were on the way back to camp, when we came across this lovely setup in the middle of the bush.

Oskar is on braai, Afrikaans for barbecue, duty making some eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast.

Yogurt, museli, strawberries . . . and mimosa . . . my favorite!

We leave the bush breakfast sad as it is our last drive back to camp before we head out to Sabi Sands for our next safari. Along the way, we spot our favorite bird in the bush, the lilac breasted roller.

Along with Paul's new friend, the warthog . . .

Here is our safari group at Ngala. Ranger Derrick, Paul, me, Mark (Santa Barbara, CA), Lisa (Santa Barbara, CA), Julia (Santa Barbara, CA), and Tracker Jonas.

Back to the tent to quickly pack up and then a three hour drive to the southern border of the Krueger to Sabi Sands for safari number two!