Kruger National Park

I'm sitting now at the Crocodile Creek campsite inside Kruger National Park. Its Duncan's turn to sort out dinner. A moment ago I thought I heard someone walking behind me. The campsite is fenced from the game and our site is right by the fence. I shone the light on a hyena. It looked at the light for quite some time before slowly slinking further along the fence. I've never seen any wild animal so close. Apparantly the hyena in the park patrol the fences hoping for scraps that some irresponsible humans throw over despite clear directions not to. It saddens me that wild animals learn to rely on human tourism and become so bold that they become a danger to humans and eventually are destroyed by the authorities. I think of the baboons at the Simons Town campsite methodically pushing over the bins and going through the contents and also the vervet at St Lucia. One of the many nice things about Praia Mar e Sol in Mozamique is that the wildlife we saw, was wild... and wary of humans, rather than waiting for them to leave a nice supper. On the roof of the Landy we have a plastic strongbox where we store any rubbish until there is somewhere suitable to leave it.

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On our last day driving around the park, we stopped for lunch at the Timbavati picnic site where Duncan discovered the many corrogated roads had worked loose the spare wheel on the rear door and set about removing, re-tightening and replacing it. A sign at the site declared




which were very 'tame' and begging at all the tables. There are signs in all the campsites explaining that feeding the wild animals guarantees their demise and that anyone doing it in the National Parks will be fined and/or prosecuted in a court of law. So what was the park employee doing? Feeding the damned Bushbuck, after which the tourists who saw him, did too.




Grrr.

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Due to a higher rainfall in the south of the park, where we started, it is greener and attracts a greater number of game except for the antelopes (we have seen so many we now refer to them collectively as 'boks') and consequently the cats that prey on them. As you drive north the greenery turns brown then grey. There were miles and miles of Mopani trees, leaves afire in colours that reminded me of the famous New England fall.

Animal spotting turns out to be quite tricky. They seem to like to disguise themselves as other things. Crocodiles masquerade as logs, hippos as boulders, elephants as shadows, rocks and dead trees and giraffes as tree trunks and branches. The giraffes in particular seemed to have a way of standing completely still and blending into the background until a twitch of an ear or blink of an eye identified them and all of a sudden they were standing right in front of you. It reminded me of those magic eyepictures that were all the rage in the 90's.

We spent five nights camping in the Kruger and in addition to all the other wild animals we saw at Mokala and the other National Parks and more antelope of various persuasions, we saw a couple of large herds of buffalo, loads of elephant, a leopard hiding in the bush and a maned lion contentedly devouring the red and bloodied carcass of something.