Day 163: Maroela Satellite Camp – Satara Main Camp

The day begins with hyena and giraffe for breakfast :-).

And then: "On Pad" again! Today is cat day!

We hear about four lions and find them. The speeding safari vehicles and then the convoy of cars are impossible to miss.

Yesterday someone spoke of the Kruger as "Nature in the north. A zoo in the middle. A circus in the south." We approach the circus.

Nevertheless: The lions are impressive. Four adult males. And then, like in a movie, a herd of buffalo appears. The lions stand at attention, the buffalo smell the scent and then decide to go to the water. One lion ventures out of cover. The entire buffalo herd recoils. They regroup and attack. The lions retreat, waiting for things to happen, protected behind tree trunks.

We don't know how the story ends; at some point, we free ourselves from the congested car traffic.

An entire herd of magnificent sable antelope on the other side of the lake has been lost in the spectacle.

We take a lunch break at the Muzandzeni Picnic Site and then drive on to Satara to check in. Unfortunately, tomorrow's camp is fully booked, so we can't swap Pretoriuskop (not ideally located for us). Whatever. This camp isn't that great either. It's just one of the huge main camps.

But we manage to book another night at the Crocodile Bridge exit today, so we can continue our journey to Eswantini in a relaxed manner.

At around 3:00 PM, we take a look at the so-called "Sightings Map" and go in search of leopards.

We've had little luck with leopards so far. Two seconds in Etosha (Namibia). A picture on the night camera 15 minutes after we crawled into the car (Ihaha/Botswana).

But today: Again, the traffic jam is impossible to miss, but after a while of queing, we eventually spot the leopard in a riverbed. Not exactly perfect, but at least it's a start -)

Tonight we're ordering pizza and prepare coffee, and sandwiches for tomorrow, because a long day is ahead of us.