Lower Sabie - Kruger National Park

From Nelspruit we headed back into the Kruger this time for the camp at Lower Sabie. The area between the Lower Sabie and Crocodile Rivers is supposed to be renowned as a prime game viewing area so we were looking forward to visiting this area.

Once again it was raining heavily when we left Nelspruit, where  we were ever going to get a respite from this bloody weather? We will cross back into the Kruger at the same Malelane gate we took to get to Berg En Dal and then drive through the park to Lower Sabie, on the way we start to see signs informing drivers that the Crocodile River gate has been closed due to flooding - not a good omen!

By the time we arrived at Lower Sabie we found the place heaving with people checking in, either to chalets or the campsite. If we thought Berg En Dal was a bit soulless then the camp site here was much worse, really nothing more than a glorified car park. Its clear campers are the lowest of the low in Kruger, at least at Berg En Dal you had grass of a sort, here you are expected to pitch your tent on what looks like hardcore parking spaces, this was even worse than George!

Next day we were up early, a lot of people where packing up and moving on which made it slightly better and at least it was  sunny. We went out on a game drive and saw a good selection of animals, Zebra, Impala, Hippo, Elephant, Rhino, Wildebeest, Buffalo and Warthog, the highlight though was finding a Boomslang (snake) on the road. Unfortunately it was dead, hit by a car but still not something you see everyday which is probably a good thing considering they are deadly.

A nice thing in the Kruger is the picnic spots dotted around the park, they are few in number but usually you have one or two within driving distance of each camp. Its only at these sites where your officially allowed to get out of your car, each has picnic tables/ chairs, toilets plus you can get hot water for tea/coffee. However, the best thing is you can hire a skottle braai and gas bottle for a small fee (£1) which makes them great places to stop and have brunch after an early game drive.

Near Lower Sabie is probably the nicest picnic spot in the whole park set high on the bank of the Sabie river at Mloadozi Dam. There you can relax under a thatched Lapa watching the various game come down to the river to drink. Whilst cooking breakfast we watched a group of Elephants swim across to the other side with Hippo wandering about in the tree line.

On the way back to camp we came across a good size Monitor Lizard and then two very nice White Rhino on the side of the road, we were warming to the Kruger all the time.

We arrive back to camp 10 minutes after the gate closed, its supposed to be a mandatory R500 fine if you arrive late but today the gateman just takes our registration number,  supposedly logging our transgression in case we offend again.

In our defence the reason we were late was because we became trapped on the road by some Elephant who had become very agitated. We had stopped to take some shots of a tiny baby Elephant hidden in a small herd at the side of the road, the older Ele's are always very protective of the young ones so we knew to be careful and watch for any signs they were becoming stressed but apart from making it difficult for us to get a clear shot as they sheltered the baby in a forest of legs they were fine.

Suddenly Sue said "what's going on down there" we looked and ahead of us about a mile down the road a further group of Ele's were milling about clearly agitated by something.

We got out the binnocs and in their midst made out a small compact car constantly manoeuvring backwards and forwards in fact it looked like he was driving right at them. It was clear these Ele's were becoming very agitated, perhaps they also had small ones but instead of moving away like any sensible person the driver just continued until in the end a young teenage Elephant squatted on the ground raising his trunk to the sky trumpeting, whilst others mock charged.

It was too far to get a decent photo and the last thing we wanted to do was race down there and stress the animals anymore than they already were so we sat and watched for a few minutes, eventually the car came towards us, our Ele's were still calmly feeding to our right and I was concerned whoever it was would disturb them as well. 

As he pulled alongside us the driver wound his window down and looking at the Ele's said "aren't they amazing animals"? I was almost speechless that he seemed totally oblivious to the chaos he had left down the road, all I could say was "yes they are and they shouldn't be disturbed by inconsiderate twats like you" For a minute I thought he was going to get out of his car and try something but he just stared hard ahead, didn't say another word then raced off down the road, away from the camp. From his accent he sounded American but as he pulled away I could see the Canadian Maple Leaf badge on his bag.

No sooner he had gone when we saw another car in the distance approaching the group of Elephants he had harassed, the car slowed not sure what the Ele's might do and sure enough immediately two large Ele's charged the car and it had to reverse very quickly down the road where it turned around and went back the way it had come, clearly very unnerved by the incident.

That just left us, we had to get past the same group to get back to camp and the clock was ticking but we needed to keep our distance and let them calm down first. Normally you can expect a herd to move off into the bush but these just hung around in the tree line just a few yards away. We slowly moved towards them and narrowed the gap to about 50 yards, they were clearly still very pissed off and one or two started towards us shaking their heads, we quietly backed up a few yards.

One or two mock charges and they settled down again, there was nothing for it we had to get past them so slowly moved forward, we were almost alongside when a sub adult came at us, luckily he was slightly behind so we were able to speed off past the others before anything happened, but in our rear-view we could just see him running after us on the road and I could just imagine him shouting "and you can sod off as well"