Kruger National Park- Day 6- Biyamati Bushveld Camp and Departure

View along the drive

Moving on to our final camp, Biyamati, animal sightings were minimal in the heavy vegetation but we saw three female elephants with their young and they let us know quickly, with an angry trumpeting sound, that they wanted us to move on.

At Lower Sabie, Alan had noticed a sign and photo of an endangered bird being monitored in the park; and whereabouts were to be reported.  At one spot along our drive, we saw 3 of the Southern Ground Hornbill, so gave info on the where and when of this sighting on our arrival.  A combination of loss of habitat and crop pesticides is responsible for the decline in the birds' number. 

Vervet monkey

No services were available at this camp, but a large apartment with an indoor kitchen awaited us.  Vervet monkeys played on the patio outside.  There was just time to prep dinner and check out the bird blind before our sunset trip.  A beautiful Saddle-billed stork was hanging out in the dry river bed.  Our final sunset drive with Simon was sparse of animal sightings.  But over the next 3-hour plus drive, he provided a wealth of information on everything from rhino dung to elephant behavior.  We happened upon an ironwood tree that had been knocked into the road earlier in the day by a frustrated bull elephant in musth (ready to mate).  The tree attack had been witnessed by 2 women on our trip who had driven their car in reverse for a few hundred yards to get away from the raging animal and then rerouted their approach to the camp.

Endangered Southern Ground Hornbill

Dramatic sunset our final evening

Fish owl

Saddle-billed stork

Heavy rains overnight created slushy, slippery dangerous roads on our exit the final morning.  With a roughly one-hour drive to the Malelane gate, we weren't expecting any new sightings.  We were wrong.  30-minutes into our drive, we saw a pack of African wild dogs romping around in the fields.  Though the animals can be dangerous, if approached, they were having a lot of fun chasing and tumbling with each other and ran right in front of our car so we could get a good view of them.

With our safari coming to an end, we had driven over 750 miles within the park, in addition to the 5 guided tours.  So, there was a lot of time put into finding such a wide diversity of animals.  Many of the animals, like the wildebeest, impalas and zebras are plentiful, but time, luck and patience were the keys to finding many of the others.

Next, we have a 2-hour drive to Mbombela (Nelspruit) International Airport for our flight to Johannesburg and then to Cape Town.

Warthog

African wild dogs