A perfect ending to a perfect day!
Sabi Sands Game Reserve, South Africa
November 19, 2011
Here is a brief lesson on the history of Lions Sands Private Game Reserve. It was purchased by Guy Aubrey Chalkley, an American, who had founded a prestigious brokerage firm in SA in the 1920's. Guy was an avid hunter & he stumbled upon what is now known as Sabi Sand Wildtuin (Game Reserve) & purchased the Kingston property in November 1933. After this purchase he never raised a rifle to any animals on this site. Guy built a camp along the Sabie River in the late 30's & now for over 60 years the Chalkley & More families have owned & enjoyed this camp.
Sadly a flood in February 2000 destroyed the family camp & River Lodge Sleepy Cub. In 2004 the Mores rebuilt River Lodge & created the magnificent Ivory Lodge, that we are enjoying very much, & renamed the 4,000 hectare (10,000 acre) property, Lions Sands Private Game Reserve.
This morning Derrick delivered tea & biscotti to our room at 5:15. We were a bit late getting to the reception for our 5:30, then as we were about to depart it began to rain. Sam, Bill & I donned our rain ponchos, then headed out. A few minutes later Enock reached for his rain gear & it stopped raining. We drove a couple more minutes & it began to rain, this time it was really raining. So, Enock finally gave in & put his rain gear on. It began to rain harder & we debated about heading back, but decided to stick it out. After several minutes of hard rain, it started to taper off.
We were able to see 2 young male white rhinos hanging out together Baby Monkey. They are good friends now, but when they reach the age of 10 they will battle (possibly to the death) for the rights to a territory. The loser may be driven off as far as 20 kilometers. Harsh!
Then we headed to the hyena den, but no one was home. So we left & went to see last night's dinner, the nyala. My mouth is salivating just looking at them, sorry guys! Then they heard the call of the hyena, so we went back up, but still no one was home. Luckily for us the rain has stopped. But it is still very cloudy & not great conditions for photos.
We saw lots of birds during our morning & evening drives. These are some that we have seen at other times: crested barbet, cape turtle dove, emerald-spotted wood dove, Egyptian goose, helmeted gineafowl, grey heron, southern red-billed hornbill, African pygmy kingfisher, woodland kingfisher, red-billed oxpecker, lilac-breasted roller, yellow-billed stork & grey go-away turaco, plus many, many new ones (see below) Theresa the Spotter.
We saw lots of animals too. We saw 3 giraffes & the nyala again, this time I was able to get a photo of a male who has a dark body, tan legs, tan forehead & a white stripe between his eyes. We also saw a new antelope today, a duiker. It is a smaller antelope & has slightly shorter front legs. They are typically growers, so they must only eat shrubs or tree shoots as they are too short to eat most trees.
Enock educated us on some of the trees in this area. One is the knob thorn tree bark is dark & thickens, which forms knobs equipped with small black thorns. You would think that this would discourage elephants, but it does not. Elephants eat & destroy these trees because they like the bark & roots. It is easy to identify the umbrella thorn tree, with the classic umbrella-shaped canopy. Kudu, impala, rhino & elephants eat the pods from this tree Attack.
The only thing you need to know about the marula tree is that it's fruit is for the very yummy Amarula (it is fantastic with hot chocolate, I tried it a few times to make sure it was not just a fluke!). The leadwood tree has pale grey snakeskin-like bark which is easy to identify. Enock pulled up beside the tamboti tree & Bill decided to reach out to touch the tree & Enock fortunately stopped him before he was able to do so. He showed us that if you remove a leaf it secretes a white liquid that can damage your eyesight if you touch your eye after coming into contact with the liquid. Also, eating meat that is cooked over a fire made from the wood can cause illness & even death. This is the honey-badger of the tree species!
We also had he sausage, apple leaf (rain tree), sycamore fig, silver cluster leaf, natal mahogany (in the middle of the dining deck), & jackal-berry trees pointed out to us too View from the Treehouse.
Our "sunriser" spot this morning is near a watering hole that they pipe water into from the river. The building is concrete with 3 foot high shutters & chairs. I washed down the croissants, mini quiche, granola & fruit with hot chocolate & Amarula.
We were able to see a grey heron feeding her 2 young & watched them fight over their breakfast. We saw a pair of Egyptian geese with their babies (adorable). Swallows have nested on the building so they were flitting about, this time we did not even try to take a photo of them! There was also a yellow-billed stork. We also saw terrapins swimming on the far side of the hole, but no hippos this time. While we were there Enock helped to update my list of animals & birds that we have seen to date.
Then we saw the lions!! We were able to see 3 cubs that were 3 1/2 years old (2 male, 1 female) & another female cub that was only 3 months old Lions. The big daddy male & 3 adult females (2 are sisters). They were all full from a recent kill & were totally passed out in the road. We stayed for a long time & I was accused of taking an excessive amount of photos. How many is too many? It is digital for crying out loud!?
On our way back for breakfast we saw the 1 man band/dancing welcoming committee again. It is quite a scene!
We returned later than we should have, around 10:00, so we quick breakfast of potato, mushroom & cheese omelette. We also met Peter & Angie from Vancouver who had been staying at the River Lodge, but are now at Ivory Lodge. They will be part of our group for the drive in the evening & tomorrow morning. We also met the very talented Chef Lorraine. She checked to make sure that we were OK with the menu for our trip to the tree house!!
At 11:00 we met Sam & Enock again & went to see the hippos Dancing Fool. We are making up for lost time today! Went to the hippo spot & the guys thought we were totally crazy for canoeing with hippos. That could be an accurate assessment… The one hippo was really not happy, he would only poke his nostrils out once in a while! Too funny!
We saw 2 large kudu males walking toward us when we left the hippos. Our next stop was The Hide. It was a huge deck around the tree. I did not take in much of the view, but I did snap lots of photos of the monkeys. So cute!!
When we went back to the lodge, we spent time in our room. Bill napped & I sunbathed by our private infinity pool.
Lunch was carrot soup, chicken schnitzel sandwich, tilapia nicoise salad & cheese platter that was delivered to our room by Derrick Back with the Kitties. We enjoyed the African music CD that was in our room while we worked on the blog.
After lunch we went to see the AGM, Janine, for a tour of River Lodge. Then we stopped at the curio shop & bought a few things. I love my new bracelet!! On the way back we saw a cane rat, which is quite large, in the spot where we had seen the monitor lizard previously.
We went back to the room, relaxed for a short while, then got ready for the afternoon game drive & our overnight in the tree house. Bill made me think I was late for the drive, so I showered, got ready & packed in 12 minutes. We rushed to the vehicles & Sam was the only one there, so we took the opportunity to take some photos of me as the Tracker & Bill as the Ranger.
We met another new couple, the honeymooners from Long Island who will be joining us on the game drive Mom is not playing.
We headed out on our evening drive & when we were barely outside the fence of the lodge we saw a whole colony of banded mongooses. Then we saw male & female kudus, a lizard in a tree, & then I spotted 3 lizards on a rock beside our Land Rover.
We watched 4 vultures who were waiting for the lions to go hunting. I think they are going to be waiting for a while 'cause we saw the lions shortly thereafter & they look very full & sleepy still!
We visited the lions again. The baby cub decided it would be great fun to attack her cousin/sister cub. They played for a long time & we enjoyed watching them. Bill took lots of photos, so it is not just me! Again, the Big Daddy was out cold, so we don't really have a good photo of him Big Daddy. Dang!
Our next stop was the tree house, Enock gave us the tour, then everyone headed off to finish the game drive with the 2 other couples. We had an amazing "bird's eye" view from the tree house. We relaxed in the chair for two, enjoyed the view, & listened to all of the sounds of the bush. Initially we could only see impalas grazing in the distance & some bees who have made a home in this tree.
Chef Lorraine prepared a fantastic dinner for us: venison, chicken, greek salad, pasta salad, veggies, dinner rolls, cheese platter, cookies & fruit. Everything was so delicious.
Bill was trying to will the clouds away so that he could see the stars, but it never really happened. We really did enjoy sipping our wine & relaxing though.
I was very sleepy & was dozing off in the chair, so we pulled down the mosquito netting & crawled into bed. Bill woke me up shortly afterward to see the elephants munching on the trees below us with our spotlight (like the one Sam uses for the night game drives). Bill kept getting up every couple of hours to see if the stars were out, but it remained cloudy all night. We heard some interesting sounds during the night, at one point we heard lions, then hyenas & the sound of something being injured & probably killed.
New animals/reptiles that we saw today at Lions Sands:
common/grey duiker
whitethroated or rock monitor lizard
giant plated lizard
nyala
cane rat
serrated hinged terrapin
New birds that we saw today at Lions Sands:
arrow-marked babbler
southern boubou
bru-bru (heard, but did not see)
dark-capped bul-bul (he almost did not get out of the way of the Land Rover on time!)
rattling cisticola (really nice song)
black cuckoo
Jacobin cuckoo
red chested cuckoo (heard, but did not see)
Wahlbergs eagle
brown francolin
African goshawk
green wood hoopoe
southern yellow-billed hornbill
brown-headed kingfisher
striped kingfisher
fiery-necked nightjar
black-headed oriole
brown headed parrot
African green pigeon
three-banded plover
magpie shrike
Burchell's starling
violet-backed starling
lesser striped swallow
village weaver
golden-tailed woodpecker
