mary's booth: September 2010

We were all invited to join the other half of the Booth family to celebrate Aunty Ronnie's 70th birthday at the Kruger Park. We travelled the 500 odd kilometeres on Friday morning arriving at the Malalane Gate just after lunch and after a quick stop travelled the 40kms to Biyamiti Bush Camp.

In this short distance we encountered different buck

elephant, actually we came across the first one and waited until he walked off into the veld and then further down Crocodile River Road we saw a huge elephant walking all the way down the road.

and giraffe

When we arrived at Biyamiti

we saw Jenny and Sean who directed us to our chalet, which was being used as the kitchen for the night. Aunty Ann also shared with us

That night the family gathered and we had a delicious braai and salads and desert was malva pudding.

The next morning we looked around the camp and entertained a troop of monkeys, who if you weren't carefully would steal anything they could get their hands on

There was also a family of Hornbills that hung around hoping for scraps.

As this is a private camp it is extremely quiet and peaceful and you just hear all the birds.

We then all packed up and agreed to meet at our second camp Skukuza later that day. We headed north east and were hardly out of the camp when Lyn spotted a giraffe who was trying to camouflage himself amongst some trees.

We came to a spot where the river would have been (unfortunately they need rain there as many of the rivers have completely dried up)

and we watched some elephants walking along it, when we looked to the right and saw a bush that was swarming with what we thought were butterflies but turned out to be the smallest birds I've ever seen. They were bright blue and no bigger than 10cm-so cute

There was also a wildebees who seemed to be traveling around with some buck, maybe he thought he was one too

We eventually rejoined the tar road on the Crocodile Bridge side and here we saw many different animals

buck

elephants playing in the river

hippo sleeping on the riverbank

and buffalo

Then we reached a point where all the vehicles had stopped on the road and we saw a whole herd of elephants.

One of the elephants got confused and started following the cars instead of the herd.

Then a really big elephant decided it wanted to pass between us and the car in front.

There were ones of all ages and sizes.

We got to skukuza around 3 o'clock and went to the guest houses where we were staying. Our side of the family stayed at Nyathi

and Waterkant 1 & 2 was where the rest of the guests stayed and where we had our meals.Our rooms were right above the river

and if you looked east there was a dis-used train track that was built in 1912

It was very picturesque.

Supper was steak with salads and pavlova for pudding.

Early the next morning Lyn went with the Quails on a game drive.They watched a baboon family sitting on the side of the road

and the next thing a baboon jumped onto the boot of the car and just sat there waiting to be entertained

The little babies are so cute!

They also saw duiker

zebra

hyena

giraffe

and this hippo who was crossing from the bush back to the river

After everyone returned from the drives we had a big brunch at the main house.

Maureen, Manfred, Uncle Teddy,Brian, Aunty Linda, Lyn and Ronnie

Sandra, Mike, Ann, Cynthia, Bryan, Yvonne and Laddie

Debbie, Hermann, Lyn, Maryann, Sean, Jenny and Leslie.
And of course Dennis who took the photo.

Everybody went their own way after brunch, we stayed at the main house to help with the decorating for the night's party and during the afternoon the elephants decided to come and bath in the river just below the house.

There were also the most beautiful Barberton Daisys growing here.

Everybody gathered again at 4o'clock to have some cake to celebrate Aunty Ronnie's birthday and let her open her presents.

There was fruit cake, muffins and lemon meringue pie.

We all mingled while watching the sunset

and Sean started preparing supper which was a delicious curry.

The next morning we packed up our things and then went to say goodbye to everybody. We managed to get some nice group photos.

Yvonne, Bryan, Ronnie,Cynthia,Ann and Laddie.

and of the siblings Ann, Laddie and Yvonne.
Then we were on our way. We decided to travel through the park to the Malalane Gate again for a few more animal spotting opportunities.
We saw Kudu