Day One and Day Two on Safari: Big Five
The Big Five: a term referring to the animals that are most notoriously difficult and dangerous to hunt. (Not to be confused with our Belgium Big Five).
We weren’t actually hunting any animals on our safari, of course, other than with our eyes and camera.
Hours of staring into the bush make your eyes play tricks on you. We stared at this rock for at least five minutes, debating whether or not it was some sort of cat, before we realized it was a rock.
It is every safari-goer’s goal to see The Big Five, and some don’t get to complete the task. You’d have to be blind to miss seeing elephants in Kruger, but the leopard and lion can be elusive, sneaky cats. We got lucky and spotted the Big Five by the end of our second day on safari.
1. Elephant:
Elephants were the first member of the Big Five to cross our path and our second animal spotting. We saw an elephant within five minutes of entering the park. Here’s some of the best elephant spottings from Day One and Day Two:
2. Buffalo:
We spotted the second member of the Big Five in the late afternoon of the first day. Their curved horns are pretty cool.
3. Leopard:
Being crazy cat people, we were anxious to see some big old cats of any variety in person. In the waning hours of sunlight on our first day, we came across cars blocking the road. We came to the scene late, so we didn’t get the best viewing spot, but it soon became apparent what all of the commotion was about. A leopard, with all of its glorious spots, was lounging around on a branch up a tree. It turned out to be our only leopard spotting.
4. Lion:
When we didn’t spot any lions on our first day, we were quite disappointed. On our second day, we happened upon a car stopped on the road with its engine off. We asked the young man inside what he was checking out. He pointed to a female lion, off in the distance, resting in the grass in the distance under a tree. Without binoculars, all we could see were her ears.
Later the same day, after driving around for hours without seeing ANYTHING, not even impala, and sometimes not even other cars, we came across a family parked on the side of the road intently staring off in the distance. We pulled up beside them and started chatting with the driver. He was from South Africa, and made outings to Kruger on a regular basis. He loaned us his binoculars to spy on lions far away who were protecting their kill from vultures overhead. Even once we knew where to look, the lions were too far away to see much once we gave the binoculars back. We debated leaving, but decided to hang out for a while in the hopes something would happen. We weren’t having much luck driving around, anyway. About 15 minutes or so later, we saw movement. One of the female lions decided she was thirsty and sauntered across the road within inches of one of the cars that had just pulled up to the scene.
5. Rhino:
Who knew the rhinoceros was such an elusive animal, especially since they are the third most prevalent animal in Kruger? We only saw a group of rhinos once, at the very end of our second day. We didn’t see any again, but our Big Five sightings were complete.
How exciting! I know you have a zoom on your camera but they seem really close ~ as evidenced by the lion next to the car!
I still think the first rock had a head. That leopard looks very comfy in the tree ~ he has a really, really long tail.
What an amazing experience for the two of you!
That is too awesome! So happy you got to see some cool animals and giant furry mrowsers in the wild.