We packed the car once again and headed the 500 metres to the Kruger Gate. By now we had the routine down to pat - fill in the form with the gate guard (count the number of passenges and check whether or not they are foreigners (do they pay more?), open the boot for a search (weapons, alcohol, animals??) and take the form into the office and pay the daily fee. This time I opened the boot and of course it was full of all our luggage. There on top for all to see was our innocent looking cooler box. Yes of course I would open I said, glibly knowing that none of the 3 of us were drinkers. Completely forgot about the box of wine which was lying in there!!!! This was immediately confiscated and banished to the bin. Moral of the story - if you want to take alcohol into the park these days put it in the back of the car. We went in 3 times and they never searched inside the car.
The plan was to take the road along the Sabie River towards the Phabeni Gate, drive down to Pretorius Kop and then take Voortrekker road to Malelane and hit the N4 for the 4 hour trip home. Where had all the animals gone? We saw very little - one rhino, one giraffe in the first hour. We took a detour around the koppie and the boys saw cats twice but I missed them and they didn't get a good enough look to be sure of what they were. Oh and one Gabar Goshawk.
Decided to have a toasted sandwich at Preorius Kop and whilst eating heard a parrot calling from the coral tree alongside. It was a Brown Headed Parrot and was pulling each scarlet petal off the tree, eating the nectar at the end of the petal and then dropping it to the ground. What vandalism! It was soon joined by 3 others and later I saw that it was a new tick in my book. Catching Peter!
When we arrived at the start of Voortekker road it appeared to be closed - this was the only reasonable route to Malelane in the time available. There were yellow barriers across two thirds of the road but no notice to say what was going on. I tried phoning the Parks Board to find out what was going on - none of the officials had warned us of any closure. Anyway the signal was poor, the call cut off and we decided to carry on down the road and see if it was really closed or if the barriers were just protecting a bad patch of surface.
We had driven for ten minutes when we came upon some surface reconstruction and realised that we would have to turn back. A minute later Ed said "Lions" and there at the side of the road that we had just driven down a couple of minutes earlier were 2 male lions. We had them all to ourselves - one was lying alongside the car at the edge of the road and the other was about 5 paces away and was a bit more lively sitiing, turning, yawning. Good Kodak moments and not another tourist in sight!!!!
We eventually tore ourselves away. Decision time - take the long route to Malelane or cut the Kruger visit short by going out of the Numbi Gate and then take the scenic route home via Sabie and Long Tom Pass. We decided on the latter and drove out through Hazyview and on the back roads all the way to Witbank where we joined the highway and arrived home just before 18h00.
Loaded the washing machine as we needed to pack for Mabula and then went out for pizza with Peter.
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