Seekers of Game

Yesteday, Jan. 19, we made our first drive into Kruger Park. We have been on over 50 game drives in the past 7 years but this is the first one we have done on our own. Kruger Park is enormous, so big that you can plan to visit only one small part each day. We happen to be near the greenest lushest part, the part with the most rain. And this is summer. So we were not very sure about being able to spot anything, what with the high grass and the heat. We were lucky. The day was overcast and unseasonably cool and - this is the offseason so there were few other visitors. We came upon a herd of impala just inside the park; at least we were not going to be skunked. We drove slowly (15 kilometers and hour) and scanned the grass and trees as we had watched our professional guides do. By the end of the day we had been able to stop and watch:a large bull elephant, a herd of elephant cows and calfs, two separate giraffes, a white rhino, a male kudu, hundreds of impala, monkeys, and at the very end, eight lions lying in the road soaking up the warmth of the tarmac. What a day!